Space News:
North Korea’s threat to strike Guam with a salvo of ballistic missiles has raised the stakes for a U.S. missile shield some see as compromised by potentially exploitable seams in its all-important space layer.
Years of program changes, delays and cancellations have created gaps in parts of the space-based layer of the missile defense shield meant to protect the United States and some allies from ballistic missile attacks, say military space analysts, although U.S. missile defense officials dispute such claims.
“The biggest deficiency in current U.S. missile defense plans is the absence of a satellite constellation for reliably tracking ballistic threats during the midcourse of their trajectory,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer and space analyst for the Lexington Institute think tank based in Washington…
