Silent Sentry: Defending the final frontier: Air, space and cyberspace - these are the three domains that the United States Air Force strives to defend. Of these domains, space has become one of the most crowded and competitive. At any given time, there are innumerable signals being transmitted to and from satellites, with each signal taking up space in the electromagnetic spectrum.
"Space is now contested and congested," said Deborah Lee James, the former Air Force secretary, during her State of the Air Force address in September 2016. "It is extremely important to everything that we do in the military, including precision guidance, navigation, missile warning, weather, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and communication."
With so much of the Air Force's capabilities relying on space assets, defense of these assets is becoming increasingly important.
So, how does the Air Force defend its resources in space? One answer to this question was a proof of concept system started in 2005. At that time, the 379th Expeditionary Operation Support Squadron was tasked with testing the capabilities of a new defensive space control system, which would protect U.S. Central Command's satellite networks. The proof of concept was so successful that the operation remained active, and is now called Operation Silent Sentry.
