Monitoring Launch with STARS
Since 1998, Aerospace has monitored every national-security launch with the help of a one-of-a-kind technology unique to the launch industry -- STARS, or the Spacelift Telemetry Acquisition and Reporting System. STARS is a launch data-processing and monitoring system developed by Aerospace and is now a critical mission-assurance tool used to certify the readiness of every national-security space launch.
STARS makes it possible to monitor each launch remotely in real-time, and it offers a common platform for data analysis across all launch vehicles. Before STARS, data analysis was delayed for days or weeks following each launch.
Aerospace STARS facilities are located at our El Segundo headquarters, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Control Systems
Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN)
Aerospace has supported the development and modernization of AFSCN, a global system comprising two control centers, fifteen antennas, and eight tracking locations that provide telemetry processing, tracking and command, and data dissemination and processing for the nation's most critical satellite systems, including those of the Department of Defense, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Reconnaissance Office, and all U.S. space launches.
The Air Force Satellite Communications (AFSATCOM) System
The AFSATCOM system provides global communications with strategic aircraft via airborne command posts. Aerospace provides communications payload and system engineering support to the AFSATCOM user community. Our primary responsibilities include conducting on-orbit checkout and testing of AFSATCOM payloads, participating in anomaly investigations, ensuring that hosted payload requirements are tracked, and preparing implementation plans for new systems concepts and architectures.
Consolidated Satellite Operations Center (CSOC)
During the 1990s Aerospace assisted the Air Force in developing and enhancing four mission-control complexes and a range-control complex at the Consolidated Satellite Operations Center (CSOC) at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. CSOC collects tracking data from monitor stations, calculates satellite orbits and some parameters, and sends these to one of the three ground control stations. The center is also responsible for satellite control and system operation.
Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
DMSP provides high-quality weather imagery to the U.S. military and the civilian community. For over three decades, Aerospace has provided key acquisition, systems engineering, test and integration, launch, operation, and users support. Aerospace has also been integral to the continuous upgrade and enhancement through several block changes. The last Block 5D-3 satellites will assure global weather data coverage through the middle of the next decade. The follow-on system is the National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
The Fleet Satellite Communications (FLTSATCOM) System
The FLTSATCOM system provides worldwide, high-priority, ultrahigh-frequency communications among aircraft, ships, submarines, and Navy shore installations. The first FLTSATCOM satellite was launched in 1978 and the last in 1989. For this program, as for others, Aerospace performed a structural dynamics analysis of the system's satellites as subjected to launch vehicle loads.
Global Positioning System (GPS)
The GPS control segment consists of unmanned monitoring stations located around the world (Hawaii and Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean; Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean; and in Colorado Springs, Colorado); a master ground station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs; and four large ground antenna stations that track and control GPS satellites. Supplementing these assets are additional National Geospatial Intelligence Agency monitoring stations that enhance the system’s accuracy. Aerospace is very involved in conducting risk-assessment studies and developing the future architecture for the GPS system. These tasks include serving as technical advisors to Air Force satellite operators in Colorado, providing technical oversight for the development of control segment hardware and software upgrades of the current system, and contributing expertise to the definition of a future control segment architecture planned for deployment in the next decade.
Milstar
Aerospace has worked closely with the Air Force in developing Milstar, a joint-service satellite communications system that provides secure, jam-resistant, worldwide communications to military users. Geographically dispersed mobile and fixed control stations provide survivable and enduring operational command and control for the Milstar constellation. Aerospace personnel at Schriever and Peterson Air Force bases provide daily technical support to Milstar operations, sustainment, and system engineering and technical leadership in investigation and resolution of system anomalies and issues
The Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) System
Aerospace played a key role in defining the MILSATCOM Integrated Satellite Control System, which will replace the Satellite Command and Control System and provide an integrated control system for MILSATCOM. Aerospace has been the focal point for identifying the urgent need for the system and for identifying an innovative acquisition approach to its development.
Rapid Attack Identification and Detection System (RAIDRS)
Aerospace provides planning, development, and test support to the RAIDRS program. RAIDRS is a comprehensive approach to rapidly detecting and identifying attacks on satellites and differentiating these attacks from natural or unintentional events. Providing this essential information to operators, decision makers, and warfighters facilitates the protection of space systems, ensures continuous mission support, improves threat reporting, enhances retaliatory response timelines, and aids in countering hostile counterspace systems, RAIDRS moves the Air Force closer to the goal of near-real-time attack resolution.
Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Ground System
Aerospace continues to be a key development partner for the SBIRS ground system, providing guidance to the Air Force and development contractors in systems and software engineering, integration and testing, mission processing maturation, risk and issue management, and process improvement. This has resulted in the SBIRS ground system successfully processing data from the Defense Satellite Program satellites for the last five years. It has also resulted in the successful development of a new complex high-earth-orbit (HEO) ground system that is now beginning to process data from the SBIRS HEO satellite to produce data that is fused with data from the Defense Satellite Program, or DSP. In addition, the development of the portion of the ground system that processes data from the SBIRS GEO satellite is also proceeding well.
