Jeff Foust, SpaceNews – The Office of Space Commerce has started beta tests of its new space traffic coordination system, providing conjunction notices to a handful of operators. The Aerospace Corporation is one of nine organizations involved in this initial phase of TraCSS.
During the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Under Secretary of the Air Force, Melissa Dalton, and other DoD leaders discussed the unique challenge of modernizing the Air Force’s nuclear deterrence fleet: replacing Minuteman III with Sentinel ICBMs.
Robert Wall, Aviation Week – At the Defense Space 24 Conference, Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, said directed energy systems — high-energy lasers or high-power microwave weapons — are a growing threat.
Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes – At the Outer Space Security Conference in Geneva, Russian foreign ministry official Sergey Belousko issued a veiled threat to commercial space outfits that he accused of interfering in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Thierry Dubois and Robert Wall, Aviation Week – Satellite operators and launch providers may rely on increasingly complex arrangements, like having a heavy launcher send relatively small spacecraft to geostationary Earth orbit or outer space.
Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews – The Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, aims to test advanced technologies for future GPS systems. Its launch, potentially before year’s end, hinges on the certification of ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews – Joint Commercial Operations (JCO), based at Schriever Space Force Base and led by Barbara Golf, is taking on broader responsibilities, including using commercial space systems for battlefield intelligence.
Jeff Foust, SpaceNews – In a talk at the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference Sept. 19, Richard DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce, said user testing of the initial Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) system will start by the end of the month.
Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews – The Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office issued a request for information (RFI) on automated satcom network orchestration, a process that leverages technologies such as artificial intelligence to manage satellite networks as a unified system.
Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews – Space Force operators have been assigned to a new “joint mission management center” located at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus in Springfield, Virginia, because military leaders are asking for speedier access to images from commercial satellites.
