Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman delivers a keynote address on the state of the Space Force during the Air and Space Forces Association 2024 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo., Feb. 13, 2024. (US Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)
WASHINGTON — The Space Force has set up a “technical integrated planning team,” or IPT, to put together a picture of its current and potential future contributions to the Trump administration’s Iron Dome for America missile shield, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said today.
“I think we have a central role to play,” he told a small group of reporters. “We are leaning forward establishing this technical IPT to try to pull together all of the systems and start thinking about it from an overarching perspective.”
The Space Force already is responsible for missile warning and tracking, currently operating the Space Based Infrared System satellites, and developing their replacements under the multibillion-dollar Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) program.
The service also has two new programs aimed specifically at tracking hypersonic missiles underway: the Resilient Missile Warning/Missile Tracking — Medium Earth Orbit program being managed by Space Systems Command and the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer constellation that is part of its overarching Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). Pursuit of the PWSA is specifically called for in President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order laying out his priorities for the Iron Dome for America concept.
Pentagon development and deployment of “proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept” also is mandated in Trump’s executive order. That, however, has not been something on the Space Force’s agenda until now.
The order gave Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 60 days to develop the plan to defend the homeland against “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.”
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