OFFUT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb., April 26 (UPI) -- Australia will be able to quickly acquire U.S. military space data through a short-cut process agreement signed this week.
The short-cut for data requests under the U.S. Strategic Command's Space Situational Awareness Sharing Agreement Program streamlines the request process for data, including the locations of 23,000 man-made objects in space.
"Many nations share the space domain and it is in our best interest to create an environment where the sharing of (space situational awareness) data facilitates transparency and improves (space) flight safety," U.S. Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler said.
The Air Force said space situational awareness exchanges will assist partners with activities such as launch support, maneuver planning, support for on-orbit anomaly resolution, electromagnetic interference reporting and investigation, support for launch anomalies and de-commissioning activities and on-orbit conjunction assessments.
The agreement, which builds on a 2010 accord for cooperation in space awareness, is modeled on commercial agreements STRATCOM has in place with commercial companies.
