Software-centric program replaces outdated SPADOC system, paving the way for improved space domain awareness.
The Space Force has announced that its Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS), a software-centric program designed to manage, process, and disseminate space monitoring data, has achieved „operational” status.
Ditching the „Old Clunker”
This milestone allows the Space Force to finally retire its antiquated Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC), a 1980s-era computer system used to track satellites, spacecraft, and space debris. SPADOC has remained in use despite nearly two decades of failed attempts to replace it.
Shannon Pallone, program executive officer of Battle Management, Command, Control, Communications, and Space Intelligence (BMC3I) at Space Systems Command, told Breaking Defense that operational acceptance of ATLAS delivers the key capabilities needed to end reliance on SPADOC.
Year-Long Trial Proves ATLAS’s Capabilities
ATLAS’s official greenlight follows a nearly year-long trial period at Space Operations Command’s Mission Delta 2, headquartered at Vandenberg SFB, Calif.
Pallone, speaking during the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance conference in Hawaii, explained that delta operators have successfully used the system to generate actual tracking data for space objects.
„[O]n the ops floor, it’s generating a catalog – it’s publishing data to Space-track.org. They’re using that as a primary system,” she said.
From Troubled Program to Operational Reality
SPADOC, which originally came online in the 1980s, was deemed an „old clunker” unfit for space warfighting functions by then-head of Air Force Space Command Gen. Jay Raymond back in 2017, who later went on to lead the Space Force.
Initiated in 2018 and contracted to L3Harris, ATLAS was intended to replace and improve upon the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) Mission System (JMS). However, the JMS program, which began in 2009 to replace SPADOC, was terminated in 2018 after a decade of effort and nearly $1 billion in spending.
Originally slated to become operational in 2022, ATLAS has faced technical challenges and schedule delays, leading then-Air Force Space Acquisition Executive Frank Calvelli to label it one of the Space Force’s three most troubled programs in 2023.
A „Major Coup”
Pallone emphasized the significance of decommissioning SPADOC.
„Maybe that’s when I’m just like: ‘I retire’,” she joked. „It’ll be a major coup.”
While there is currently no set timeframe for SPADOC’s shutdown, a Space Operations Command spokesperson told Breaking Defense that ATLAS’s operational acceptance marks a critical step in improving the Space Force’s ability to detect, track, and characterize objects in space with sufficient precision to maintain persistent „eyes” on adversary satellites.
A Foundation for Future Advancements
„That’s really just the start of getting after where we need to go in space domain awareness as a mission,” Pallone said. „I’m in a new baseline, and now I can start to do some really exciting things with that, and I can start to actually get after gaps instead of getting after modernizing… I want to get out of modernization into closing gaps, and this is going to let us do that.”
