This is the first in a two-part series on the role of the Space Force in responding to Iran’s attacks on Israel in 2024. Part 2 will run later this week.

When missiles are detected putting U.S. or allies at risk, alarms ring out, sending Space Force Guardians scrambling to calculate trajectories and potential impact areas and to determine if any U.S. or allied assets are at risk. Within minutes, if not seconds, they share those alerts.  

Those alert tones rang out fast and furious on April 13, 2024, when Iran launched some 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones toward Israel, more than 1,000 miles to its west. 

To Mission Delta 4 commander Col. Ernest “Bobby” Schmitt, the picture of what they were seeing that night is as clear as day: “‘Bing, bing, bing, bing,’ just constant missiles populating on their screens,” he said. 

Schmitt wasn’t on the ops floor that night, but he was among the Guardians made available to Air & Space Forces Magazine to discuss their missile detection and warning operations in April and October, when Iran launched missile barrages at Israel. Their work helped nullify both attacks, and their names and some details are being withheld here to protect security and classification concerns. 

“It’s three dings,” the division chief for current operations for Space Delta 5 said. “So you hear ‘Ding, ding, ding’ and then it tells you what’s going on. But it’s the kind of thing that once you’ve heard it 300 times, it’ll give you nightmares for the rest of your life. It just keeps playing.” 

Each set of “dings” starts a process of calculations, data validation, and passing information along. Crews of a half-dozen or so Guardians work together on each track—and they have to work fast. 

“It gets loud, but you know who you’re listening for,” a sergeant with the 2nd Space Warning Squadron said. “So we have two crew chiefs … and then we have two junior enlisted who are like the data processors, and so they’re communicating to us what they’re seeing, and then the crew chiefs are shouting out, like, for example, ‘I agree with that, we’re good to go.’ And then we have one person who’s kind of bouncing around between the crew chiefs who is making sure that everyone’s on the same page.” 

Thousands of miles away, their work was being translated for U.S., Israeli, and allied interceptors and aircraft that intercepted most of the incoming missiles and drones, minimizing casualties and damage.

The military response was widely reported at the time, and later, focusing largely on the heroics of air crew who flew into the teeth of the attack. But the Space Force’s role was largely shrouded in secrecy—until now. 

“The scale of missile attacks we have been seeing over the past couple of years is rapidly changing,” Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, commander of Space Forces-Space, said in an October statement. “We are no longer experiencing missile defense as a singular engagement but need to be prepared to provide tracking and warning of multiple missiles being shot simultaneously, as was made evident during Iran’s recent missile strike. Our Guardians, joint and coalition operators have demonstrated their expertise in this, and are able to send missile warning notifications in a matter of minutes to help protect our Allies and Partners in times of crisis.” 

Space-based missile warning dates back to the Defense Support Program in the 1970s, but capabilities continue to advance as the Space Force expands its capability with new satellites in all orbits. 

Space Operations Command’s Mission Delta 4 uses DSP and Space-Based Infrared System satellites for missile warning, along with the ground-based Upgraded Early Warning Radar and the Long-Range Discrimination Radar. With crews scattered across the country and overseas, in the United Kingdom and Greenland, the Delta combines the feeds from those systems to identify and track threats.  

Delta 4 operates 24/7/365 to ensure no missile launch ever catches the U.S. by surprise. Yet tedious as such a constant watch might seem, Guardians never relax, said a first lieutenant with the 11th Space Warning Squadron. 

“You’d think that would be the case, where you’re worried about people losing their focus and whatnot,” said the lieutenant, who was part of the crew that responded to the October attack. “But I think we realize as a unit how big of an impact we have and how important we are to the mission, that in a way, it’s hard to lose focus.” 

Missile launches are most typically singular events. But since January 2020, when Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. forces at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, the Space Force has faced increasing numbers of missile traces at once.

At the time of the April 13 attack, it was “unprecedented as far as the volume and scope and time constraints,” Schmidt said—some 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, in addition to 170 drones. 

On the floor, operators knew something was coming. Iran had promised retaliation after an Israeli airstrike in Syria, but its timing was not clear. 

“It kind of came on gradually,” said the sergeant from the 2nd SWS. “We saw what was happening from the first launch. It was just like, ‘All right, focus up everyone! Let’s get it done!’ And then, as it just kept growing and growing, we just had to really revert back to the basics of our training and just really focus in.” 

The duty crew that day was newly formed for a new force-generation cycle, so they were still getting to know each other. 

“There’s a lot more communication when you’re trying to find that chemistry, you’re pretty much saying every single thing you’re doing,” the sergeant said. “On a crew that I work with for a year, I already know, without them saying, what my counterpart is doing. Whereas now, with the new crew, it’s like, I’m going to voice what I would normally do, they’ll voice what they normally do, and then we can kind of get into the flow of things.” 

Time raced by. The process for tracking missiles is the same no matter what the volume of incoming looks like, said Mission Delta 4’s senior enlisted leader, Chief Master Sgt. Kyle Mullen. 

“They will be monitoring, and then they will get alerted with an audible [sound] that something is happening or that something looks like a missile,” Mullen said. “And so what they’ll do is, … check its trajectory, check to see what profile it’s building out. We have a two-person verification [team] so you’ve got somebody right there beside them, another experienced operator who’s like, ‘Yes, I see it. It’s going to this area.’” 

Then they notify the Combined Space Operations Center. 

“The first thing we’re looking at is, which sites are in the risk area,” said the Delta 5 division chief, a major. “Next thing is, do we have any personnel, naval vessels, anything else out there we need to do as a secondary, immediate communication. And then the third piece is looking at the overall status of data coming out.” 

Because the CSpOC is responsible for notifying U.S. and allied assets if they are in harm’s way, phone calls and notifications flew—“sheer chaos,” the major recalled. While the missiles were meant for Israel, U.S. assets in the region were in their path, so troops were scrambling to safety. 

The danger wasn’t a direct threat to the Guardians, but to air and ground crew half-way around the world. The Guardians just knew the quality and speed of their warnings was making a difference.  

“As you’ve worked it more and more, the concern [is] for what’s happening for people in the region, right?” the Delta 5 major said. “Because every missile has the potential for a loss of life.” 

But operators thousands of miles away were picking up their cues, heading into the fight, and in the end, 98 percent of the weapons hurled toward Israel were shot down, intercepted, or landed without effect.

Back in their operations centers, the crews came off their shifts and started to realize the enormity of what they’d just experienced. That night and in the days following, they saw news reports about the attacks, and took satisfaction in the fact that there were no U.S. casualties and minimal damage in Israel. 

“Sometimes you don’t see the effect that you have when you’re sitting in the chair, but seeing the impact afterwards is surreal,” said the 2nd SWS sergeant. “I had a friend that was deployed in the CENTCOM [area of responsibility] at the time, and just talking to him the next day, ‘You good? Everything good?  How are you doing?’ Stuff like that…” 

Meanwhile, Space Force leaders were already drawing lessons from the fight. Looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials knew missile barrages were becoming more and more common. With their newfound firsthand experience, Guardians set to work training for what Schmitt called the “new normal.”

Six months later, in April 2024, they would get another chance to put that training to the test.

Part 2 of this series will publish later this week.