The U.S. Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, established in December 2019. Its primary role is to organize, train, and equip space forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space by ensuring space superiority. The USSF manages space launch operations, satellite operations, space environment surveillance, and satellite defense, and partners with organizations like NASA on space domain awareness and planetary defense. Key areas of focus include missile warning, satellite communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The Space Force unveiled a plan in February 2020 to change how it acquires satellite-based communications for the Department of Defense.
Slingshot Aerospace will develop an analytics tool under a $2,000,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force that uses location data from commercial satellites in low Earth orbit to identify potential sources of electronic interference on the ground.
The United States Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office is seeking information for potential sources to provide gateway services and monitoring and control of services.
The Space Force program aims to produce sensors that could be hosted on U.S., allied government, or commercial satellites to provide space domain awareness.
GEOST is a small company based in Tucson, Arizona that won two U.S. Space Force contracts totaling $38,000,000 to develop an optical sensor payload to scan the geostationary belt more than 22,0 m above Earth.
The Space Force is working on agreements with international partners to host U.S. payloads on their satellites.
The Space Systems Command solicitation dated 2021-10-21 states that the Space Force is considering buying a large number of space domain awareness sensors to augment current and planned systems.
Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was previously used for Athena launches and was idle in recent years except for an Orion launch abort test in 2019.
Astra Space will perform its next launch from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in January.
The U.S. Space Force awarded Boeing a $329,300,000 contract to support operations of Global Positioning System satellites for 10 years.
SpaceX launched 52 satellites for its Starlink low Earth orbit constellation on a Falcon 9 that lifted off at 7:41 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
Less than 16 hours after the Vandenberg Starlink launch on 2021-12-18, SpaceX launched the Turksat 5B mission to geostationary transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
On 2021-12-18 at 4:41 a.m. PST, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 52 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The U.S. Space Force was signed into law on 2019-12-20.
PredaSAR won a $2,000,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force to demonstrate interoperability between its satellites and DARPA’s Blackjack constellation.
Of the $645,700,000 increase authorized in the NDAA, $548,700,000 is for U.S. Space Force satellites and launch vehicle programs.
Raytheon Technologies received a $67,000,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force to build a weather satellite to provide imagery of cloud cover and other data needed for military operations on 2021-12-15.
Raytheon Intelligence & Space was selected in June 2020 by the Space Force’s Space Systems Command as one of three contenders to develop space sensor prototypes for the Electro-Optical Infrared Weather System (EWS).
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 requires the Department of Defense to study options to stand up a reserve component for the Space Force.
SWOT is scheduled to launch in November 2022 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base.