The Space Force plans to launch satellites that can track vehicles and ships within the next year, a senior official said, and eventually use that work to figure out how to track airborne targets from orbit.
The ground moving target indicator mission, known as GMTI, is a joint effort between the Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office to help the military track targets on the ground from space—a mission handled until 2023 by the aging, airborne E-8 JSTARS fleet.
The service has already launched some “initial satellites” to enable GMTI, such as radar satellites and communications satellites to allow the satellites to transfer data, but the “actual GMTI satellites” will launch in the next year, said Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear. Burt declined to say how many satellites will be in the constellation, citing classification.
The service has also been building the comms infrastructure in the “joint mission management center” located at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Springfield, Virginia, to process and share information when the satellites get online, Burt said during a Mitchell event Monday.
“We have designated Delta 7 as the lead Delta to help us deliver ground moving target indicator,” Burt said. “We have a small detachment of Delta 7 operators that are sitting today at Springfield, working side by side with NGA on how we get after the tactics, techniques and procedures.” Delta 7 is the Space Force’s operational intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unit.
Once operational, Burt said the GMTI capability will be deployed first to a squadron in Indo-Pacific Command, then to other combatant commands.
The Space Force plans to use the GMTI mission to help create AMTI capabilities—that is, tracking track targets in the air. That job has been conducted by the Air Force’s aging E-3 Sentry, which was supposed to be replaced by the E-7 Wedgetail—a program that was canceled in the fiscal 2026 budget.
Pentagon officials said new space-based capabilities can do the job instead of the E-7, but some officials have warned that there will be a gap in near-term coverage since space-based solutions aren’t yet ready. Congress has already moved to save the program, but a final decision on the program won’t come until the 2026 budget is completed.
Space Force officials have previously said they aim to do both AMTI and GMTI by the early 2030s. Burt declined to say how quickly the Space Force could field AMTI, but said there are opportunities to move faster by using technology from commercial companies. The program also got a major boost in the reconciliation bill, which put aside $2 billion for air moving target indicator military satellites. Some of that money will go to research and development of AMTI and figure out how it would be put together as a constellation, Burt said. Pentagon officials have previously said that there are “prototype systems on orbit” for the AMTI mission, and some demonstrations are underway.
The Pentagon is finishing up an analysis of alternatives on AMTI this fall, she said, which will help officials determine when and where to use space-based assets for the tracking mission. Burt emphasized that there’s “no one silver bullet” for AMTI, and that it will require a variety of “phenomenologies”—essentially different ways to do the job.
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