early-orbit engineering checkout for a $1 billion NRO satellite. In 2000, Saltzman was selected to attend the USAF Weapons School. After graduating from the Weapons School in 2001, he was selected to remain at the Weapons School as an instructor. While there, he served as academics flight commander and an assistant director of operations. From 2003 to 2007, Saltzman returned to Vandenberg to serve in a variety of assignments. In March 2003, he served in the Fourteenth Air Force’s strategy division as the chief of operational assessment during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In July 2005, he was assigned as the first chief of combat plans for the Joint Space Operations Center, and later, as chief of combat operations. He served as the last commander for both the 614th Space Operations Squadron and 1st Space Control Squadron before their inactivation and their missions were merged to the 614th Air and Space Operations Center in 2007 and 2008, respectively. On January 11, 2007, then-Lieutenant Colonel Saltzman was serving under Colonel Stephen N. Whiting, then the director of the Joint Space Operations Center, and with Major DeAnna Burt, who succeeded Saltzman as chief of combat plans, when the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test occurred. Recalling what he believes is the key date of modern military space operations history, Whiting noted, "We watched that test unfold over time, and we led the response for U.S. STRATCOM. We spent weeks and weeks figuring out how we would notify national leadership in real time. And those of us who was there knew the world had changed, on that day." After his command tour, Saltzman studied at Harvard University as a national security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. In July 2009, he was promoted to colonel and returned to the Pentagon as the chief of the strategic plans and policy division. From 2010 to 2014, he was stationed at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado as commander of the 460th Operations Group from June 2010 to June 2012 and commander of the NRO's Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado from June 2012 to June 2014. In June 2014, Saltzman transferred to the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, as the deputy director of plans and programs. After less than a year in that stint, he was chosen as the executive officer to General John E. Hyten, then AFSPC commander. It was during this time when he