SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) -- Less than a year after changing the name of the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center to the National Space Defense Center, the NSDC transitioned to 24/7 operations Jan. 8, 2018, marking a significant step for the expanding, interagency team focused on protecting and defending the nation's critical space assets.
"This is a significant milestone," said Gen. Jay Raymond, U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Force Space Component commander and commander of Air Force Space Command. "We have officially transitioned the NSDC from an experiment to a functioning 24/7/365 operations center focused on protecting and defending the space domain. This advancement immediately expands our space situational awareness and bolsters our readiness — both of which are absolutely critical to maintaining space superiority."
The NSDC is a partnership organization, strongly supported by both the Defense Department and Intelligence Community, that develops and improves U.S. ability to rapidly detect, warn, characterize, attribute and defend against threats to our nation's vital space systems. The NSDC directly supports space defense unity of effort and expands information sharing in space defense operations among the DoD, National Reconnaissance Office and other interagency partners.
"This successful transition to round-the-clock operations was the result of the hard work of the entire joint and interagency team," said Col. Todd Brost, NSDC director. "With the growing potential threats to our nation's space capabilities, we must adopt a warfighting mindset and be prepared to defend and protect the assets that provide our joint forces and allied partners the asymmetric advantage from space-based capabilities."
The NSDC increases the resilience of the space enterprise and the delivery of space capabilities to U.S., the joint warfighter and allied partners. It works across the space enterprise to aid on-orbit activity characterization and provide enhanced indications and warnings.
"The new 24/7 operations at the NSDC will help ensure the national security space enterprise outpaces any emerging and advanced space threats by facilitating information sharing across the space community," added Col. Dan Wright, NSDC deputy director and Integrated National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) element lead.
Ultimately, this transition will further enhance our ability to protect and defend the space domain which is so critical to our nation and to our joint warfighters.
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