Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion On Space The U.S. Militar

Flying military satellites. This event is hosted by space news. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks everyone for joining us. Were happy to have you. And wed like to welcome our panelists. Good afternoon general sean, Major General john sean joining us from Vandenberg Air force base. Welcome, can you hear us. I can hear you. Can you hear me . Perfect. So Major General john shaw is the commander of the Space Operations command under the u. S. Space force and hes also the commander of the combined force Space Component under u. S. Space command. So general shaw, im sure this was a very exciting weekend. You commanded the task force 45 that was responsible for being on alert in the event that the nasa astronauts had to be rescued. So i guess maybe if you wouldnt mind starting walking us through what happened with this launch and also telling us more broadly in the Space Force Im sure a lot of people ask you what do you do in the space force and im sure you tell them everything that you do, we provide satellite communications, we provide gps, missile warning, you provide weather services. But not a lot of people understand that you also provide support for human space flight. So maybe tell us, walk us through the mission on saturday and what were some of your big takeaways, thank you. Thank you sand raw and brian and to Northrop Grumman for hosting this and greetings from the coast of california. Thank you for this opportunity. And while you asked me a lot of things up front so ill talk for a little bit. Let me say it was not only a really incredible weekend, it has been an incredible month. The month of may, of 2020, not only did we have demo mission two and dragon over the weekend but earlier this month we launched an x37 from Cape Canaveral as well. We spent the entire month of may with an open window for people in the air force to potentially transfer into the space force. That window closed last night at midnight. And now i think our personnel experts are going through the process of seeing who applied and who do we have that may be a candidate to transfer into the space force. And then on top of that, we had two space force recruiting commercials in the month of may. I thought they were cool to watch and interesting and the ops senor that shows up in the commercials is out here at Vandenberg Air force space, it is the operations center, the new one well move into later this year. And then i couldnt finish by not acknowledging we also had the netflix version of space force make its debut in may also. Quite a month. And so brian, i dont know how i think you need a special edition of space news just to capture all of those things. But i need to say with all of that, we continued as a space force and u. S. Space command with the expertise of our space professionals to continue to do Space Operations worldwide in the midst of the pandemic that is affecting all of us right now. And im most proud of that fact and what we were able to do in may of 2020. All right. So, sandra, let me clarify the task force or the commander of task force 45 is brigadier who will take to you in a minute and would you like to set the stage and address your question about responsibilities here at Vandenberg Air force space. So, yes, the dragon capsule launch, remarkable thing to watch. I have a front re seat here at the combined space center here and we did have an Important Mission that well talk about through the lions share of this webinar of our support to Personnel Recovery, potential Personnel Recovery for the astronauts. But the department of defense has been supporting space flight from the beginning. 60 years ago when we were first sending humans into space, the department of defense was supporting that and weve done it through the entire history and were proud to support nasa in that regard. What happened this past weekend is a change. It is marked a new era not only for nasa but also for us in supporting them. Let me what you those changes are from my perspective. First organizationally were in a different place than during the shuttle era or during the mercury, gemini and apollo era. We have and should point back to in 2019 two gargantuan events happened in regard to space for our nation. The first on december 20th was space force. And that is cause caught the attention in the media recently and standing up the six branch of the United States military. But we should also not forget on the 29th of august we stood up the United States Space Command. We restood it up. We had stood down in 2002 and stood it back up again last year and that was a massive event. So i think one way to look at this if george lucas were to do a documentary, he would title it the rise of space force and the return of Space Command, two things that happened in 2019. So why does that matter for us . U. S. Space command inherited what were u. S. Strategic commands responsibilities for support to man space flight. General raymond in his hat as commander of the United States space kpland is assigned the duties by the command plan down to us from the president , he was assigned the duties as the manager of dod support to human space flight. And in my role as a component commander, so im an operational level commander within the United States Space Command as the combined force Space Component commander, as operational duty those fall on me to command and control all of the