Lawmakers Block Mini-Satellites That Could Spy on North Korea
- Pentagon sought a $50 million shift from health-care funds
- Panel questions funding source, Silicon Valley technology push
Outer Space Is About to Get a Whole Lot Closer
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Congressional spending panels have rejected a Pentagon request to transfer $50 million into developing small commercial satellites to monitor adversaries such as North Korea.
The decision by the House and Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittees stymied a plan that the Defense Department said in a budget request would “leverage the commercialization and peacetime use of this prototype technology” to develop a low-cost class of satellite technology “capable of producing medium-resolution imagery.”