Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements, said the U.S. Space Force is investing in ground and space-based sensors and surveillance systems and commercial space tracking data to increase space domain awareness, SpaceNews reported Monday.
Garrant said the service branch’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 allocates $584 million for space-tracking programs, including the development of optical telescopes and surveillance satellites, to improve the detection, tracking and identification of objects orbiting the Earth.
“It’s not just tracking and monitoring but also characterizing what type of spacecraft it is and anticipating its behavior,” Garrant said.
The Space Force has requested funding to support the development of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, a planned radar network to identify adversarial threats in the geostationary orbit.
The FY 2024 budget request also includes upgrades to the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System to identify currently undetectable space threats and collect intelligence required to support actionable space domain awareness.
