The worst part is, many of the satellites our nation depends on were designed in an era where we weren’t concerned about cyber threats.

Stale government policy represents a large part of the problem. The Pentagon’s traditional method – defining program-specific requirements, redirecting budgets, and embarking on a five-year development trek – only marginally improves system performance against threats that existed in the past and not now, when we most desperately need it. At the same time, the requirements process is broken and causes unconscionable delays and cost overruns in otherwise routine government acquisitions.

Take GPS OCX, the Space Force’s ground control system for GPS III, for example. What should have been a simple upgrade program to something that had been operational for over thirty years is now over five years behind schedule and billion over budget, in large part because the Air Force had a poor understanding of how to specific simple cybersecurity needs and attempted to address them after the program had begun.

It’s been that way for a very long time – too long in fact – and our enemies are paying attention. Every wargame exercise exposes our vulnerability in harsh reality. Relentless cyberattacks against our infrastructure, as well as Russia’s moves against Starlink and SpaceX’s counter moves, are examples of what can be done.

Like any other nascent economic sector, the growth rate of new space cyber threats and vulnerability will continue to track with the knowledge economy itself, doubling every two years. It will remain our Achilles heel if the requirements process to secure the cyber domain continue down this path.

We must do better, and we can.

The U.S. must pivot towards a comprehensive cybersecurity plan immediately, the first step of which is to implement Zero Trust architectures (ZTA) across networks, and at the data level where possible. A design philosophy that begins with a “trust no one” mindset, Zero Trust is the only solution that assures the soldiers in the field can receive the orders, coordinates and intelligence they need to conduct military options.

ZTAs require eliminating an implied trust within an enterprise network secured only by hardware encryption. By securing data through software-based encryption and distributed key protocols, Guardians and the joint combatant commands they support can almost immediately enjoy an entire level of data security on top of what already exists.

ZTA will do for our warfighting networks what a home security system does for homeowners and neighborhoods. Locking gates, deadbolts and even the family dog are useful deterrents. But a home security system networked to the neighborhood watch and private security companies is an evolution in defense. And much like ZTA, these software-based systems offer yet another layer of protection at an affordable price.

The government would be wise to move in the same direction that commercial industry is already headed, and field ZTA’s state-of-the-art data protection in government systems, too. The traditional alternative is bolt-on cybersecurity measures like firewalls, which do too little too late and induce expensive and lengthy delays to coalition forces – ultimately leaving our soldiers blind, deaf, and disoriented on the battlefield.

In the Space Force’s Guardian Ideal, the service outlines its innovative approach to talent management and emphasizes a need to “create digital solutions, dismantle data stovepipes to establish a digitally enabled culture”. The only way for the Space Force to be the agile digital service it aspires to be, is to require Zero Trust as a core tenet of all data transmission and storage needs.

Thee commercial world is ahead of the government on innovation. There are already many commercial companies offering different implementations of ZTA, and most either complement or interoperate with other providers’ systems. Private capital is backing companies that offer solutions that can drastically and almost immediately reduce the Defense Departments gaping vulnerability in this new warfighting domain.

The Pentagon must adopt these commercially developed Zero Trust technologies into its networks, so that we can protect ourselves in the space and cyber wars of today and into the future. Government hierarchies can no longer flex quickly enough, when fielding timelines are now measured in months and tactical response times are measured in picoseconds. Waiting for the Pentagon to analyze and talk in circles, and then develop its own ZTAs, will take at least ten years, during which time our networks will become even more compromised than they already are.

A commitment to execute a Zero Trust requirement across the whole of government cannot wait until the first digital “Bitskrieg.” Zero Trust-inspired architectures, combined with standard hardware encryption and enhanced personal security, are all layers that are commercially available, and are necessary to counter the kinds of attacks that would limit our ability to defend against tyranny at home and abroad.

Charles Beames is the executive chairman of SpiderOak Inc., an aerospace company dedicated to providing cybersecurity in the space domain.

