Adm. Timothy Keating, head of both NORAD and US Northern Command, said Thursday that the US missile defense program buck stops at his door at Peterson AFB, Colo. NORTHCOM, he said, is the “primary operational arm” for missile defense actions because its primary mission is to defend the continental United States. “We have been training for over a year with the hardware and software and the crews who will man the missile systems,” Keating told defense reporters. Currently, NORTHCOM planners are working on a final concept of operations—from managing personnel and equipment assets, such as setting up alert levels and maintaining radar equipment, to pulling the trigger on an incoming “bolt out of the blue,” said Keating.
United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is slated to fly its second national security mission in February—nearly six months after its first operational launch and almost a year after it was certified to fly military payloads for the Space Force.
