The US Space Force will need to take over the role of providing ground surveillance imagery to US combat forces around the world from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson said on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2023) The US Space Force will need to take over the role of providing ground surveillance imagery to US combat forces around the world from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson said on Monday.
"We are looking to put sensors on existing satellites to proliferate capabilities in real time forecasting," Thompson told a meeting at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. "We are looking at ways to do this mission differently."
The Space Force was looking to replace the current global system of weather surveillance for the US armed forces from a small number of relatively large and lavishly equipped satellites with a far more survivable much larger constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit that would offer far superior prospects for survivability and resilience in the event of attacks by hostile nations, Thompson said.
The Space Force was also developing reconnaissance capabilities to get tactical information to warfighters in combat ground operations in real time far more quickly than current systems operated by the National Reconnaissance Office were capable of doing, Thompson added.
