U.S. Space Forces–Space Outlines Joint and Allied Integration Strategies at Space and Missile Defense Symposium
U.S. Space Force Col. Ernest “Bobby” Schmitt, S4S director of operations, represented the command on two panels: one examining the military services’ contributions to U.S. Space Command and a second on the growing role of international partners in space operations.
As the Space Force service component to USSPACECOM, S4S commands combat forces in space superiority operations and delivers global space-enabled effects to the Joint Force.
“We work with allies and partners to command U.S. Space Force systems, protect and defend U.S. Space Command’s area of responsibility, and deliver critical capabilities to the Joint Force around the globe,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt organized that mission around four operational priorities: protect, defend, connect and deliver. Together, they enable S4S to safeguard space capabilities, connect combat forces across commands, and get space-derived data and effects to warfighters at the speed and scale required.
“The bottom line is our mission at S4S is to enhance blue kill chains, make them more effective, and to break red kill chains - to keep the enemy from using their space capabilities against us,” he said.
That mission reflects an operating environment that has shifted considerably over Schmitt’s roughly 25 years in space operations.
“I think when I joined the U.S. Air Force doing space operations, we assumed it was a benign domain and that our satellites were completely protected and that we could use them at will to do what we want to do across the Joint Force,” Schmitt said. “I think those assumptions are no longer valid - the space domain is under threat. It’s increasingly congested. The adversaries continue to put more satellites up and contest our ability to use space.”
Meeting that challenge depends on integration across military services, combatant commands, allies and partners.
The approach reflects how U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, designated 2026 as the command’s “Year of Integration” - an effort, as Schmitt and other panelists described it, to build a synchronized, agile and combat-ready space enterprise across military services, combatant commands, allies, commercial partners and other government organizations.
During the international panel, Schmitt described how that integration is embedded in day-to-day S4S operations. Allied exchange officers and liaison officers serve throughout the command and are integrated directly into operational planning teams rather than added later.
“The way we work with allies and partners is really integrated into the fabric of S4S,” Schmitt said. “In any kind of planning that we do, we’ve got representatives from all the partner nations that are part of the team. They’re already there, ready to work through that planning process.”
S4S also serves as the operational execution arm for Multinational Force–Operation Olympic Defender, a seven-nation coalition - the Five Eyes nations plus Germany and France. Schmitt said the coalition has progressed from an idea centered on information sharing to one capable of planning and conducting combined space operations.
“I remember years ago when MNF-OOD was first stood up, and back then it was more of an idea focused on information and awareness,” Schmitt said. “To see how much progress we’ve made just in the last few years, bringing that from information sharing to really combined operations, has been remarkable.”
The coalition continues to build out shared concepts of operations across its core mission areas, work Schmitt described as the structure needed to operate together in steady-state campaigning and, if necessary, crisis or conflict.
Recent coalition activity has tested those concepts directly. Operation Selene, a Canadian-led effort conducted under MNF-OOD, combined the space domain awareness capabilities of all seven nations to maintain custody of a high-interest object in orbit. Whiting previously described Selene as the coalition’s “most focused, combined space domain awareness operation to date” and announced it would become an enduring MNF-OOD operation.
“We built so many new ways to be able to break through barriers and work together,” Schmitt said.
Information-sharing and classification restrictions remain a challenge, Schmitt said, though the coalition is actively working to reduce those barriers rather than letting them stall progress.
“We have spent a significant amount of time working through the capabilities that the alliance brings,” he said. “What I see in Multinational Force–Operation Olympic Defender is a common strategy, a common vision across the nations.”
Schmitt’s comments reflect guidance from U.S. Space Force Lt. Gen. Dennis Bythewood, S4S commander and Combined Joint Force Space Component commander for U.S. Space Command, who has emphasized throughout 2026 that space is an active warfighting domain and that allied integration is fundamental to maintaining space superiority and delivering combat effects across the Joint Force.
For Schmitt, the value of that integration is straightforward.
“I think it’s important that we highlight just how working together definitely makes us more capable,” he said. “Yes, it’s a challenge we have to work through, but rather than just admiring the problem, we’re working hard together to get through those problems and operate more effectively as a coalition.”
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