The United States will be creating an interagency Space Operation Center to combine Department of Defense (DOD) and Intelligence Community (IC) resources to defend US space assets, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said on Tuesday.

"We are intent on setting up a joint, interagency and combined Space Operation Center in which both the IC and DOD sit," Work said at the 2015 Geospatial Intelligence Symposium.

The new space center will be functional and in operation within the next six months, Work stated.

The interagency center would centralize the array of capabilities including space awareness, and intelligence and warning - currently spread across multiple programs - into a "single, coherent constellation," Work explained.

"We are going to develop the tactics techniques, the rules of the road that will allow us to fight the architecture and protect it while it is under attack," he added, noting the defense of the US space mission is the DOD's "highest priority."

In the 2016 US defense and intelligence budgets, approximately $5 billion was shifted to prioritize space security.

US military leaders have expressed increasing concern over the vulnerability of US space assets. Technologically advanced nations, including Russia and China, have developed sophisticated counter space, and counter satellite capabilities that could potentially jeopardize critical US space-based defenses, according to the US military.

Source: Sputnik News