After about two years of preparatory work, the National Security Space Institute’s Space 200 course at Peterson AFB, Colo., is now open to students from Australia, Britain, and Canada. The course is NSSI’s mid-career course for space professional education. It’s designed to foster a cadre of space professionals who can think critically about the application of space power. Last week, two Canadian space officers joined the course, marking the first foreign students. Institute officials said allowing foreign participation is important since these nations’ space personnel already work hand-in-hand with US counterparts on a daily basis. Air Force Space Command and Air Education and Training Command worked together to develop the lesson plans and resolve the foreign-disclosure issues. NSSI falls under Air University’s Ira C. Eaker Center for Professional Development at Maxwell AFB, Ala. (Maxwell report by Army Maj. Jason Nunnery)
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.