The U.S. Strategic Command and the National Reconnaissance Office replaced the name of the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center April 1 to reflect the organization’s new mission against threats to space assets.The renamed National Space Defense Center will continue to operate at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado and advance its mission to detect and protect U.S. space systems from threats, Stratcom said Wednesday.
“The new name reflects that preserving the space domain and defending against threats to space systems is a national priority,†said Gen. John Hyten, Stratcom commander and an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2017.
Stratcom has started to expand a multinational space cooperation initiative to facilitate sharing of space-related data with allied countries and will co-locate the effort’s operations with the Joint Functional Component Command for Space at Vandenberg AFB in California.
Stratcom has begun efforts to formalize an agreement with Germany to designate a German liaison officer at JFCC as part of the multinational collaboration effort that seeks to promote spaceflight safety and data sharing operations.
The command also signed similar pacts with Norway and Belgium to increase multinational space cooperation.