Located anywhere from hundreds of miles to tens of thousands of miles above the Earth’s surface, the machines are difficult to reach physically. For years, engineers have designed satellites with the expectation that the hardware and software they put on orbit with a satellite is all they’d get. That incentivized exquisite satellite designs, built to last many years in space before finally being replaced by a satellite with upgraded technologies.

That mindset has started to change in recent years. Companies including Northrop Grumman and Astroscale are pioneering new on-orbit services that could enable everything from supplemental fuel for maneuvering to satellite repairs using mechanical arms. On the software side, companies are embracing software-defined payloads that the military can reconfigure for new uses using the hardware on orbit.

The U.S. Space Force is investing in those efforts. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing in robotic arms that could revolutionize the ability to repair satellites in space. On the software side, the GPS III satellites, the latest generation launched by the military, feature a 70 percent digital mission data unit, the main piece of the navigation system. GPS IIIF — which will follow after the GPS III series — satellites will feature fully digital navigation payloads built by L3Harris, give operators on the ground more flexibility in how they use the satellites.

But there’s only so much you can change with software alone, and in the end on-orbit GPS satellites are limited by their hardware. However, that may soon change.

Later this year, Lockheed Martin will launch a pair of small cubesat experiments that could pave the way for on-orbit hardware upgrades for GPS satellites, and possibly other Space Force satellites. In short, the company wants to take new hardware (be it a new sensor, data storage, a processor or something else), integrate it with a cubesat, and then plug the cubesat into the GPS satellite via a port on the bus on orbit. Perhaps the cubesat remains connected for the remainder of the satellite’s service life, or perhaps it undocks once a specific mission is complete.

“When we and others build satellites today, they launched with what they’ve got. That’s starting to change with things like software definition,” David Barnhart, Lockheed Martin director of space technology demonstrations, told C4ISRNET ahead of the 36th annual Space Symposium. “But this is essentially significant because it’s the first time that you can really effectively upgrade the hardware.”

The two 12U cubesats — each around the size of a four-slice toaster — that make up Lockheed Martin’s In-space Upgrade Satellite System, or LINUSS, are part of a series of demonstrations that will lead up to the first on-orbit upgrade, which will take place with the 13th GPS IIIF space vehicle. LINUSS will launch into geosynchronous orbit where it will test the precise orbital maneuvers that will be needed to plug the cubesat into the GPS satellite. Lockheed Martin expects to complete the LINUSS mission in two months, although the cubesats could be used for additional experiments in the weeks and months afterward.

The key enabling technology for this satellite upgrade approach is the company’s Augmentation System Port Interface. ASPIN is the docking part where the cubesats will plug into the satellite bus.

“So I kind of think of it like a USB port,” said Barnhart. “You buy your computer, you bring it home, and you want to add something. Like maybe your computer doesn’t have a camera or you want a better camera so you plug in the USB device, and all of a sudden your computer has a new capability it didn’t have out of the box. And that’s kind of the same concept with ASPIN.”

Barnhart added that the ASPIN capability will be part of the baseline for the LM 2100 bus, which Lockheed Martin will use for satellites it’s building for GPS and the Space Force’s Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared missile warning system. Future satellites built on that bus will be able to use the on-orbit upgrade capability. Importantly, other companies will be able to build technologies that can plug into ASPIN, meaning that third-party companies can theoretically upgrade Lockheed Martin-built GPS satellites with their technologies.

“All of our LM2100 buses are very long life, and so we’re trying to ensure that they are technically relevant, you know, throughout the entire lifetime by being able to bring up new capability early in the mission, midway in the mission, even at the end of the mission lifetime, by swapping in and out hardware,” said Barnhart.

“And it’s really not just in-orbit upgrading, it’s the possibility of being able to test sensors on production systems in an easier way. [It] is a huge benefit to our customers,” added Barnhart.

The company has several demonstrations planned to build the capability for GPS IIIF space vehicle 13. Barnhart said he expects the company to release a full road map later this year.

In addition to the maneuvering demonstration, LINUSS will also test new high-performance onboard processing capabilities, low-toxicity propulsion, inertial measurement capabilities, and 3-D printed components. It will also showcase Lockheed Martin’s software-defined satellite technology, SmartSat.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond detailed three fundamental parts of the initiative: building a digital headquarters, establishing digital fluency and enabling digital engineering.

