U.S. readies war operations center for space

WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- The Pentagon will soon complete a new operations center for potential warfare in space, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work announced.

Speaking this week to the GEOINT symposium in Washington, an annual conference on intelligence sponsored by the non-governmental U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, Work explained the center, to be open within six months, will reinforce space defense activities at the military's Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

"(We) are going to develop the tactics, techniques, procedures, rules of the road that would allow us ... to fight the architecture and protect it while it's under attack. The ugly reality that we must now all face is that if an adversary were able to take space away from us, our ability to project decisive power across transoceanic distances and overmatch adversaries in theaters once we get there ... would be critically weakened," he said.

Geospatial intelligence, he added, is necessary to strengthen the U.S. technological advantage over Russia and China, two countries practicing intelligence and anti-satellite activities in space.

China, in 2007, intentionally shot down one its weather satellites, and in 2013 launched a rocket which could threaten U.S. satellites 35,000 kilometers (over 18 miles) above the earth, beyond the capability of ground-launched missiles. The Pentagon's 2016 budget request includes a $5 billion increase in space security.

Work noted space was once regarded as a "virtual sanctuary" but must now be considered "a contested operational domain in ways that we haven't had to think about in the past."