Colorado Springs, Colo. The commander of Air Force Space Command this week announced a new plan this week for how the Air Force should build a space force that is resilient and responsive to threats in space. On Tuesday, Gen. John Hyten told attendees at the 32nd Space Symposium here that right now, “we don’t have a resilient enterprise,” and so space command must organize, train, and equip for resilience in a threat environment. “We have to do business a different way,” he said. Hyten rolled out the Space Enterprise Vision in a classified session, but said in a press release that the future space enterprise “will maintain our nation’s ability to deliver critical space effects throughout all phases of conflict. Operating as an enterprise as opposed to a set of independent platforms improves resiliency and is critical to the ability to survive and deliver effects in a contested environment.” The vision is the result of a study AFSPC commissioned to look at how to make national security space more resilient.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…