Raymond said the service had just hired a new chief technology and innovation officer who will help lead the push for a digital service. The Space Force has designated the Technology and Innovation Office as the lead on digital transformation — starting with a digitally focused headquarters. With just 600 people, the Space Force headquarters is relatively small, leaning on the Air Force for many supporting functions. Raymond has previously noted that with such a small staff, the Space Force headquarters has to use digital tools to remain effective and operate quickly.

On the second point, Raymond said the Space Force already started training guardians to improve their digital skills.

“We’ve given licenses out to all of the guardians in the Space Force where they can go in and take courses and become more digitally fluent, understand software, understand the implications of that,” he said during a media roundtable. “We’ve gone through the first tranche of that and now built other courses and put those out for them to take as well.”

In separate remarks, Raymond noted that the Space Force’s recruiting effort has been strong, allowing the service to choose guardians who are top tier and ready for the digital environment in store for them.

The Space Force has also made progress implementing digital engineering, said Raymond, although he didn’t go into details about what the service had done.

Lt. Gen. Mike Guetlein, who heads up the recently established Space Systems Command, said his new field command is fully embracing the digital push.

“Those data standards are being developed. The platform is being developed. The hardware stack is being developed, so we can all communicate on a common framework,” said Guetlein in a separate media roundtable. “And now we’re starting to talk about: What does that digital platform look like that’s going to drive us all going forward?”

When the Space Force first shared its digital plans in May, it announced it was building a Digital Engineering Ecosystem where the government can work with industry partners in the cloud to review programs, share digital twins and experiment with new technologies. At the time, the Space Force said the unclassified version was already coming online, with a classified version expected in the late summer or early fall.

While that digital modeling environment is still being established, the Space Force is already able to share the virtually recreated space environments it use for simulations. That way, commercial partners can see how their satellites and space systems will operate in the Space Force’s plans.

“And now with the stand up of the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, we’re actually sharing the models that we’re using to do our simulations and the models that we would expect your digital twins to be plugging into. So the industry can now play with their designs and understand environments that we think they’re going to be challenged within space,” explained Guetlein.

Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein defended the move as more than a simple name change in his first media availability since taking command Aug. 13. In fact, he said, the new organization reflects the reality the Space Force now faces and implements a structure to handle the perceived threat better.

“Space Systems Command is not just a name change from SMC. It is actually a change in mindset, a change in culture, and driving a unity of effort across not only the Space Force but across the DoD,” said Guetlein Aug. 25 at the 36th annual Space Symposium.

That change is necessitated by the Department of Defense’s posture of the last few years: Space is no longer a peaceful domain.

“Make no doubt about it, it is definitely becoming contested, and our adversary is not only demonstrating the capability to deny our peaceful use or defensive use of space, but they’re also in some cases demonstrating their intent,” said Guetlein. “And what is clear to us is that we have to get after the threat as a unity of effort, not only across the federal government, but across our commercial sector, our allies, our academia, to name a few.”

One solution that Space Systems Command will pursue is designing and building out a more distributed architecture.

The Space and Missile Systems Center had a long history of launching the nation’s most important military satellites, including ones for GPS, communications and the Space Based Infrared System for missile warnings.

“The one thing that was constant across those systems is they were built for a peaceful domain,” said Guetlein.

Space Force officials have been consistent in stating the need to move to a more distributed architecture, where the nation’s space-based capabilities aren’t concentrated in small constellations made up of just a handful of satellites. In that setup, which is roughly the status quo, the destruction or denial of a single satellite can have massive implications for the delivery of space capabilities to the war fighter. In theory, the destruction of a single SBIRS missile warning satellite could result in a major coverage gap for the nation’s space-based missile detection capability.

SSC is expected to pursue a more spread out architecture, with capabilities sprinkled over multiple constellations and satellites in multiple orbits. The goal is that an attack on a single satellite or a single orbital regime cannot significantly degrade the delivery of space-based capabilities.

