Intelligence Community News By Loren Blinde December 16, 2019
When the U.S. Air Force declares operational acceptance of the Space Fence radar located on Kwajalein Atoll, it will play a critical role in providing a tactical advantage to our warfighters in the space domain. Space Fence will utilize its flexibility, coverage, and sensitivity to detect and accurately track significantly more objects than the current-day catalog. This crucial capability is now one step closer to providing unprecedented space situational awareness with the system completing its developmental and operational testing phases and has entered a trial period – one of the last steps before achieving operational acceptance.
Beyond cataloging objects, it will detect closely-spaced objects, breakups, maneuvers, launches and conjunction assessments from low Earth orbit through geosynchronous Earth orbit. Frequent collisions and deterioration of assets, such as defunct satellites and rocket boosters, have increased the amount of space debris and raised the risk of future collisions in space. According to NASA’s most recent Orbital Debris Quarterly News, NASA calculates about 17.6 million pounds of objects are in earth orbit. That number will only grow as more commercial space projects launch massive constellations with thousands of small satellites, presenting a huge problem for both U.S. government and commercial organizations.
That’s where the U.S. Air Force’s Space Fence will play a crucial role.
The radar system will also play a crucial role in the everyday lives of Americans, as we become more dependent on space-based technologies for everything from weather forecasting, banking, global communications to GPS navigation. Today, these critical services are being threatened by hundreds of thousands of objects and space debris orbiting the Earth.
More:
https://intelligencecommunitynews.com/space-fence-nears-operational-acceptance/
