Theresa Hitchens is the Senior reporter, Space at Breaking Defense. The former Defense News editor was a senior research associate at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). Before that, she spent six years in Geneva, Switzerland as director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).
A sci-fi geek, voracious reader, enthusiastic cook, dabbler in poetry, Theresa is also the proud mom of a wonderful young man by the name of Nicholas.
The Space Force is rushing to meet SPACECOM's demand, developing a new acquisition plan for space "mobility and logistics" — including on-orbit servicing and repair, satellite refueling and space junk cleanup — a plan that will lean heavily on use of commercial capabilities, said SSC's Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy.
"One of the reasons it hasn't happened in the past is because Congress is reluctant to give up even this much authority," Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said today. "I think it's a minimal amount of authority to give up for a very high return."
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
NRO and Space Force "are working hand in hand to shape the future of ground moving target indicators, which will provide day/night, all-weather detection and tracking of ground and maritime targets for the warfighter," NRO Director Chris Scolese said.
Satellite communications has become a priority for US Space Command as part of its space "assurance mission" for NATO allies and international partners in the Ukraine war, says the command's head, Gen. Jim Dickinson.
"The closest proximity that we have imagery of was 400 meters" taken during a pass on Feb. 28, said Karla Brown, program manager for the demonstration satellites at Lockheed Martin Space. "So we hope, with two viable assets up there, to continue the demonstration to get even closer and continue to prove out those algorithms."
The month-long World Radiocommunications Conference in Dubai will decide whether to change how spectrum use is allocate among various users - including spectrum needed by DoD planes and ships operating abroad.
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
Not happy with America's ability to precisely track adversarial satellites, Maj. Gen. David Miller fumed, "Somebody's got to figure this out. The American people have paid for this. Somebody's got to deliver."
Tournear said today that there will be a total of 216 Transport Layer satellites orbited for what the agency calls its Tranche 2 configuration, which will begin launching in 2026.
Digital Bloodhound will develop tools such as the Manticore software suite that identifies cyber vulnerabilities, and the Kraken software that throws up real-time defenses against ongoing attacks.
"As the United States leads the world in the exploration of the Moon and Mars, maintaining U.S. preeminence in space research is important as the use of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) grows and the development of space enters a new era," states the new national strategy for LEO R&D.
The Sixth Domain is not defined by geography. It’s a new kind of conflict in which autonomy and networked systems allow thousand-dollar consumer electronics to destroy multi-million-dollar conventional weapons systems.
Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told the Navy League's annual Sea Air Space summit that the meeting was "step one" to better coordination with the military's newest branch.
The Resilient Missile Warning/Missile Tracking - MEO constellation will be incrementally developed in two- to three-year cycles by Space Systems Command.
"Space is a warfighting domain and cyber is a critical area to focus on to ensure space security. I think we all know cyber attacks are becoming more frequent. They're more severe, they're even more sophisticated," Sreenidhi Tummala, a senior software engineer at Lockheed Martin, told reporters at today's Space-ISAC press conference.
The 10 satellites, which will be lofted on a reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg SFB to low Earth orbit (LEO), are the first batch of the Tranche 0 constellation, building blocks of America's resilient space strategy.