Space Situational Awareness topic of international exchange Published Sept. 8, 2014 KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Key Air Force Research Laboratory personnel are headed to the world's premier conference on space situational awareness. The Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference will take place Sept. 9-12 in Hawaii. The conference will take place in close proximity to one of the U.S. Air Force's premier sites for space situational awareness--the Maui Optical & Supercomputing Site on top of Haleakala, an extinct volcano. This site is a key operating location for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate based in Albuquerque, N.M. The site is home to the Department of Defense's largest telescope and a dedicated team of Air Force employees and their contractors who conduct daily operations at the site. Gen. John Hyten, Air Force Space Command commander, is slated to deliver the keynote address Sept. 9, during a policy forum on space situational awareness. Space situational awareness, enabling the U.S to maintain its leadership in space and protect its space assets, is a priority for AFRL's Directed Energy and Space Vehicles Directorates located at Kirtland Air Force Base. AFRL is a leader in space situational awareness research, combining telescopes with adaptive optics and advanced computing technologies to deliver satellite images of unprecedented detail. In July, the laboratory also launched ANGELS, a space situational surveillance satellite experiment. During the AMOS Conference, AFRL engineers and scientists will meet with representatives from a cross-section of military, industrial, and academic communities from over 17 countries. These technical interactions and the collaborations that can ensue are critical to the overall mission of defending the nation's space assets. For more information on the AMOS Conference visit http://amostech.com/.