LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, El Segundo, Calif. – The SMC’s ORS Office, in partnership with SMC’s Space Superiority Systems Directorate and Advanced Systems and Development Directorate, is developing a new mission to answer a United States Strategic Command need for Space Situational Awareness of the geosynchronous earth orbit belt. The Defense Space Council and ORS Executive Committee approved this mission for SMC’s ORS Office located at Kirtland AFB, N.M.
The ORS-5 program will task Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Lincoln Laboratory to design and build an operational demonstration of the SensorSat satellite, which continuously scans the GEO belt from a low earth orbit. The ORS-5 program will demonstrate a low-cost small satellite launch capability and aspects of autonomous operations via the existing Multi-Mission Space Operations Center ground architecture.
In addition, ORS-5 provides risk reduction for cutting-edge technologies to be transitioned to the Space-Based Space Surveillance system follow-on baseline program of record. With a projected start in 2016, the SBSS follow-on program will execute a technology transfer strategy, seeking opportunities for early industry involvement through requests for information and a near-term industry day.
ORS-5 is expected to launch in 2017.
