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 delivers 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.
Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center, situated 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.