The U.S. Air Force Space Command is faced with tough decisions on what its priorities are for space strategy as the command faces budget tightening, the command’s leader said Tuesday.
Gen. William Shelton said the command has decided to put a third of the receivers used for the Space Fence program in cold storage for the rest of the year, Defense News reports.
Aaron Mehta writes the program, build to track objects flying over the continental U.S., no longer covers the eastern part of the country.
Only 5 percent of the 500,000 man-made objects in orbit are being tracked by U.S. systems, Shelton said during a speech at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Shelton also said the command faces threats from accidental space junk damage and foreign enemies acquiring GPS jamming, laser weapons and kinetic-kill anti-satellite weapons.
