The Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., plans on Jan. 25-26 to hold an industry discussion about development of a Space Based Space Surveillance Objective System. The proposed SBSS system would be a constellation of electro-optical sensing satellites that will search for, detect, and track objects in near earth and deep space orbits. It builds upon a 1996 concept demonstration called the Space Based Visible Telescope, which USAF deployed on the Mid-course Space Experiment satellite. The SBV telescope is approaching its end of life.
The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.
