The United States remains the global leader in space-based military capabilities. However, with more nations than ever looking to develop these capabilities, the United States wants to foster greater cooperation when using these assets. In separate discussions, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Susan Helms, director plans and policy, U.S. Strategic Command, and Brig. Gen. John Hyten, director of requirements, Air Force Space Command, spoke about some of the issues in terms of military space policy and encouraging more cooperation around the globe.
VIA SATELLITE: What are the key challenges for U.S. Strategic Command over the next two years?
HELMS: Some of the key challenges with regards to space for the United States Strategic Command include ensuring the spaced-based capabilities that are essential to our nation and armed forces remain available all the time. We do pay close attention to the satellite constellations that carry these capabilities and the launch schedules that provide replacement satellites.
The recent collision of the Iridium-operated satellite and the dead Russian satellite and the International Space Station maneuvers to avoid space debris highlight another challenge for the command. This is the need for improved space situational awareness. Our Joint Space Operations Center is tracking more than 19,000 man-made objects in space today. That number continues to grow.
VIA SATELLITE: Has the issue of space debris has been under-estimated?
HYTEN: It is important that the people of all nations understand that debris is a significant risk to all space operations in the future. I understand that the space environment is huge. If you look at the space between the geosynchronous belt and the Earth, it is 6,000 times larger than the global airspace around the world. Currently we track approximately about 20,000 items, including active satellites, but there are things that we aren’t tracking right now that could create debris numbers up to 200,000. While the debris we track tends to be focused in certain areas, those same areas are where we and the international community operate satellites. Hopefully the Kosmos-Iridium collision serves as a warning that we need to take every possible international action we can in order to mitigate the debris problem. Again, this is something that the State Department will need address with the international community so that we can avoid collisions in the future and mitigate debris when avoidance fails.
HELMS: The satellite collision in February and recent International Space Station near misses continue to highlight the critical need for heightened space situational awareness. The space debris issue is one that is not going to go away and it affects all nations which operate in space. We must expand our cooperation and information sharing with other nations and industry to improve this space situational awareness and information sharing.
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