Such smallsat payloads, hosted on commercial satellites, are an important piece of the Army’s evolving concept of Multi-Domain Operations, which seeks to combine efforts on land, the sea, air, space, and cyberspace to defeat sophisticated adversaries such as Russia and China.

Maj. Gen. Rick Evans says STRATCOM will have a difficult challenge in identifying which headquarters personnel should transfer to the new SPACECOM when it stands up.

“Real-time tasking and receiving data is going to b the future,” Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh says. “Over time every single remote sensing company will go this direction.” 

Japan plans to host an American Space Situational Awareness (SSA) sensor payload on their QZSS satellites. American and Japanese officials are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding by the end of the year.

Wallis Laughrey, Raytheon Vice President for Space and Airborne Systems, says it is possible that the Air Force will keep both Raytheon and Northrop Grumman as Next-Gen OPIR GEO payload providers “if funding is available.”

Hyten is not just one of the nation’s 40 active-duty four-star officers, already an elite club with fewer members than a single NFL football team. He is also the the leader of the space community and the advocate-in-chief for space specialists’ careers.

“Everybody is watching SMC right now,” says Chris Beres of LinQuest, which has secured a new contract to help the Air Force with its SMC 2.0 revamp.

French Defense Minister Florence Parley says she has been exploring with French defense giant Thales concepts for what she called “fearsome little detectors” that “will be the eyes of our most valuable satellites.”

“For now, we remain in source selection” for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent contract despite Boeing’s withdrawal, says a spokesperson for Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper.

There is “a significant opportunity for the United States to come to the table and negotiate with North Korea and at least begin the steps to take the program back,” says Ranking HASC Member Mike Turner.