As the military becomes more reliant on satellite communications to carry out a wide range of global missions, leadership is focusing on building up space capabilities that improve on legacy systems and prepare for the future.
Space has become increasingly contested with adversarial countries gaining and launching their own satellite systems, some of which are targeting the U.S. In response, Defense Department officials are making some significant changes to their own space operations.
BONUS: Learn about the military’s approach to rapid provisioning of satellite bandwidth at a special C4ISRNet breakfast event April 27th. Go here for more information.
Building up space-based assets and integrating resilient systems are not only key themes in space defense, they are central to “the way our nation projects power and the degree to which it is dependent upon [our activities] in space,” said Winston Beauchamp, director of the principal DoD space adviser staff and deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space. “It should come as no surprise that adversaries of the future have noticed the advantages that are provided by a country that has our capabilities. and has invested significantly to keep those capabilities” secured from potential attacks.
Beauchamp spoke March 8 at the Satellite 2016 conference at National Harbor, Maryland.
To boost space superiority, Beauchamp said DoD is taking on three major lines of effort designed to fortify potential vulnerabilities.
The first is rooted in last year’s budget for space protection measures — roughly $5.5 billion in funding for DoD to steel space systems against threats.
“Principally a lot of this has to do with operating in and through a contested space environment,” Beauchamp said. “It starts with improvements in space situational awareness, which benefits all [responsible] actors in space…having knowledge of what’s going on and who’s doing it allows for transparency and attribution.”
The second line of effort focuses on changes to the way DoD builds mission constellations. It’s a key area given that the mission piece is by far the largest part of the space budget, Beauchamp said.
“As we approach timelines for recap cycles for those mission space elements, we’re looking at ways to replace current systems with systems that are inherently more resilient by design,” he said, noting that DoD officials are looking in different ways at existing and future architecture and potential improvements.
It could be identifying sources of proliferation or examining disaggregation of larger systems, Beauchamp said.
“The important thing here is there’s no one-size-fits-all solution; every architecture is different…based on attributes,” he said. “But it’s important to do as we look at recapping our space assets.”
The final line of effort is broad but critical: changing the way the military operates in space. That includes in training and in the development of tactics, techniques and procedures for dealing with threats in space.
The U.S. needs “to have a series of preplanned activities that are [ready to go] when we face the threat…on the short timelines we anticipate, we don’t expect time to make a phone call,” he said.
Beauchamp added that ensuring there is a joint communications plan across the services and DoD community is important for responding operationally to tactical needs.
“Based on these efforts, over the next 18 months we expect a much stronger posture from the space-mission assurance” perspective, he said.
RELATED: Beauchamp will keynote C4ISR & Networks’ Assured Communications breakfast April 27.
