Donald Trump is expected to set out a plan Thursday for space-based sensors designed shoot down incoming missiles from “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea. The president will present his administration’s missile-defense review, which is expected to warn of a “significant change to the threat environment” since 2010’s review. “What the missile defense review responds to is an environment in which our potential adversaries have been rapidly developing, and fielding, a much more expanded range of new offensive missiles,” said an administration official. “These missiles are capable of threatening the United States, threatening our allies, our partners, and our U.S. forces abroad.” Trump is expected to use the review as a justification for his so-called Space Force, and say the administration will look at putting a layer of sensors in space to detect enemy missiles when they are launched. The review will commission further study of space-based interceptors and lasers but isn’t expected to immediately call for the production “of anything specific.”
