Air Force Space Command

According to AFSPC, its mission was to "Provide resilient and affordable space capabilities for the Joint Force and the Nation."[9]

AFSPC's primary mission areas were:

• National Security Space Launch: The launching of satellites and other high-value payloads into space using a variety of expendable launch vehicles and operating those satellites once in space
• Space control: ensuring the friendly use of space through the conduct of counterspace operations encompassing surveillance, negation, protection and space intelligence analysis[10]
• Force enhancement: providing satellite-based weather, communications, intelligence, missile warning, and navigation

Operations at Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station provided services, facilities and range safety control for the conduct of space launches. AFSPC was responsible for the command and control of all US DoD satellites, providing global coverage, secure communications, weather and navigational data, and threat warning. Ground-based radar and Defense Support Program satellites monitored ballistic missile launches around the world to guard against a surprise missile attack on North America. Space surveillance radars provided vital information on the location of satellites and space debris for the nation and the world.

Space Situational Awareness was the most important protective measure that could be applied to satellites, which are inherently vulnerable due to the physics of spaceflight.[11] As of 2013, AFSPC was also considering the replacement of a few large multimission satellites with larger numbers of smaller single purpose platforms.[12] This may be used to defend against ASATs by increasing the number of targets that would need to be attacked to neutralize space-based capabilities.[13]

• Advanced Extremely High Frequency
• Defense Satellite Communications System
• Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
• Defense Support Program
• Fleet Satellite Communications System UHF follow-on
• Global Positioning System
• MILSTAR
• NATO III and IV communications
• Space Based Space Surveillance

• Atlas V
• Delta IV
• Falcon 9 (as of December 2018)

• Air Force Satellite Control Network
• Maui Optical Tracking Identification Facility
• Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System
• Passive Space Surveillance System
• Rapid Attack Identification Detection Reporting System
• AN/FPS-85 Space Track Radar

• AN/FPS-115 PAVE PAWS
• AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane
• AN/FPQ-16 Perimeter Acquisition Radar Characterization System (PARCS)
• Sea-based X-band Radar
• Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS)

The Fourteenth Air Force (14 AF) was an active Numbered Air Force that was located at Vandenberg AFB, California. It was responsible for launching payloads to space from facilities in California and Florida and managed the generation and employment of space forces to support U.S. Strategic Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operational plans and missions.[14]

AFSPC was responsible for providing space assets to the U.S. Strategic Command. AFSPC also supported NORAD with ballistic missile warning information, operates the Space Warfare Center to develop space capabilities, and was responsible for the US DoD ICBM follow-on operational test and evaluation program.

The Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles AFB, California, designs and acquires all Air Force and most Department of Defense space systems. It oversees launches, completes on-orbit checkouts, then turns systems over to user agencies. It supports the program executive officer for Space on the NAVSTAR Global Positioning, Defense Satellite Communications and MILSTAR systems. SMC also supports the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the Follow-on Early Warning System. In addition, it supports development and acquisition of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles for the Air Force Program Executive Office for Strategic Systems.