Is Space Force Pivoting Too Soon?

Next-Gen OPIR Is More Than a Bridge—It's the Foundation of Missile Warning's Future

The U.S. Space Force should avoid making a similar mistake as it modernizes America's missile warning enterprise. To its credit, the Space Force is pursuing exactly the right long-term vision: a resilient, multi-layered architecture combining geosynchronous (GEO), medium-Earth orbit (MEO), and proliferated low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites tied together through the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) command-and-control network. This distributed architecture promises greater resiliency against attack, improved tracking of maneuvering hypersonic missiles, and the redundancy needed for future homeland missile defense initiatives such as Golden Dome.

The six SBIRS GEO satellites and their associated HEO payloads remain operational and are expected to serve well into the 2030s. Through the SBIRS Survivable Endurable Evolution (S2E2) program, the constellation is also receiving survivability upgrades that allow it to operate more effectively in contested environments.

Meanwhile, FORGE is specifically designed to integrate legacy SBIRS, Next-Generation OPIR, MEO, and proliferated LEO into a common operational picture. Detection by SBIRS or NGG can be fused on the ground with tracking data from LEO and MEO constellations, allowing continuous custody of complex threats such as hypersonic glide vehicles. This is exactly the architecture America should build. But that does not diminish the importance of NGG. In fact, it increases it.

Too often the public discussion treats Next-Generation OPIR as merely the successor to SBIRS. It is considerably more than that. NGG incorporates dramatically more sensitive infrared sensors, improved resiliency, enhanced cybersecurity, and modern spacecraft capable of operating in a far more contested environment than SBIRS was ever designed to endure. Rather than viewing NGG as a temporary bridge until MEO matures, policymakers should recognize it as the strategic backbone of the future architecture. LEO and MEO provide persistence, stereo tracking, and resilience. GEO provides continuous global stare, strategic warning, and the first detection that enables every other layer to function effectively. The architecture is strongest when all three layers complement one another—not when one is prematurely deemphasized.

Thankfully, industry performance is no longer the principal challenge. Lockheed Martin has completed the first NGG spacecraft, while RTX and other contractors have largely delivered payloads on schedule. The bottleneck has become launch availability. Competition for Vulcan, Falcon Heavy, and future New Glenn missions has slowed deployment just as the Space Force accelerates procurement of the new MEO constellation. That sequencing deserves scrutiny.

The MEO architecture will undoubtedly become an important element of future missile warning, particularly for maintaining track custody of maneuvering hypersonic weapons. However, no NGG satellite has yet demonstrated on-orbit performance. Until it does, policymakers should resist any temptation to reduce investment in the GEO layer or assume the emerging architecture will perform exactly as expected. History suggests major defense transitions rarely proceed exactly according to schedule.

Fortunately, this is not an either-or decision. SBIRS will continue operating into the next decade. The FORGE ground segment enables legacy and next-generation satellites to work together. MEO and LEO can gradually assume larger portions of the mission as they mature. That makes completion of the NGG constellation a low-regret investment rather than a sunk-cost exercise. Congress should therefore protect remaining NGG funding and prioritize launch opportunities during the FY27 appropriations cycle and FY28 Program Objective Memorandum process. Doing so strengthens—not competes with—the emerging multi-layer architecture.

The Space Force is building the right destination; however, the challenge is sequencing this transition correctly. History has repeatedly shown that modernization failures occur not because the vision was wrong, but because leaders abandoned proven capabilities before their replacements were fully demonstrated. America's future missile warning enterprise should be built on overlapping strength—not optimistic assumptions.

Christopher Stone previously served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy (2018–2019). His insights and opinions reflect independent analysis of space deterrence challenges and do not reflect the opinions of the Department of War or United States Government. The views of the author are his own.