{"id":47310,"date":"2026-03-23T19:51:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-force-industry-leaders-warn-of-critical-gaps-in-orbital-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T19:51:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:51:48","slug":"space-force-industry-leaders-warn-of-critical-gaps-in-orbital-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-force-industry-leaders-warn-of-critical-gaps-in-orbital-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Force, Industry Leaders Warn of Critical Gaps in Orbital Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

With a kaleidoscope of ground radars, electro-optical telescopes, and Geostationary (GEO) spy satellites, the U.S. Space Force<\/strong> can closely track space objects as they hurtle through orbit. But in terms of knowing why they\u2019re there and what they can do, two veteran space warfighters agreed there is room for improvement.<\/p>\n

Two distinguished military officials shared visions on the future of the U.S. Space Force and its capabilities in a discussion at GovMilSpace on Monday during SATShow Week, moderated by former NASA<\/strong> Administrator Jim Bridenstine, discussing the branch\u2019s rapid growth and its orbital intelligence gaps.<\/p>\n

Ret. Col. and President of ThinkOrbital<\/strong>, Lee Rosen said the United States lacks crucial insight into the intentions and capabilities of its adversaries.<\/p>\n

Brig. Gen. Nick Hague, Space Force Assistant Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations described the Space Force\u2019s response to an increase of threats from the space domain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re essentially flying blind in outer space today,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cAnd probably the toughest problem that you have in the Space Force is understanding what our adversary\u2019s capabilities and intent are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosen served on multiple missions for Space Systems Command and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) during a 23-year tenure in the U.S. Air Force, before an 11-year stint as a vice president at SpaceX. He co-founded ThinkOrbital, a space infrastructure company, in 2022.<\/p>\n

Rosen said the United States\u2019 adversaries are enacting their \u201cshenanigans\u201d in plain sight. He said Russia is likely hiding nuclear weapons in orbit and Chinese satellites have been observed \u201cdogfighting\u201d and possibly refueling in space, but attributing those capabilities to them is difficult. He said ThinkOrbital hopes to release the world\u2019s first X-ray image of a satellite from over 10 kilometers away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to look inside other people\u2019s satellites, because you can get a picture of the outside of your busted knee, but until you get that X-ray, you really don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on inside,\u201d Rosen said.<\/p>\n

Rosen said ThinkOrbital has contracted with Space Systems Command to explore the forward basing of space infrastructure that could be deployed at a moment\u2019s notice. He said the company\u2019s tests of microgravity welding could enable the Space Force to construct objects four times the size of the International Space Station in a matter of weeks, off a single launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I talk about this, everybody goes, \u201cOh, there\u2019s a big, fat, juicy target,\u2019\u201d Rosen said. \u201cWell, so is an aircraft carrier, but we do things to defend aircraft carriers and layered defenses and things like that that we will have to do in outer space as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hague said space superiority begins with space domain awareness. He said Space Force tracks over 10,000 satellites and 50,000 orbital objects, but it has to understand the intent behind competitors\u2019 assets, not just their locations.<\/p>\n

Jim Bridenstine, a former NASA administrator and congressman, moderated the panel. He said satellites are sometimes observed coming apart in space, which could just be an accident. \u201cOr was it intentional?\u201d Hague said. \u201cThat\u2019s tough to discern sometimes. Or is it still alive? We don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

While in Congress, Bridenstine said, he learned of a satellite that hung seemingly dead near the moon for years before reactivating, flying out into deep space, then returning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat should scare everybody,\u201d Bridenstine said. \u201cBecause if the number one objective is to avoid operational surprise, and we see the adversary, or I should say, our competitor, doing such a thing, that\u2019s really hard to avoid operational surprise, if they can, no kidding, attack from deep space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hague, a former astronaut with over a year logged in space, first joined the Space Force in 2021 and was promoted to brigadier general in 2025. The service is rapidly growing to address escalating threats, he said, but the challenge is doing it quickly and smartly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re meeting our recruitment targets,\u201d Hague said. \u201cWe have no problem. We got a line backed up for people that want to join the Space Force. We\u2019re going to continue to increase the opportunities to join. But then, how do I deliver those capabilities rapidly?\u201d<\/p>\n

Space Force will invest in test and training infrastructure to hold large force exercises and rapidly learn how to match growing threats in space, he said. Its operations going forward will aim to have resiliency baked in, he said, to the point of mitigating first mover advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really about resilience where it\u2019s just not practical, or the cost of trying to take that first step is so high that there\u2019s no incentive for any competitor to try to take advantage of you,\u201d Hague said.<\/p>\n

Hague closed the panel by telling the packed room to think of space as a warfighting domain 24\/7, not periodically. Around one year ago, the Space Force released its first Space Warfighting framework.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf our country goes to war, it really doesn\u2019t impact the 95% of the Guardians that were doing the wartime coding mission already,\u201d Hague said. \u201cIt\u2019s critical the things that they\u2019re providing. The missile warning, the satcom, PNT. All of those capabilities underpin the Joint Forces\u2019 ability to do what it needs to do. It underpins our way of life, and that has to happen every day, without fail.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a kaleidoscope of ground radars, electro-optical telescopes, and Geostationary (GEO) spy satellites, the U.S. Space Force can closely track space objects as they hurtle through orbit. But in terms of knowing why they\u2019re there and what they can do, two veteran space warfighters agreed there is room for improvement. Two distinguished military officials shared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}