The U.S. Space Force is preparing to decommission the system that was tracking space activity and transition to a new system by year’s end on an “aggressive schedule,” service and industry officials say. 

L3Harris Technologies is building the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS)–part of the Space Command and Control architecture–following on in the breakup of the Joint Space Operation Center Mission System (JMS). It is modernizing the Space Force’s space command-and-control capabilities using modern software development methods. 

The space command and control architecture has been operationally accepted, said Brig Gen. Tim Sejba, program executive officer of Space Battle Management Command, Control and Communications & Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power. Legacy JMS data feeds are being provided to operators.

“As far as ATLAS was goes, we’ve been on a very aggressive schedule to deliver capabilities here,” Sejba said, adding that the L3Harris’s first application is about to begin developmental testing.

About a year ago the Space Force adopted a concept of conducting developmental and operational testing in an integrated fashion, he said. “The idea is to be able to bring developers, industry players and operational testers together and do all the testing at one time.”