Heather Wilson: Air Force Needs to Establish Common Space C2 System

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson has said there are several things the service needs to address in space operations and one of those is the establishment of a common system for command and control in an effort to build up situational awareness in space, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

“In the future as we update satellites that are going to be an open architecture system and we are no longer going to buy satellites with exquisite, kind of science experiment control systems,” Wilson said Thursday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

“You have to have a common system for command and control, so if it doesn’t plug into the common system we’re not going to buy it,” she added.

Wilson noted that the U.S. government should prioritize the establishment of a policy in order to deter future attacks in the space domain and collaborate with international partners to develop rules on the use of space.

“How do we establish norms of behavior in what will be a much more congested domain?,” she said.

“This will take some time, but it’s not an unknown thing; it’s not completely new.”

Secretary Wilson will be addressing the Potomac Officer’s Club as a keynote speaker at the 2017 Space: Innovations, Programs, and Policies Summit to be held Oct. 18, 2017 at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner in McLean, VA.