According to Guetlein, the restructuring of acquisitions under Space Systems Command will drive a united effort across DoD and the intelligence community.

The shift from SMC to SSC began with SMC 2.0, a series of reforms under SMC Commander Gen. JT Thompson, said Guetlein. Those efforts have reached maturity within the Space Force so that it was time to officially replace SMC with SSC, said Guetlein.

Under SSC, the Space Force is consolidating its main acquisition efforts under four program executive offices. Beyond that, SSC consolidated the Space Force’s various launch efforts under a single office and established a new commercial space office in charge of commercial satellite communications and other capabilities, which could include new commercial satellite imagery services.

The SSC architect has also been lifted to the same level as a program executive office, a move that Guetlein said will enable more integration of systems across the space enterprise — even beyond the Space Force to industry and other services and agencies.

There have also been efforts outside of SSC to further push that “unity of effort.” For example, the Space Force has created the Space Warfighting Analysis Center to develop a new force design and a Space Force Acquisition Council to ensure space organizations across the federal government are working together. In addition, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council has set the Space Force as the integrator for joint space requirements, giving the service more authority in coordinating efforts across the DoD enterprise.

Not everyone is on the same page. While Space Force officials have touted the progress on acquisitions reforms and the changes being made under SSC, legislators have expressed frustration with what they see as more of the status quo. A report from the House Appropriations Committee criticized the Space Force, claiming that it had yet to differentiate itself from space acquisitions under the Air Force.

“The Committee remains concerned that the Air Force has not taken more aggressive action in addressing longstanding space acquisition issues and has made little progress in defining what the Space Force will be doing that is fundamentally different than when it was a component of the Air Force,” said lawmakers in the report.

Rep. Betty McCollum, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense chair, went as far as to call the Space Force’s various restructurings as “minor tweaks around the edges.”

It remains to be seen whether Space Force officials can convince legislators that they are making substantial changes at either an organizational or architectural level.

The Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program is the successor to the Space Based Infrared System, which currently operates as the military’s premier missile warning satellite constellation. Next Gen OPIR will be made up of five satellites: three in geostationary orbit (Next Gen OPIR GEO) and another two in highly elliptical orbits for polar coverage. The first satellite is set to launch in 2025.

On Aug. 24 during the 2021 Space Symposium trade show, the Space Force announced that the Next Gen OPIR GEO satellites had successfully completed critical design review, which validates the design’s maturity and opens the fabrication, integration and testing phase. Preliminary design review was completed in 2019. A systemwide critical review for Next Gen OPIR GEO is expected this fall.

“With this successful CDR, we remain on schedule to launch the first GEO satellite in 2025,” Col. Brian Denaro, program executive officer for space development and director of Space Systems Command’s Space Development Corps, said in a statement. “As the backbone of our nation’s assured missile warning capability, we are leveraging streamlined acquisition authorities on the Next Gen OPIR program to prototype solutions rapidly, using available industry capabilities and mature technology, to ensure that we can deliver advanced capabilities to the warfighter at operationally relevant speeds.”

The Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin $2.9 billion in 2018 for design work, while the Space Force issued another $4.9 billion to begin manufacturing.

The news comes shortly after two critical sensor payloads passed their own critical design reviews. Lockheed Martin has subcontracted to two teams to build the infrared sensor for the first three Next Gen OPIR GEO satellites. Raytheon Technologies and a team made up of Ball Aerospace and Northrop Grumman will provide one payload each to go on one of those satellites. Lockheed Martin will select one provider to supply a third sensor for the final GEO satellites.

Northrop Grumman is also designing the two polar satellites. The Space Force awarded the company $2.4 billion in 2020 for design work on those.

Meanwhile, the Space Force has already begun issuing contracts for the next set of Next Gen OPIR satellites. In May, the service awarded $29 million to Raytheon Technologies and $28 million to Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, to build digital models. The contractors will also use emerging digital engineering tools to validate whether Next Gen GEO satellites can fulfill their mission in a new orbital regime: medium Earth orbit closer to the planet’s surface.

The announcement comes almost two years to the day after SPACECOM was resurrected as the 11th combatant command, taking over the space operations missions that U.S. Strategic Command had overseen.

