Space Force’s New Intel Unit to Track Space Threats – ‘Space Delta 18’

One of former President Donald Trump's bigger accomplishments, the U.S. Space Force, is moving forward in its mission to protect the country from threats to its space-borne assets, as well as space-borne threats to the country.

Its latest effort is called ‘Space Delta 18.'

Part of Space Operations Command, it will be the Space Force's spy agency – the National Space Intelligence Center.

Tasked with providing “critical intelligence on threat systems, foreign intentions and activities in the space domain,” it will identify threats to the United States' space assets, both kinetic and non-kinetic. 

As Space.com reports:

“Kinetic” in this sense refers to threats that can physically damage or degrade U.S. satellites and other assets, while “non-kinetic” generally refers to anti-satellite weapons that use directed energy, signal jamming or other means to disrupt a satellite's operations.

Delta 18 will operate the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC), a new intelligence hub based out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Space Delta 18 will eventually be staffed by 345 civilian and military personnel, military officials said.

And the creation of this unit couldn't have come at a more critical time. Space.com explains that:

The need for such a unit tasked with collecting intelligence on space threats has been underscored in recent years as the anti-satellite capabilities of China and Russia have evolved. A Chinese satellite was recently observed to have dragged a defunct navigation satellite(opens in new tab) into a “graveyard orbit,” for example, while Russia has conducted highly destructive anti-satellite tests that have created hazardous orbital debris fields.

Russia has also been jamming GPS signals throughout its current invasion of Ukraine by targeting the United States' Navstar system of satellites that provide the service.

“Make no mistake,” Haines added at the Delta 18 stand-up ceremony, “space is a warfighting domain today, and an ever increasingly contested one at that.”

This new dedicated U.S. Space Force intelligence unit will partly replace the U.S. Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) which has operated at Wright-Patterson since 1993.

Haines added that this new unit's mission is to ‘outwit, outreach and win in the space domain.' ALD

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