Vandenberg Air Force Base is bringing private companies into its Joint Space Operations Center. The program is the first of its kind, as reported by the Air Force Times, and it’s aimed at fostering cooperation between the military and private sector as spaceflight slowly becomes privatized.
Base spokesperson Capt. Nicholas Mercurio said it’s the first time commercial operators will be physically integrated into the command center.
“The reason we want to do this is that it will allow for rapid identification, diagnosis, and resolution,” he said, adding that the operators were chosen based on the scope of their existing operations with the U.S. Department of Defense.
The six companies selected are Intelsat, SES Government Solutions, Eutelsat, DigitalGlobe, Iridium Communications, and InMarSat. They will participate in the program for a six-month trial period.
Experts brought in from these companies will be helping to run the satellites that they designed: They will participate in training exercises alongside military staff at Vandenberg and assist with the launching and operations of those satellites. The satellites do everything from communications to imaging.
The private sector employees will work eight to 12 hours a day in the operations center, according to Aviation Week, and could move to a round-the-clock trial if successful.
As these experts from the private sector are moving in, a private-sector event at Vandenberg is going to Florida. SpaceX, the private rocket-building company of Tesla Motors and PayPal billionaire Elon Musk, is moving its in-flight abort test from Vandenberg to Cape Canaveral.
“We aren’t leaving Vandy,” said Phil Larson with SpaceX. “We still plan to use our Vandenberg facilities regularly for other launches.”
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, after more than a dozen successful launches, exploded while carrying supplies and a communications satellite to the International Space Station on June 28. Musk called the explosion a “huge blow” to the company, which recently pulled down a huge contract from NASA to transport American astronauts to and from the space station.
This article appears in Jul 9-16, 2015.
