Space Warfighting Heritage - The Dawn of Deep Space Surveillance Published Sept. 9, 2025 By Lt. Col. Casey J. Waters, Historian SpOC History Office Today, the world relies on a variety of space surveillance systems, including the Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) system, to track over 47,000 man-made objects in orbit. With its one-meter-wide telescope, and advanced digital camera technology, GEODSS can see objects the size of a basketball from more than 20,000 miles away. This powerful technology is part of the USSF’s Space Surveillance Network (SSN) and allows Mission Delta 2 Guardians to continuously monitor space objects and debris deep in space to ensure satellites remain safe in low earth and geosynchronous orbit. The original GEODSS prototype station was constructed at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and first demonstrated its satellite tracking capabilities on September 1st, 1975. During the 1980s, the Air Force operated the system as part of its space detection and tracking mission from sites at Maui, Diego Garcia, Socorro, New Mexico and South Korea. The system has undergone several refurbishments and upgrades since its inception, including the addition of a powerful digital camera in 2005 that allows GEODSS to track multiple satellites simultaneously throughout its field of view. Though the South Korean site was inactivated in the 1990s, the three remaining GEODSS locations are operated by the 15th Space Surveillance Squadron (SPSS) and remain a critical USSF space domain awareness capability. The Maui Space Surveillance Complex circa 1997. Today the MSSC houses small, medium, and large-aperture optics, including GEODSS, and is operated by the 15 SPSS (USAF photo) The GEODSS site located at Diego Garcia (USSF Photo)