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This morning, Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess sat before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing to become the Space Force's third Chief of Space Operations.

If confirmed, he'll succeed Gen. Chance Saltzman, who's retiring this year after four years leading the youngest branch of the U.S. military.

Schiess currently serves as Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations. Before that: commander of Space Forces-Space, and the Combined Joint Force Space Component Command at U.S. Space Command. Over 30 years in uniform, starting in the Air Force before transferring to the Space Force in 2022.

The committee still has to vote. Then it goes to the full Senate. But this hearing is the next real step toward new leadership for a service that's been ordered to double in size by 2030.

SFA looks forward to supporting him, and the Guardians he will lead, in the chapter ahead.

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Space forces must be prepared to act before conditions are clear or convenient.

Gen. Whiting explains that satellites are persistently or predictably exposed to adversary weapons engagement zones. That makes first-strike resilience and rapid transition essential. The force cannot wait until a crisis begins to develop the habits, authorities, and relationships needed to respond.

Training under degraded and denied conditions builds the muscle memory required for real operations. Dynamic planning helps teams adapt when events do not match assumptions. Pre-established authorities ensure decisions are already understood across the joint force, allies, partners, and the intelligence community.

In space, preparation is what compresses response time.

The organizations that align before conflict will be better positioned to act when seconds matter.

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You can't fly without space. You can't fight without it either.
SFA Founder Bill Woolf on the moment Red Flag proved what space superiority actually means for the joint force. Full conversation with SYD 81 Commander Col. Corey Klopstein on the Spacepower Podcast

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Fighter pilots don't go to war on day one. First comes Red Flag, the punishing mock combat over the Nevada desert designed to be harder than anything a pilot will ever face in actual conflict, so that when the real moment comes, it isn't the first time.

For most of the space mission's history, that rehearsal didn't exist. Guardians operated systems that had only ever been tested in benign environments. The capabilities were real. The training wasn't. System Delta 81 is the unit changing that.

In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Col. Corey Klopstein, Commander of System Delta 81 at Space Systems Command, to discuss the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure, OTTI, the Space Force's answer to Red Flag, and why building it is one of the most consequential things SSC is doing right now.

In this conversation, Col. Klopstein discusses:

- Why the Space Force went this long without a Red Flag equivalent, and what changed in the threat environment to make OTTI urgent

- The three layers of space test and training infrastructure: digital simulation, physical on-orbit assets, and the data architecture connecting them

- Why a simulation is only as honest as the live data feeding it, and what it takes to build a physical lane that validates the digital one

- What a range-as-a-service contract looks like in practice, and how a commercial satellite's on-orbit maneuver became a live Guardian training event

- Why SYD 81 pairs with multiple commands simultaneously, Space Training and Readiness Command and Combat Forces Command, rather than a single Mission Delta

- How the Joint Simulation Environment, already used by F-35 pilots, is being extended for space

- What Gen. Saltzman told Col. Klopstein about delivering an F-22 without a training infrastructure, and why that analogy captures exactly what OTTI solves

- Why "when I say football and you say football, we need to mean the same thing", and what that has to do with building a shared operational language across commands and allies

- What ruthless prioritization looks like for a mission area with more requirements than people and more requirements than money

You can build the most advanced satellite in the world. If the Guardian operating it has never trained against a thinking adversary, you haven't delivered combat power. This episode is about the infrastructure that closes that gap, before the conflict starts.

Hosted by Bill Woolf

Produced by Ty Holliday

Guest:

Col. Corey Klopstein, Commander, System Delta 81, Space Systems Command

Col. Klopstein commands System Delta 81, the Space Systems Command unit responsible for developing and delivering the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure for the Space Force. On his 13th year at Los Angeles Air Force Base, he serves as both the SYD 81 commander and the Portfolio Acquisition Executive and Program Acquisition Executive for infrastructure. SYD 81 works across Space Training and Readiness Command and Combat Forces Command to ensure delivered capabilities are tested against real threats and Guardians are trained to operate them before the first flag event.

Learn more about Space Systems Command: https://www.ssc.spaceforce.mil/

Learn more about the U.S. Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/

Join SFA: https://ussfa.org/

Subscribe for more conversations on spacepower, national security, and the future of the space domain.

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Growth in space capability has to be matched by growth in the infrastructure that makes operations possible.

At a budget hearing, CSO Gen. Saltzman identified three areas of increased emphasis: space control capabilities, launch infrastructure, and the support structures needed for training, testing, and operational readiness. Each is connected to a larger national security problem. The United States must protect its own assets, deny adversaries the ability to use space-enabled targeting, and sustain the launch tempo required to place new capabilities on orbit.

Budgets are not only lists of programs. They reveal what a force believes it must be able to do.

In a contested space domain, investment in control, launch, and training capacity is investment in credible combat power.

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GPS is way more than a military tool. It provides directions, guides aircraft, synchronizes the entire internet, enables precision farming. The US Space Force provides it, free of charge, to the entire world, and it's only getting more powerful. Listen to the full conversation on the Spacepower Podcast

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