The Space Force will play an important role in the Department of Defense’s efforts to build a missile defense shield over the U.S., Space Force’s chief of space operations announced recently.
On Monday, Gen. Chance Saltzman said Space Force would jump into action to help accomplish the goals in President Trump’s space-oriented executive orders, including one from January focused on building an “Iron Dome for America.”
Gen. Saltzman added that Space Force had already established an integrated planning team to investigate options related to the Iron Dome executive order.
“I think we have a central role to play. We are leaning forward establishing this technical IPT to start thinking about it from an overarching perspective,” Gen. Saltzman said Monday.
Mr. Trump signed the executive order in January, ordering the Pentagon to develop a newer and more advanced version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield. The order would build upon preexisting missile defense technology such as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program, developed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
Space Force’s IPT will investigate the technical feasibility of an Iron Dome program for the U.S. and determine how the program would work in conjunction with preexisting missile defense structures before calculating a cost estimate. Space Force did not confirm how long the review will take, but reports suggest it could finish within a few weeks.
Mr. Trump’s Iron Dome for America idea has received a mix of praise and skepticism over the past month. Some in the defense industry have pointed out that while the system has worked wonders for Israel, the U.S. is a much larger country and would require a more complex mix of defensive tactics to achieve the same results.
Still, the White House maintains that an Iron Dome project would benefit the U.S. as the threat from ballistic missiles continues to increase.
“Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by beer and near peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities,” Mr. Trump’s more executive order reads.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.