space domain awareness SDA

The state of play in military space

The military space sector is evolving fast. Get the latest from Space Force and industry officials on what’s next for acquisition, policy and training in a new Breaking Defense eBook.

DARPA backs Diffraqtion to demo ‘quantum camera’ for space, Earth surveillance

Only recently emerging from stealth, the MIT-UMD spinout is planning constellations of small, low-cost ISR satellites for multiple military missions.

China, Russia experiment with stealthy satellites, Space Force official says

"Not only are [some Chinese satellites] difficult to visually acquire, that shape, they believe, would be incredibly beneficial in terms of masses of the radar cross section," Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch said.

DoD needs to clarify service/agency roles in supporting ‘space superiority’: Mitchell Institute

As the Space Force approaches its sixth birthday, there needs to be an assessment of "gaps and seams" between it and its sister services, said retired USAF Col. Jennifer Reeves, who authored the paper.

Space Force aims to build out requirements for digital training environment in 2026

Space Warfighter Operational Readiness Domain (SWORD) is a "distributed" digital training environment currently being used by the 392nd Combat Training Squadron.

Space Rapid Capabilities Office to put radars on sats to warn of space-bound threats

The plan is to award two vendors 24-month Direct to Phase II SBIR grants worth $3M each to demo low-cost, low-weight radars on Space Force satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit.

Space Force declares ATLAS space domain awareness software ‘operational’

"[O]n the ops floor, [ATLAS is] generating a catalog — it's publishing data to Space-track.org They're using that as a primary system," Space Systems Command's Shannon Pallone said in an exclusive interview.

SPACECOM discussing expansion of joint space monitoring missions with allies

US Space Command has now completed two rendezvous and proximity operations with partners in Multinational Forces Operation Olympic Defender: France and Britain.

NATO investing $728M in new space capabilities, including a new ‘data lake’

NATO's collectively funded space efforts are focused on space domain awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Col. Jonathan Whitaker, who heads the NATO Combined Forces Space Component Command, told Breaking Defense.

SSC to finish ‘system delta’ reorg next month

The three new Space Systems Command (SSC) system deltas in the pipeline will be responsible for acquisitions related to space combat power, assured access to space and positioning, navigation and timing, SSC Commander Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant told Breaking Defense.

Beyond ‘potpourri’ of sensors: Saltzman pushes holistic approach to space domain awareness

The service needs to better detect and track on-orbit activity, and find objects that have been "lost" to its surveillance network, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said.

Space Force cell explores reorg to push commercial data to military

The reorganization of the JCO will involve two elements: setting up processes for JCO to provide commercial space monitoring data directly to operators and establishing an acquisition pathway for that data.

Anduril, Impulse to demo maneuvering satellite, with sights set on Space Force missions

"I just think freedom of maneuver is going to be the enabler for every space mission going forward," said Gokul Subramanian, Anduril's senior vice president of engineering.

Northrop Grumman says first DARC test validates radar tracking capability

DARC has been plagued with delays almost since its inception, according to a series of annual studies by the Government Accountability Office.