USAF Gen. John Hyten, commander of US. Strategic Command, speaks at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., on April 9, 2019. STRATCOM photo.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—US Strategic Command is working on a plan to turn over global sensor and satellite management for hypersonic missile warning and defense to US Space Command, STRATCOM chief Gen. John Hyten said this week.
Handing those responsibilities to SPACECOM would lend them more attention instead of continuing as an implied mission under STRATCOM.
“We’re working right now on a new unified command plan for the Space Command responsibilities, and our desire to give Space Command more responsibility over global sensor management and integration. We think there needs to be a formal role for how that would work,” Hyten told reporters at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “My command, STRATCOM, has been doing, I think for 15 years now, an initiative called Global Sensor Integrated Network. We’re just trying to formalize as we go forward so it’s not just a coalition of the willing, it’s actually a responsibility of a command and I think Space Command is the obvious place to do that.”
He said assigning SPACECOM to manage those missions will help the Pentagon progress faster in that area.
Hyten also told Space News this week he believes the Space Development Agency should prototype satellites for hypersonic missile defense that orbit closer to Earth than the current tracking constellation.