Posted on 02/23/2014 8:26:42 AM PST by shove_it
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The United States plans to launch a pair of satellites to keep tabs on spacecraft from other countries orbiting 22,300 miles above the planet, as well as to track space debris, the head of Air Force Space Command said.
The previously classified Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) will supplement ground-based radars and optical telescopes in tracking thousands of pieces of debris so orbital collisions can be avoided, General William Shelton said at the Air Force Association meeting in Orlando on Friday.
He called it a "neighborhood watch program" that will provide a more detailed perspective on space activities. He said the satellites, scheduled to be launched this year, also will be used to ferret out potential threats from other spacecraft.
The program "will bolster our ability to discern when adversaries attempt to avoid detection and to discover capabilities they may have which might be harmful to our critical assets at these higher altitudes," Shelton said in the speech, which also was posted on the Air Force Association's website.
The two-satellite network, built by Orbital Sciences Corp will drift around the orbital corridor housing much of the world's communications satellites and other spacecraft.
The Air Force currently tracks about 23,000 pieces of orbiting debris bigger than about 4 inches. These range from old rocket bodies to the remains of an exploded Chinese satellite...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“Costs and technical details of the program were not released.”
I like this ‘neighborhood watchman”. Just wondering if he’s armed.
Why in the hell is this being released? We have no secrecy anymore. TREASON!
What goes up, must come down. Just wait until a piece crashes through a politician's house.
Actually it just replaces an obsolescent ground based system that did the same thing and was recently closed.
The ones on the moon belong to the Anunnaki. They gave me the tour the last time I was abducted.
Lucky you ... I only got the fly-over tour. Of course, it was in the Culture General System Vehicle Little Rascal (Plate Class). Things on board were getting more lively now that ship construction was transfered, so the population is quickly rising above 250,000,000 - new home construction is going gangbusters.
Got to see a new Abominator Class Rapid Offensive Unit - man talk about fire power! The thing can take out entire solar systems without breaking a sweat.
The previously classified Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) will supplement ground-based radars and optical telescopes in tracking thousands of pieces of debris so orbital collisions can be avoided, General William Shelton said at the Air Force Association meeting in Orlando on Friday.
General Shelton should send the Chinks a bill for keeping track of the mess they made when they blew up their own satellite. They probably did it on purpose to take out some of our assets up there.
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