The National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) said recently that the second Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) payload and associated ground system has been operationally accepted for the Technical Intelligence mission.
This completes an extensive planning, testing and coordination effort among the NSG, Air Force Space Command, and Air Force Space and Missile Command’s SBIRS Wing. These activities allowed the NSG to validate that SBIRS meets the technical intelligence community’s need for accurate, timely, reliable and unambiguous data for use in intelligence production, according to a statement released by the Air Force last week.
The NSG certified the SBIRS HEO-1 sensor on Aug. 27, 2009 and started HEO-2 mission operational acceptance activities immediately thereafter. For HEO-1 certification, the team validated that capabilities of the SBIRS ground system functioned properly and verified SBIRS data quality. The HEO-2 mission operational acceptance effort included data characterization as well as functionality testing of the SBIRS ground software.
The Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB, Calif., is the contracting authority. It has six wings and three groups responsible for GPS, military satellite communications, defense meteorological satellites, space launch and range systems, satellite control network, space based infrared systems and space situational awareness capabilities.