PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, Colo. –
Over the past two years, the U.S. Space Command Logistics and Engineering (J4) Operations Branch has supported several critical movements that have enhanced space operations abroad.
In Sept. of 2023, the Space Deployment & Distribution Operation Center (SDDOC) directly supported the first-ever asteroid sample mission, coordinating a Special Airlift Assignment Mission with U.S. Transportation Command to move the Asteroid Bennu samples from Utah to Ellington Airport, Texas. The samples were collected in 2020 and departed the asteroid in Oct. of 2020, traveling 1.2 billion miles to return to earth in Sept. of 2023.
Additionally, the SDDOC supported NASA with transport of the Europa Clipper, NASA’s largest spacecraft developed for a planetary mission, from March Air Reserve Base, California, to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, in May of 2024. The robotic solar-powered spacecraft departed into orbit on Oct. 14, 2024, with the first flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, planned in the spring of 2031.
Among SDDOC’s most critical missions was its support to USSPACECOM and the Department of Defense through the deployment of an AN/TYP-2 Radar in May 2023, and subsequent redeployment in August 2023, which ensured continuous missile warning and missile defense capabilities. The USSPACECOM J4 Engineering team established a concrete pad at one location to deploy the AN/TYP-2 system, and at the direction of the Secretary of Defense and in close coordination with USSTRANSCOM, thirteen C-17 Globemaster IIIs moved personnel and equipment into and out of theater in a timely and efficient manner.
On Aug. 20, 2024, the USSPACECOM SDDOC supported 4th Space Operations Squadron, Space Delta 8, with the deployment of 18 personnel and 31.2 tons of equipment to Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii to test a Mobile Constellation Control System (MCCS) as part of a contingency operations exercise. This capability’s primary mission is to conduct survivable/endurable (S/E) satellite command and control (SATC2) of the MILSTAR- Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Constellation. This is an enabling function for nuclear command and control (NC3) mission essential functions critical to the national military command system survivable mobile command centers (SMCCS) operations concept during the pre-, trans -, and post attack phases of nuclear conflict.
The secondary mission is to provide an overseas contingency operations (OCO) SATC2 capability for the MILSTAR-AEHF constellation. Due to limitations in fixed SATC2 architecture, a contested, degraded, and operationally limited (CDO) space domain has the potential to result in a fragmentation of MILSTAR-AEHF constellation results in one or more satellites becoming degraded or isolated, preventing SATC2 from the Continental United States command centers.
The MCCS system can be airlifted into a theater affected by a degraded or isolated payload. Once in theater, it has the organic capability to enable continuous access to the payload for users in order to support intra-theater communications for the affected combatant command.
Moreover, the MCCS system enables USSPACECOM to gather engineering data on the affected satellite in order to assist in reconstitution of the MILSTAR-AEHF system.
The system was successfully airlifted from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii and confirmed that a connection to a satellite within the U. S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility through our mobile antenna could be accomplished representing significant progress toward future operational goals.
In today's complex and rapidly evolving military landscape, reliable and secure communications are necessary. The MCCS plays a crucial role in providing the linkages that enable military units to maintain contact with command centers and intelligence gathering systems.