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Maj. Gen. David Thompson: DoD Space Object Tracking Website Forecasts Movements

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deep_spaceAir Force Maj. Gen. David Thompson, plans and policy director at the U.S. Strategic Command, has outlined the new information features of a Defense Department website that are designed to track so-called “objects of unknown origin.”

Amaani Lyle reported Monday for DoD News that Space-Track.org includes information on the location of space debris to help satellite owners and operators protect their assets.

“We run a predictive program that shows where the objects are, where they will be in the future, and the potential for these objects to run into each other,” said Thompson.

Stratcom and Vandenberg Air Force Base’s Joint Functional Component Command for Space focus their attention on on the estimated 16,000 space objects of unknown origin.

Lt. Gen. John Raymond, JFCC space commander, said the organizations coordinate and exchange positional information with satellite owners and operators to prevent collisions, which they believe could both affect operations as well as create thousands of additional objects.

“Space is not owned by anyone, it is used by all and we strongly support responsible and safe use of space and transparency of operations that go on in space,” Thompson said.

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