Space unit to move from Cheyenne Mountain

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFPN) -- The Space Control Center, operated by the 1st Space Control Squadron, is transferring its operations from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colo., to the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The move is part of an effort to enhance mission effectiveness and increase Air Force Space Command's flexibility to support combatant commanders in meeting national and military space needs. 

Approximately 140 people will move to Vandenberg AFB, including military members, civil servants and contractors, from January through July 2007. 

The Space Control Center serves as the command and control hub for all U.S. space surveillance activities, while the Joint Space Operations Center, or JSpOC, integrates various joint space capabilities and focuses them for end users to improve warfighting capabilities. 

The consolidation of military space capabilities and expertise at the JSpOC is another step forward in AFSPC's efforts to improve the nation's ability to more effectively respond to new and emerging threats.

"We have a duty to secure the entire space domain, not just for our own military but for the benefit of the free world," said Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, AFSPC commander. 

"Our ability to defend the asymmetric advantage we enjoy today depends on our ability to increase our situational awareness of the space domain. We need to progress from cataloging what is up there to being able to tell the capabilities and owner's intentions of any new object put into space," he said. 

The Space Control Center is not part of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, nor does it fall under the auspices of North American Aerospace Defense Command or U.S. Northern Command. It belongs to AFSPC and 14th Air Force. 

The decision to move space operations out of Cheyenne Mountain was independent of the NORAD-USNORTHCOM study to relocate the CMOC. Headquarters AFSPC will remain here.