missile defense capabilities of the United States. (5) General John Hyten, Commander of the United States Strategic Command, has argued for the deployment of a global space-based sensor system with discrimination capability as a critical component to improving the effectiveness of our deployed interceptors and to provide multiple response especially as potential adversaries embark on improving countermeasures against our [missile defense] systems. . (6) Admiral James Syring, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, has stated, From a missile defense perspective, we have to develop a future operational space layer. Given where the threat is going with hypersonics and more ICBMs and so forth this persistent tracking and discrimination capability from space is a must. . (b) Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that the Department of Defense shall develop a resilient space-based missile defense sensor layer to provide persistent, launch-to-intercept tracking, discrimination, and kill assessment of ballistic missile threats and provide this capability to the Armed Forces as soon as technically feasible. (c) Space-Based missile defense sensor architecture (1) Development The Director of the Missile Defense Agency shall develop a highly reliable space-based missile defense sensor architecture for the ground-based midcourse defense system using sound acquisition practices. (2) Deployment The Director shall— (A) conduct rigorous testing of the space-based missile defense sensor architecture developed under paragraph (1) as soon as technically feasible