Kelly Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SRCO), said that “situational awareness indications and warning payloads” have been “collecting all kinds of very interesting data on the Chinese SOSI [Space Observation Surveillance and Identification System] network” since 2023.
Gen. Michael Guetlein, Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations, said Golden Dome, a missile-defense initiative launched by President Donald Trump to protect the U.S., will require whole-of-government coordination across bureaucratic boundaries that is “on the magnitude of the Manhattan Project.”
At the Air & Space Forces Association’s Warfare Conference, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said: “Domain control is the special province of war fighters, a unique responsibility that only military services hold. It is the thing that distinguishes the Navy from the Merchant Marine and the Air Force from Southwest Airlines.”
SSC (Space Systems Command) is performing incremental, consistent updates to ensure that FORGE (Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution) is delivered on time, to support the Space Force’s upcoming missile warning and missile-tracking constellations.
NASA’s SPHEREx telescope seeks to provide insights into the origins of the universe. Beth Fabinsky, deputy project manager for SPHEREx, says the telescope has a unique, extremely wide field of view. “We’re going to see the entire universe four times in our two-year mission.”
The transmitter and receiver’s independent steering enabled automatic alignment, ensuring long-distance connectivity. This boost in CubeSat communication rates is comparable to the shift from dial-up modem speeds to high-speed internet.
By combining Aerospace’s deep expertise in space science with Google Cloud’s advanced technologies like Vertex AI and high-performance computing, more accurate and timely solar flares and geomagnetic storms predictions are now possible.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, the third of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, delivered 10 NASA payloads to Mare Crisium on March 2. Onboard instruments will help scientists study how lunar dust adheres to various materials and whether electromagnetism can be used to prevent it from sticking to objects.
With only a few weeks to develop a strategy and deliver it to the president, the Space Force’s new technical integrated planning team (IPT) is currently analyzing technological maturity, cost estimates, and capability gaps of space systems that could be part of the architecture.
The U.S. Space Force is investing billions of dollars to modernize aging infrastructure at its two coastal ranges to support a growing appetite for rides to space on larger rockets from a greater number of providers. That includes facelifts to wastewater treatment facilities and HVAC systems, road expansions to support transport of larger rockets, and relocating offices to operate outside designated safety zones during launches.
