The Space Force unit that tracks what adversaries fly in orbit is building a prototype software environment that would merge commercial and military tracking data automatically.
The environment should be running by this fall, and a minimum viable product should follow quickly, according to Mission Delta 2 commander Col. Barry Croker. He described the plan to Breaking Defense at the AMOS conference in Maui on Sept. 17.
The gap between collecting and using
The service already buys commercial tracking through the Joint Commercial Operations cell and stores it in the cloud-based Unified Data Library. That data is not fused into operational space domain awareness systems. According to Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, it runs on a parallel track instead.
Whiting has said current space domain awareness is not sharp enough to support precise targeting of adversary satellites, and that integrating commercial data would be the single largest near-term improvement available.
Croker’s framing is blunter. His number one priority, he said, is improving support to space control operations.
Why the feeds stay separate
A separate software environment is not an accident. Croker said military sensor tracks must not be diluted by commercial data of lower accuracy. Collision avoidance needs the sharpest picture available, and blending feeds carelessly could degrade it.
The 18th and 19th Space Defense Squadrons fall under Mission Delta 2, and they run the global network of telescopes and radars known as the Space Surveillance Network.
Fusion promises faster warning. Croker said a new debris cloud, or a large batch of freshly launched satellites, could be flagged in something closer to real time even when the picture is imperfect.
