The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it is expanding its Space-Track.org website in an effort to improve space situational awareness. New to the site will be the inclusion of “high-quality positional information on space debris of an unknown origin” to enable “owner-operators [to] better protect their satellites from objects and ultimately create less space debris,” states a release. Officials hope the new technology will reduce the threat of collisions in space. “There is also a high volume of debris smaller than the average fist that (JFCC Space) cannot track that are also on orbit today,” said Maj. Gen. David Thompson, US Strategic Command’s director of plans and policy at Offutt AFB, Neb. The space domain is occupied by public, private, commercial, and other governmental organizations, but there is no denying military reliance on accurate information about missile launch or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. “It’s understanding what’s there (in space), what (the object) is doing, and how it poses a threat to our military mission, to our ability to support joint forces and contribute to the global good,” Thompson said. “While space is a very big place, there are a lot of things up there.”
A new Space Force partnership with Blue Origin to expand payload processing capacity at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., will allow the launch range to support as many as 16 more missions per year.
