Colorado Springs – The U.S. Air Force is ramping up efforts to respond more quickly to battlefield needs, and aerospace companies are lining up to help.
Military officials here for the National Space Symposium on Wednesday outlined the need to modernize military satellite systems and discussed the new fast-response satellites they are preparing to launch. The event continues through today at the Broadmoor resort.
The Air Force wants to get small satellites into space quickly in order to provide war fighters with good information when they need it.
Littleton-based startup MicroSat Systems Inc., which specializes in developing those small satellites, already has a $9 million Air Force contract to build parts of the TacSat-2. And like a number of other aerospace contractors, its president and chief operating officer, John Roth, is competing for more.
For the first time ever, the Department of Defense’s budget has a separate line item for the program it calls Operationally Responsive Space, with $400 million budgeted from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2013.
At the same time, the United States needs to know more about space debris, said U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command commander Gen. Victor Renuart Jr.
When China tested an anti-satellite weapon Jan. 11 by destroying an inactive weather satellite, it “made clear that space is not a sanctuary,” added Air Force Under-Secretary Ronald Sega.
It added more than 1,000 new pieces of debris to the 14,000 objects already being tracked in space, all of which make space “astronomically more dangerous today,” said Air Force Chief of Staff T. Michael Moseley.
The objects put the majority of U.S. satellites traveling in low-Earth orbit at some risk of collision. They also could interfere with American satellites, which is why “the ability to catalog (them) and maintain situational awareness in space is critical to us,” Renuart said.
He also emphasized the value of U.S. space assets, such as satellites that carry Global Positioning Systems, communications and weather equipment. Many are built by companies with operations in Colorado.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at kyamanouchi@denverpost.com or 303-954-1488.
