Intel gathering

Air Force Teams With NRO For Secret SSA Bird

The Joint Mission System is designed as the principal source of knowledge about where and when satellites are in orbit. But it can’t handle the enormous amount of data that will soon become available thanks to the Space Fence — roughly four times as much data as it currently absorbs — and it isn’t designed for offensive and defensive space operations. Those are the ambit of the National Space Defense Center, the US government’s space warfighting center.
The original Request For Information (RFI) for ESBMC2 makes clearer how close the system’s ties are to the National Reconnaissance Office, secretive builder and operator of America’s spy satellites, and to what is now known as the National Space Defense Center, formerly called JICSpOC. It notes that “JICSpOC will leverage existing JSpOC systems and integrate them with new capabilities to better enable unity of effort between the Department of Defense and the IC for space operations. ESBMC2 system scope extends past the JSpOC alone; the program office envisions that any capabilities developed will also support the JICSpOC.”