WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th October, 2020) The US Space Command, which includes all branches in the armed forces, has opened training programs, war gaming and data sharing with space agencies in allied nations for the first time,� commanding General John Raymond said in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
"Our job is to make sure we don't get overtaken by Russia and China," Raymond said. "We didn't have partners in space historically on the military side because we really didn't need them."
Raymond cited weapons being developed by both nations to jam space-based communications, as well as weapons designed for "kinetic destruction" of satellites and other assets.
"We have opened up significantly more training opportunities for allied partners, we play war games together with our allied partners, we're developing modes of behavior with our allied partners, we share data broadly with our allied partners, our operations centers are connected together," Raymond said.
As examples, Raymond cited two US Space Force payloads placed on Norwegian satellites, which saved tremendous funds while allowing deployment more quickly than if the force waited for US-built satellites to become available.
Another Space Force payload, Raymond said, was launched on a Japanese satellite.
In addition, the United States is developing joint command and control systems with allies because operations centers are already linked, Raymond added.
The Space Force was recently established as the fifth branch of the US armed services to provide forces and assets for Space Command, with both units led by Raymond. The Space Command consists of officers from all services, much like other combatant commands such as Transportation Command or Strategic Command.
