Celebrations and high fives are in order as the Department of Defense Space Test Program achieved a major milestone on September 10 when it flew its 200th mission.  The Air Force Space Command’s (Space and Missile Systems Center) Space Development and Test Wing administers this DoD STP program.

Photo of video credit JAXA

This 200th mission milestone occurred following the September 10 launch of two payloads on the demonstration flight of the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.  This mission is indicative of the outstanding DoD and National Aeronautics and Space Administration relationship to achieving low-cost rapid access to space for experiments that benefit all. The first payload, the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean, will operate a visible and near-infrared Maritime Hyperspectral Imaging system to detect, identify and quantify coastal geophysical features from the International Space Station. The second payload is the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System, a hyperspectral sensor suite for global remote sensing of the Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere.  Navy Research Laboratory developed both experiments. 

Since 1967, the DoD STP has provided access to space for the DoD space research and development community. The DoD STP serves as the primary provider of mission design, spacecraft acquisition, integration, launch and on-orbit operations for DoD’s most innovative space experiments, technologies and demonstrations.  Additionally, STP manages all of the DoD payloads on the Space Shuttle and the ISS.

STP has a rich tradition of impacting today’s operational space systems and future systems. Many payloads pivotal to the warfighter and national security first flew as experiments with the STP. Every operational satellite from the Global Positioning System to military communication satellites to space-based surveillance and weather systems have ties to STP missions. Through STP, these programs, and all space programs, have benefited greatly from low-cost risk reduction for increasing Technology Readiness Levels for actual sensors, payloads, busses and spacecraft materials.

STP provides access to space through a wide variety of spaceflight options including the Space Shuttle, the ISS, commercial and military expendable launch vehicles, sounding rockets, high-altitude balloons and even aircraft microgravity flights. The great partnerships developed between STP and various other DoD and federal programs including the Air Force Research Laboratory, NRL, the Army Space and Missile Development Center, the service academies, National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and NASA facilitated the innovative achievements of the DoD Space Test Program. 

Throughout its history, STP and its partners have matured emerging technologies and quickly evaluated critical capabilities for the warfighter. Along with many missions in-work, the STP’s “can-do” attitude and abilities have today resulted in simultaneous on-going space experiments on the ISS (SPHERES), Shuttle STS-128 mission (MISSE-6 return) and on JAXA’s H-II (HICO-RAIDS Experiment Payload. (SPHERES is an experiment that is evaluating autonomous formation flight software for multiple satellites. MISSE-6 is an experiment that has been exposing hundreds of materials and spacecraft components on the outside of the ISS during the past year).

Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center, located at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the U.S. Air Force's center of acquisition excellence for acquiring and developing military space systems. SMC consists of six space systems wings and three groups responsible for GPS, military satellite communications, defense meteorological  satellites, space launch and range systems, satellite control network, space based infrared systems and space situational awareness capabilities.