One of former President Donald Trump's bigger accomplishments, the U.S. Space Force, is moving forward in its mission to protect the country from threats to its space-borne assets, as well as space-borne threats to the country.
Its latest effort is called โSpace Delta 18.'
Part of Space Operations Command, it will be the Space Force's spy agency โ the National Space Intelligence Center.
Tasked with providing โcritical intelligence on threat systems, foreign intentions and activities in the space domain,โย it will identifyย threatsย to the United States' space assets, both kinetic and non-kinetic.ย
As Space.comย reports:
โKineticโ in this sense refers to threats that canย physically damage or degrade U.S. satellitesย and other assets, while โnon-kineticโ generally refers to anti-satellite weapons that use directed energy, signal jamming or other means toย disrupt a satellite's operations.
Delta 18 will operate the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC), a new intelligence hub based out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Space Delta 18 will eventually be staffed by 345 civilian and military personnel, military officials said.
And the creation of this unit couldn't have come at a more critical time. Space.com explains that:
The need for such a unit tasked with collecting intelligence on space threats has been underscored in recent years as the anti-satellite capabilities of China and Russia have evolved. A Chinese satellite was recently observed to haveย dragged a defunct navigation satellite(opens in new tab)ย into a โgraveyard orbit,โ for example, while Russia has conductedย highly destructive anti-satellite testsย that have createdย hazardous orbital debris fields.
Russia has also beenย jamming GPS signalsย throughout its current invasion of Ukraine by targeting the United States'ย Navstar systemย of satellites that provide the service.
โMake no mistake,โ Hainesย addedย at the Delta 18 stand-up ceremony, โspace is a warfighting domain today, and an ever increasingly contested one at that.โ
This new dedicated U.S. Space Force intelligence unit will partly replace the U.S. Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) which has operated at Wright-Patterson since 1993.
Haines added that this new unit's mission is to โoutwit, outreach and win in the space domain.'ย ALD
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions ofย American Liberty News.
3 Comments
I’m actually pleased and surprised that Biden didn’t undo this Trump accomplishment.
Merge ALL Space Intel under 1 roof,
I wonder if they can detect that the greatest threat to America and freedom comes from the DemRats and RINOs?