forces and capabilities and events that might surround a possible support and event that needs support to human space flight. That is my role in that regard, sandra, as you asked. I also have other roles we could talk about later because i dont want to lose focus on this get to general chessen and Lieutenant Colonel and i am fighting in other National Security needs around the globe. In an operational context in my role there. I also work for general raymond in his other hat as chief of Space Operations as the commander of Space Operations command, which was what 14th air force was redesignated as. There was a lot of paperwork that went on in the end of last year. I was a 14th air commander in space force and then i bam became the commander of space cooperations command and that means all of the space forces presented to the United States Space Command fell under me in that regard as well and that includes the 45th space wing and debt three who youll hear from today. And so i have again a great front row seat in being able to wear both hats in this job that i have here at Vandenburg Air force base. That involved more than the personal recovery mission. Weve been supporting human space flight tor decades, even during the post shuttle era by providing awareness to the International Space station. So if there is a piece of debris that might come close to the International Space station, our Space Surveillance Network that works for me and in my joint hat will detect that and well noti notify nation nasa and well make adjustments so weve been doing that for a long time. But there are others beyond that lunch just what was done down in florida that is worldwide. We set up sat com networks to recover globally to allow them to talk and that is Something Else we had to do. There is an International Partnership to this. We were in touch with other Space Operations centers letting them know what was going on and i would like to thank the United Kingdom and they helped us with our space awareness analysis so make sure we had a good window for a safe launch for the dragon to make it to the International Space station. So it is a beg team effort and the nerve center was here at combined Space Operation center so that is organizationally how were lined and different than in the past. A second way this is different, last weekend was different for us was the methodology. Its true weve said the first time we returned to space from american soil since 2011, the shuttle era. But were not using shuttle. Were using a capsule again. So we really have to go back to 1975 to remember when we were last supporting capsule for personal recovery operations an that is a whole different profile in terms of Mission Planning and contingency scenario than the shuttle. The shuttle could maneuver and possibly land at an airfield and that required support. The capsule doesnt have that maneuverability but has the possibility of landing just about anywhere and can land just about anywhere. The ability to support that as general chesson and colonel thompson will talk about, that is different. So we had to back to the future and go back to the capsule era. Another thing that is different in the early stage of human space flight we supported three capsules in a serial fashion. We had mercury and gemini and then apollo and the recovery forces learned how to one recover one capsule and then another and then up until 1975 that is the capsule they focused on. Now they have to focus on training for three capsules simultaneously. They trained for the shuttle last this past weekend and training for possible recovery of the star liner capsule being provided by boeing. And theyre also training for possible recovery of the orian capsule that nasa is developing. So we put a lot on their plate to potentially recover astronauts from any three capsules and theyre all different to some degree. And then ill go more thing that is different that made and put us in a new era is technology is different. It was different than in 2011 and much different than it was in 1975. We have gps today. We didnt have that in 1975. That could aid in our recovery. We have sat com networks around the globe that are much more robust than in 1975 to enable a global footprint for a possible recovery and rescue operation. And we also have c17s. We didnt have those in 1975 and they provide speed and a global reach and the ability of a platform to deploy para rescue forces from that platform that we didnt have in 1975. And you put all of these things together that i just laid out, were in a human space flight and supporting nasa and with that i would like to turn it over to Brigadier General chesson. Hes in charge of the recovery forces worldwide to conduct those operations as needed and then i would from an operational perspective would provide any support he needed from other commands that we coordinate with or other forces but he was at tip of the spear and even more so Lieutenant Colonel thompson so i would like to turn it over to them to talk more about the operation. Thank you so much for that overview, general shaw. And of course Brigadier General chess is the commander of the 45th space wing. Commander of the eastern range. Commander of task force 45. So welcome from Patrick Air Force base. Thank you for joining us and please tell us and walk us through the mission on saturday, how did it go and at what point did you know that things were going well and you just didnt need to do anything else . Well, hey, sandra, great to see you again and thanks for allowing us to be here. General shaw, thanks for allowing michael and i to be a part of this. And so this, as general shaw said, may is an incredible month with the launch of space force 7 and the last couple of weeks or years preparing for the next launch but the last couple of weeks of preparing for this specifically. And it is interesting being the commander of the 45th space wing and task force 45, we had a lot of different roles on wednesday and then on saturday. And first off we had our normal launch roles that we do providing what we like to say is Public Safety and resource protection. So we were responsible for that. My Vice Commander colonel brandy walton was the launch Decision Authority for this. On wednesday it was our weather folks that had to say that the weather just wasnt right for that launch. But on saturday the weather cooperated and the best weather forecasters in the world were able to provide us the need, the information we needed to make the right decisions. And then of course we also have mission assurance. And so we were right there alongside with the spacex partners and nasa to make sure that the mission was going. On the launch side, it actually happened to be a pretty busy count at the end. We had weather issues that we were awaiting for and weather didnt clear until about 30 minutes prior. And then unusual for the eastern range, we had some range issues at the end and the incredible folks that work the instruments were able to fix those to make sure we had a green range and then working some issues with spacex to make sure we had all of the right data. So busy launch. Once we got four minutes to go, i knew we were good and my activity was focused on task force 45 where the men and women of detachment three and airmen across the air force came together and across the world actually. We had forces here at Patrick Air Force base and in charleston and hawaii that were ready to do what they needed to do if the astronauts got into trouble. We were prepared. The team has been prepared for five years. Debt three has been preparing for five years for this day. And theyve had a long history. Detach. Three and the human space flight and doing the soyuz to help out if there was an issue during takeoff and landing. So this team is a bunch of rescue experts and do an incredible job and Michael Thompson will talk about what theyre doing. I cant say any more how proud i am of the men and women of the 45th space wing and the task force 45 for the efforts over the last couple of weeks and specifically this weekend up to docking and then watching our two astronauts, bob and doug, into the International Space station for me here and everybody at the Cape Canaveral space station. Will you have to deploy an operation when they return . Yes. So were on the hook to be ready for when they come back down. And Michael Thompson can talk to you more about the details of that. But, yes, we have to be prepared as they deorbit back down and hopefully everything works out and spacex can get the capsule themselves. But again if there was an afoll anomaly our team has to be prepared to execute that rescue. Before we go to Lieutenant Colonel Michael Thompson the commander of the 45th Operational Group detachment three, there is a video that we would like to show that shows what you do. If that is okay, lets go and see the video first. That is perfect. With the retirement of nasa Shuttle Program in 2011, the u. S. Is not seen human space flight from its soil in almost a decade. The airmen detachment three have stayed Mission Ready and been there since the beginning of human space flight. From red stone rockets to the launch vehicles of today, they oversee launch rescue force for all manned space Flight Operations and ensuring the safety of our nations astronauts. Leading up to the return of human space flight, the team has bhn training and working with spacex, nasa and boeing to prepare for any type of launch rescue. This training allows our team to work with and demonstrate to current and future Mission Partners and our nation our continued ability to ensure that an astronauts worse day is not their last day. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Thompson, so have you been training the teams for the whole five years . How long have you been doing it and what are some of the highlights for you . Thanks, sandra. That was a great video. Appreciate putting that together and showing that. Because it does a great job of showing what the team is going to do on that day if theyre called upon. So ive been here for just over two years now. Been the commander here. Came from an operational unit im an hc130 pilot by trade. So the last two years have been the Fourth Quarter getting ready for this. Weve been working with boeing and spacex, especially spacex over the last year as we finalize and put the finishing touches on the ttp for the rescue scenario. The organization here, were pretty small. Were only about 30 personnel here at the det. So the work has been with the small corp. When we get ready for the mission, task 45 stands up and we have about 150 peek to execute the mission. In contrast, in the apollo era, the late apollo stage was almost 6,000 personnel that had 24 aircraft and seven navy vessels that were used to execute this mission. Today we posture like i said 150 members. A total of eight aircraft. And three different locations. So weve got folks that posture here at patr