Loren Thompson
America’s military has become steadily more dependent on space systems since the first satellites were launched in the 1950s. As science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in a seminal 1945 article, space affords a unique vantage point from which to support and shape activities on or near the Earth’s surface.
Today, the Pentagon can barely function without the links provided by communications satellites, the navigation and targeting data generated by the Global Positioning System, and the situational awareness made possible by reconnaissance spacecraft. Warfighters wouldn’t even know what kind of weather to expect in war zones without overhead support.
However, the joint force’s growing dependence on orbital systems has not gone unnoticed in Russia and China. Not only are they orbiting their own military satellites, but they are actively pursuing means of disabling critical U.S. space systems in a future conflict.
Military planners traditionally gave little thought to the potential vulnerability of satellites. The most important spacecraft, operating over 22,000 miles above the Earth in geostationary orbits, were thought to be too far away to be easily threatened.
Now that has all changed. China has developed both kinetic and non-kinetic tools for conducting “counterspace” operations—everything from electronic jamming to high-power lasers to cyber exploits. Much of this is classified, but there is a consensus among Pentagon leaders that the security of U.S. satellite constellations can no longer be assumed.
Against that backdrop, the Department of Defense has drastically reorganized its space activities, creating a Space Force within the Department of the Air Force, and dedicating a great deal more money to securing the military’s operational advantages in space.
Meanwhile, members of Congress have pressed the Pentagon to produce a comprehensive plan for defending space systems—not just the orbital elements, but also the ground stations that control spacecraft and the electronic links in between.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon finally responded to congressional urging by delivering to Capitol Hill a report entitled “Space Policy Review and Strategy on Protection of Satellites.” In broad brush strokes, the 18-page document pulls together the various strands of space-defense thinking to provide a menu of options for assuring the survivability of vital space systems.
The Space Force has already been implementing many of the options by revising design criteria to assure the resilience of future constellations. It also has greatly increased its funding of situational awareness in space, meaning the ability to detect and monitor what adversaries are doing outside the atmosphere that might be threatening to U.S. interests.
Here are the six generic options set forth in the strategy for defending U.S. space systems.
Disaggregation. This entails splitting up missions to be supported by dedicated spacecraft, rather than allowing diverse activities to continue depending on a handful of multifunction satellites. For instance, the nuclear command-and-control system relies in part on satellites that also support tactical communications; over time, that will change.
Distribution. This involves creating a bigger number of nodes both in orbit and on the Earth’s surface for supporting any particular mission. The goal is to assure redundancy and resilience if the network is attacked or otherwise threatened.
Diversification. This requires utilizing multiple satellite constellations, wavelengths and orbital planes so that users have more than one way of accomplishing a task. For example, the missile-warning function will shift from reliance on a few high-orbiting satellites to diverse spacecraft in low, medium and geosynchronous orbits.
Protection. This means deploying active and passive means of defeating the counterspace activities of rival nations. Satellites might be hardened against lasers and the electromagnetic pulse of nuclear weapons, equipped with anti-jamming capabilities, made stealthy and/or maneuverable, and so on.
Proliferation. This implies orbiting more of the satellites and payloads designed to support a specific mission, or of the ground assets that control said satellites. A good example is the planned transport and tracking layer in low earth orbit, which will consist of over a hundred spacecraft.
Deception. This includes measures aimed at confusing or misleading an adversary as to the nature of a space asset’s configuration, capabilities, operational status and the like. Without a clear understanding of what a spacecraft does, an enemy would be hard-pressed to determine when and how it might be compromised.
Two features that stand out in the new space strategy are greater reliance on commercial space systems and greater cooperation with allies in space. With regard to commercial systems, the military intends to incorporate satellites and other technology that may contribute to making the overall space architecture more robust and resilient—without becoming overly dependent on systems too soft to withstand attack.
With regard to working with allies, military planners see that as another avenue to bolstering the overall architecture and thus complicating the challenges faced by hostile nations. However, the strategy concedes that making progress in allied cooperation will require reducing the classification barriers that render much of the U.S. space system inaccessible to foreigners—even trusted ones.
What all this signals is that space has become more than an enabler of military operations, it is now a warfighting domain in its own right. The days of simply assuming the integrity of the military space system are gone forever, and the Pentagon must therefore posture for fighting far above the traditional fields of battle.
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