
Air Force Secretary Deborah James on Wednesday doubted the service would meet lawmakers’ 2019 deadline to develop a next-generation rocket engine.“To have that 2019 deadline there is pretty aggressive and I’m not sure we can make it,” James testified to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee (SAC-D) during the Air Force’s fiscal year 2016 budget request hearing.Section 1604 of the FY ’15 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directs the Defense Department to compete and produce a domestically-made next-generation engine by 2019.…