DAHLGREN, Va. -- Col. Jay G. Santee, 21st Space Wing commander, visited the 20th Space Control Squadron Detachment 1, a 21st Space Wing geographically separated unit, at Naval Support Facility Dahlgren on March 14 and 15.
The Dahlgren detachment, commanded by Maj. Steven Krehbiel, was established in 2004 to assume operations from the Navy of the nation's oldest space surveillance radar, informally known as the "Fence." The unit also took on the Navy's Alternate Space Control Center mission as the backup computation and command and control node for the Joint Space Operations Center.
During a commander's call with military and civilian members of the detachment, Colonel Santee reviewed the vision and mission priorities of the Air Force's command structure devoted to providing operational space support. Beginning with the Air Force Space Command, he emphasized that one of the command's strategic priorities are to preserve and expand our ability to deliver space effects to the joint fight.
"That means we're not going to dismantle current functional systems" without having the means to carry on current missions, he said.
Another priority for the Air Force is to develop, field and sustain dominant space capabilities. "Space situational awareness is the focus of the future of joint space operations," Colonel Santee added. "This unit is critical to that capability in providing surveillance data from sensor observations to maintain the space object catalog," he said.
When added to other intelligence, the data provided by 20th SPCS Detachment 1 is crucial to the 21st Space Wing's mission to "conduct world-class space superiority operations," he said.
20th SPCS Detachment 1 is comprised of 10 active-duty Air Force members, more than 40 civilian employees and about 100 contractor personnel working to support Dahlgren operations and also operate the nine remote field stations that make up the AFSPC Surveillance System.