air and space forces magazine
The Pentagon is developing space-based sensors that can distinguish missile threats from clutter as a key part of the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.
“We’re working on prototyping space sensor capabilities, in particular, Discriminating Space Sensor(DSS) to help improve ballistic missile defense in the future,” said Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, who heads the Missile Defense Agency, at a May 13 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We will prototype it, and the Space Force will operationalize it.”
Cold War-era systems like the Defense Support Program and the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) have existed for decades, but these launch-detection systems sometimes struggle to discriminate between real targets, decoys, and debris. The new DSS aims to distinguish real warheads from everything else to enable interceptors to defeat missiles in mid-flight.
An MDA spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the agency wants to launch a prototype satellite by 2029.
