ARLINGTON, Va. — Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said the U.S. Space Force has robust intelligence about what foreign adversaries are doing in outer space. Still, military leaders always want more comprehensive data and analysis about activities in orbit, he said March 27.
“I don’t often get surprised by things I hear,” Saltzman said at the Mitchell Institute’s Space Security Forum
Awareness about potential threats and what other nations are up to in space is foundational to all military space activities, he said. But having additional sensors and analytics tools would further boost the Space Force’s visibility into technologies being tested by strategic competitors like China and Russia.
“You can never have too much space domain awareness,” Saltzman said. “The demand for intelligence is continuous, it’s ever changing.”
The Space Force uses the term space domain awareness to describe the capability to track and monitor objects in space. This includes both friendly and potentially threatening objects like anti-satellite weapons and debris from collisions or explosions in space.
In remarks at the conference, Saltzman highlighted various threats in orbit that target U.S. satellites, particularly China’s development of ground-based lasers to disrupt and degrade satellite sensors, electronic warfare jammers targeting GPS and communications satellites, and anti-satellite missiles.
Saltzman said space domain awareness is not just about taking pictures of objects but also being able to “maintain custody” of objects of interest.
Maintaining custody of a target goes beyond simply knowing where something is in space. It refers to the ability to continuously track and monitor a specific object with a high degree of accuracy and for an extended period.
“This requires a tremendous network of sensors to continue that data flow,” said Saltzman. He noted that the Space Force will…
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