Space Force Tech. Sgt. Alaowei W. Monibidor serves as the mission readiness section chief for Detachment 2, 53rd Space Operations Squadron, Space Delta 8, and when he got called and asked to deploy on short notice to an undisclosed location, he immediately said yes. During the deployment, he helped provide command and control for electronic warfare elements in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, including during Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran.
In a press release published by the Department of Defense, he spoke about how challenging it was moving between combatant commands and their wildly different missions.
"It was a fundamental pivot from deterring a peer adversary to actively countering violent extremist organizations and state-sponsored aggression," Monibidor explained. For European Command, he participated in a simulated exercise in which, "My role was to provide the commanders and their staff with missile threat warning[s] and options for space electronic warfare command and control against a near-peer adversary."
In the Middle East, his mission shifted radically, including his participation in Operation Midnight Hammer, a U.S. airstrike campaign against Iran's Highly Enriched Uranium facilities. Monibidor's job "revolved around maintaining friendly access to and superiority in the space domain, while denying or degrading the adversary's ability to use space for their operations," he said.
America's newest branch of service, the Space Force, sees his deployment as proof of the value that they can deliver to combatant commanders worldwide.
"This deployment proves that space isn't a separate or future battlefield; it's integral to every joint operation happening right now," Monibidor said.
