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takyon writes:

The satellite and space debris tracking Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) has been handed over to the U.S. Air Force.

The most sophisticated space surveillance telescope ever developed is ready to begin tracking thousands of space objects as small as a softball. It's a boon to space surveillance and science and a new military capability important to the nation and the globe, an Air Force general says. "It's not often we get an opportunity to witness the beginning of an entirely new military capability," Air Force Maj. Gen. Nina Armagno said at the transfer event, "but that's exactly what we're doing here today."

[...] SST has increased space situational awareness from a narrow view of a few large objects at a time to a widescreen view of 10,000 objects as small as softballs, DARPA says. The telescope also can search an area larger than the continental United States in seconds and survey the entire geosynchronous belt in its field of view -- a quarter of the sky -- multiple times in a night. "From a military perspective, any one of those objects could put satellites at risk," Armagno said. "That's why this capability is so important to us in Air Force Space Command." The world and the threat have changed, she noted, adding, "We no longer have the luxury of assuming that we operate in a benign environment [or] that conflict will only be on land or at sea or in the air. Now we must concern ourselves with a conflict that may extend into space."

The SST will soon be moved to Australia:

Since it went online in 2011, the telescope has observed millions of asteroids and has led to the discovery of 3,600 new ones. "SST has become the most prolific tool for asteroid observations in the world," said Darpa's SST telescope manager Lindsay Millard. Currently, the SST is located at the White Sands Missle Range in New Mexico, but it won't be staying there much longer. According to an agreement signed in 2013, the Air Force will move the telescope to Australia at the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station. The Air Force will begin disassembling the telescope in the coming months and will oversee the transportation of the parts to Australia. Once it arrives in Australia, the telescope will be reassembled and ready for service in 2020.

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