TYB
DAF announces preferred, final location for Space Delta 15
Nov. 20, 2024
The Department of the Air Force selected Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado, as the preferred and final location to host Space Delta 15.
DEL 15 is one of two command and control deltas under U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S). DEL 15 is the servicing delta for the National Space Defense Center located at Schriever SFB, Colorado.
The other, Space Delta 5, is the servicing delta for the Combined Space Operations Center located at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
The S4S mission is to plan, integrate, conduct and assess global space operations in order to deliver relevant space effects in, from and to space, for combatant commanders, coalition partners, the joint force and the nation.
DEL15’s mission is to protect and defend the space area of operations. Its responsibilities include:
Present a core service command and control capability with mission ready crew forces, skills training and certification.
Provide survivable responsive and enduring command and control information systems.
Synchronize and integrate the planning and operation of ISR sensors, assets, processing, exploitation and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations.
Provide cyber protection, defense and special mission IT support.
Develop training environments, testing and simulation to prepare USSF forces and designated joint and allied partners, to prevail in various space operations.
The decision to host DEL 15 at Schriever SFB came after conducting a site survey assessing its ability to facilitate the mission and infrastructure capacity, while accounting for community support, environmental factors and cost.
Delta 15 will consist of approximately 250 manpower authorizations.
With this basing decision, DEL 15 has reached initial operational capability and the Department of the Air Force anticipates final operational capability by summer 2027.
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3972439/daf-announces-preferred-final-location-for-space-delta-15/
Director overseeing UAP sighting analysis testifies at hearing
Updated: Nov 19, 2024 / 10:24 PM CST
The Pentagon director overseeing unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) analysis testified before lawmakers Tuesday.
The Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities heard from the director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Jon Kosloski, who divulged how much the United States knows about reported unidentified object sightings, more commonly known as UFOs.
He gave a presentation about UAP trends and cases, breaking down what the office has seen of sightings that occurred between Jan. 1, 1996, and Oct. 10, 2024.
In his roughly 40-minute testimony Tuesday, Kosloski reiterated AARO’s previous assertion: “To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.”
That’s despite more than 1,600 reported cases to date.
Kosloski said that the vast majority of resolved UAP sightings are balloons and unmanned aerial systems or drones.
According to an annual report, the Defense Department has seen an increase in reported UAP sightings, especially since satellite constellations like Elon Musk’s Starlink were launched.
Kosloski said it would take more analysis for AARO to reopen a case in its “active archive,” which is a “place where we put cases where we don’t have enough scientific information to resolve them at that time.”
He pointed to one such case, where multiple reports of lights in the sky were deemed to be Starlink flares.
Another case he dissected was reported by a law enforcement officer “out West” who claimed to have seen a large orange orb and a “blacker than black object” that shot up without making a sound.
That anomalous instance, Kosloski said, is one of many that needs further investigation before it can be resolved.
The director addressed individuals with firsthand knowledge of unreported UAP programs who have been “reluctant” to work with AARO.
“Congress has gone out of its way to create the organization AARO specifically to conduct these sorts of investigations and has uniquely empowered to have access to all UAP-related information, whether that’s historic or current,” Kosloski said.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, asked Kosloski whether AARO has involved academia in their findings, which he said is “lacking” due to “the need to declassify data.”
“We need to give the professors something to work on before we can really engage them,” he responded. “So, we’re working significantly on a declassification effort.”
Lawmakers have voiced concerns that some UAPs might be evidence of advanced abilities from foreign adversaries.
Ernst brought up in the Tuesday hearing that, while declassifying content will be beneficial for research, it could also lead to national security issues.
“Oftentimes, we can remove the discussion of the unidentified and anomalous activity from the sensitive information that our partners are concerned with,” Kosloski said, adding that national security partners work alongside AARO to declassify data.
Removing the stigma of discussing UAPs will help protect the nation, as “honest and transparent conversations” about the phenomena will prevent bad actors from using the information.
AARO says those fears are unfounded. However, Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y., wants a progress report detailing how many UAPs ARRO has analyzed and identified and examples of its remaining cases.
Gillibrand helped establish the office in 2022. The questioning comes after AARO acknowledged hundreds of unexplained UAP sightings and reports, sparking potential national security concerns among lawmakers.
Kosloski went in front of senators in closed- and open-door hearings to talk about his agency’s investigations of reported UAP sightings.
Among those investigative efforts is a new technology called “gremlin” that the Defense Department deploys to track and detect UAPs.
They resolved 118 cases during the reporting period, concluding that each sighting was of a common object.
Seventy percent were balloons, 16% were unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and less than 15% combined were birds, satellites or aircraft.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/aaro-director-testify-uap-hearing/
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-activities-of-the-all-domain-anomaly-resolution-office
New Gillibrand bill gives Pentagon authority to shoot down UAPs, drones on US soil
Nov 19, 2024
Ask a Pol asks:
Knowing former AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick was under pressure from you and other Intelligence Committee members because whistleblowers didn’t trust his office, what makes you confident Director Kosloski has righted the ship?
Key Gillibrand:
“It's going to happen. I think the fact that he's already talked to two whistleblowers with firsthand information — those are whistleblowers who would not come in before.
It just gives us another lens of information,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand exclusively tells Ask a Pol. “The report that AARO issued, is everything that they were told to date.
That's everything, and so if the stuff that someone worked on is not in that report, they need to come in to tell AARO, because it means they haven't been told about it.”
What’s next?
“It's over the base — if it's over a sensitive site, I want to create authority for them to take down,” Gillibrand says.
“An object that doesn't do anything, it's not showing hostile intent but it's a huge national security breach, and so we want to update the law to say this is a huge national security breach and we may take them down on that basis alone.
They don't have to shoot at you. They don't have to drop a chemical weapon. They don't have to drop a nuclear weapon. You could just take them down, because they are clearly spying.”
Caught our ear:
“I don't think it needs a makeover. They were able to use the money and time that they had over the last year and a half, to get the lay of the land, to get all the historic data culminated, to create procedures and frameworks to get the public to be able to give data and information.
They were able to create scientific measures to do the analysis. All the purpose of AARO, so no time has been wasted, which I'm very grateful for,” Gillibrand tells us.
“And sometimes you need an organization to develop a little bit of maturity before the whistleblower community will feel comfortable anyway, and so I feel like they've done the hard work to create a infrastructure around assessing and documenting information so now that they can have trust in the system.”
https://www.askapol.com/p/gillibrand-wants-pentagon-to-shoot-uaps-on-us-soil