The Space Force is eyeing three key upgrades next year to its next-generation command-and-control system that will make it easier for allies to share space domain awareness data and improve collaboration and training for operators.
The Space Force approved the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System, known as ATLAS, for operations last September. The system, built by L3Harris, pulls data from across the Space Force’s network of satellite sensors and ground-based radars to track activity in space and create a comprehensive picture of what’s happening on orbit.
The approval of the baseline ATLAS capability positioned the Space Force and L3Harris to shift their focus toward developing additional tools and upgrades that will allow more operators to access the system and use it to track potential threats—whether that be orbital debris or an adversary’s spacecraft. In March, the Space Force awarded L3Harris a $90 million contract to support that work.
The first of those upgrades, which L3Harris expects to deliver in the first quarter of 2027, will give all of the “Five Eyes” partners —the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia—access to ATLAS’s automated data-sharing capabilities, which will allow the allies to exchange information about objects they’re tracking, anomalies they’ve detected, and to warn of possible collisions, called conjunctions by operators.
“Space operations have grown exponentially more complex as the domain becomes increasingly congested and contested,” the company said. “The Five Eyes integration recognizes that satellites operate in a global commons—a debris-generating event affects the entire space environment, not just one nation’s assets.”
The program also plans to integrate ATLAS with cloud-based architecture at Naval Support Facility Dahlgren, Va., where the Space Force’s 19th Space Defense Squadron is colocated with the Naval Network Warfare Command Space Operations. The upgrade will enable closer coordinate between 19th SDS and its sister unit, the 18th Space Defense Squadron at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. Both units serve as space domain awareness hubs.
ATLAS integration into the Mission Processing System infrastructure at Dahlgren is slated for early 2027, L3Harris said, and will become “the backbone of geographically distributed space operations.”
“This enables enhanced mission assurance through geographic redundancy and reduced latency for East Coast decision-makers,” the firm said. “If one site experiences disruption, operations continue without capability degradation for warfighters.”
The company is also delivering a “dedicated” test, training, and exercises capability that will give Space Force operators a separate environment for more realistic training. The environment will be available to users at both the 19th and 18th Space Defense Squadrons and will eventually shift to the classified domain. An L3Harris spokesperson said the company expects the TTX environment enter government testing in the first half of 2027 with advanced capabilities delivered later next year.
“The TTX environment addresses the reality that space operations demand split-second decision-making based on complex technical data. Operators must distinguish routine satellite maneuvers from potentially hostile activities while managing information from dozens of sensors and thousands of space objects,” the company said. “Traditional classroom training cannot fully prepare operators for these cognitive demands.”
The capabilities the Space Force is poised to get through ATLAS are a long time coming. The system was initially expected to be delivered in 2022 to replace the legacy Space Defense Operations Center, or SPADOC, but software integration challenges delayed the program by nearly three years. The service expects to finally decommission the 1980s-era SPADOC system this year.
The forthcoming upgrades mark the transition of ATLAS from simply a SPADOC replacement to a system that enables “distributed, collaborative and continuously learning space operations,” L3Harris said.