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.
"We believe that space needs to be in a more sustainable state — that spaceflight safety is critical to connecting the world and making sure that we continue to have space as a portal of progress and knowledge. And that's at risk today," said Slingshot Aerospace co-founder Melanie Stricklan.
"It’s a new and encouraging step in the right direction in terms of space domain awareness and a welcome collaboration within the industry," said Denis Bensousan, of London-based insurance firm Beazley.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
Traditionally, DoD and the Intelligence Community — as well as some US allies — have been leery about revealing the position of US national security satellites, because they wish to conceal their activities and characteristics.
An audit by the DoD Inspector General found that while federal law "allows for one of 4 conditions for a prototype OT award," Pentagon rules contain "no requirement to validate that the contractor met those conditions," an OIG spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
SDA Director Derek Tournear said his shop will remain its own when it formally joins the Space Force in coming weeks, giving the service another acquisition outlet.
"We'll do away with the GEOs, and the big, exquisite expensive satellites," said SDA Director Derek Tournear.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
The Space Force is "working with all the other services and combat commanders to determine what are their requirements for ISR that we can then work with our partners in the Intelligence Community to figure out how best to satisfy those requirements," CSO Gen. Jay Raymond said.
When SDA joins Space Force in a couple weeks, their more agile acquisition cycle could spread to other Space Force offices.
If and when the Army's Joint Tactical Ground System is transferred, all mission warning functions will be underneath one Space Force operational command Delta, said Maj. Gen. Doug Schiess, vice commander of Space Operations Command (SpOC).
Black Skies will be followed later this year by the Red Skies exercise focused on "orbital warfare," STARCOM Commander Maj. Gen. Shawn Bratton said. Next year, the Blue Skies exercise will focus on cyber warfare.
The network transport architecture for NGC2 could be a hybrid approach that combines high assurance communications with 5G, WiFi, and multi-orbit satellites.
While Capitol Hill has been pushing the IC to buy more commercial imagery and geospatial analysis, "we still see some level of underinvestment," said Frank Garcia, professional staffer at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
"[T]he IC Commercial Space Council is discussing commercial protection right now. We had a meeting on Tuesday, and it came up," said NGA's David Gauthier, who chairs the council.
"Orbital debris remediation is one of the main areas where the US is falling behind other countries, and this bill would help put America back in a leadership position on making space more sustainable for all to use," enthused Secure World Foundation's Brian Weeden.
The Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for Gen. Chance Saltzman as the next, and second, Space Force chief was free of major fireworks — suggesting an easy 'yea' vote.