US military ends long-running program to spot nuclear missile launches

The US Space Force has retired the long-running Defense Support Program, a foundational missile-launch detection capability that helped underpin U.S. deterrence for more than five decades. For CIOs and technology leaders, this highlights how mission-critical legacy systems can remain operational far beyond their original design life, but also how strategic modernization is essential to avoid capability gaps, manage technical debt, and transition to more advanced sensor platforms with better performance and resilience.