According to Gen. James Dickinson, SPACECOM commander, the organization was ready to go from day one due to what it inherited from STRATCOM. However, it struggled to meet the strict definition of initial operating capability laid out in joint documents, which the general said was a tactical definition that made sense for acquiring weapons systems but was ill-suited to a strategic-focused combatant command.

“U.S. Space Command’s IOC milestone is more strategically focused. It’s less about fielding a specific weapons system capability or even reaching a specific set of criteria than it is about capability to produce effects now […] compared to what we’ve had during our establishment phase,” said Dickinson. “It’s about how we took the capability we had on day one and used it as a foundation to develop structurally, functionally, culturally, to meet the nation’s space domain imperatives.”

The general added that the IOC declaration recognized that SPACECOM had matured to the point that it has strategic effects.

“IOC is essentially a pivot point or an inflection point. It’s an indication that we’ve moved out of our establishment phase and into a phase where we’re expanding on the structural, functional, and organizational gains we’ve made over the past couple of years,” said Dickinson.

Dickinson went on to highlight several completed milestones from the command’s first two years, including establishing two components (Combined Forces Space Component Command and Joint Task Force-Space Defense), setting up the headquarters’ command and control capabilities, taking over Operation Olympic Defender, and taking part in several war games.

SPACECOM has also been assigned components from each of the services, including the First Air Force, which has been charged with human spaceflight support and related search and rescue efforts. First Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Kirk Pierce told Military Times in an Aug. 10 interview that his component was working toward achieving IOC in December.

Now, SPACECOM will enter its third year of existence with a focus on achieving full operational capability, which will require a fully staffed headquarters, a permanent headquarters location, and approving an operations plan and campaign plan.

Dickinson requested $26.8 million from Congress to get there in his unfunded priority list, an annual spending wish list that did not fit into the official budget request.

“The command has not yet received the necessary fiscal support to overcome prior year shortfalls,” Dickinson told lawmakers in a June letter. “This forces U.S. Space Command to push unfunded requirements into future years which further delays reaching FOC [full operational capability] and jeopardizes our ability to outpace the threats posed by our determined adversaries.”

That funding will help the command establish a military information support operations capability, obtain operations and planning software, buy and integrate modeling and simulation tools, incorporate artificial intelligence systems, and integrate federally funded research and development center expertise.

Over the past few years, Congress and the Defense Department have worked together to stand up a new military service focused on space and to overhaul how the Pentagon buys and deploys space software and hardware.

“My approach to any reorganization is to move quickly to get the big parts right, but be prepared to make adjustments as one learns from experience,” Kendall said in a keynote at the conference in Colorado Springs. “One area in which we have not done enough yet is in the acquisition capacity of the Department of the Air Force.”

Kendall is compiling a shortlist of potential candidates to serve as assistant secretary of the Air Force for space integration and acquisition, a new role created by Congress in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

He didn’t reveal any names under consideration, but said he is actively looking for candidates to present to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden. An announcement could come in the “not-too-distant future,” he added.

“My vision for this position is that it should be largely a typical managerial role that combines the traditional acquisition responsibilities with broader responsibilities for technical integration with space systems across the board, including with non-space systems in the [Advanced Battle Management System and Joint All-Domain Command and Control] environments,” Kendall said. “What we’d like to call architecture definition, interface specification, open systems direction and technical interoperability requirements would be a key part of this individual’s responsibilities.”

Shawn Barnes, a retired Air Force colonel who spent most of his career in space operations, has filled in as the acting assistant secretary so far. Barnes is leaving for a different leadership position in the Air Force, Kendall said, and Brig. Gen. Steve Whitney will lead the space acquisition and integration office until someone is nominated and confirmed.

In an email Tuesday, Barnes did not answer what his new job will be, but said, “You can expect that I’ll stay fully engaged supporting the secretary and both chiefs to sustain and improve some critical relationships.”

Whitney currently serves as space programs director in the Air Force acquisition branch and will become the acquisition and integration office’s military deputy once a civilian assistant secretary is in place.

Discussions about the new assistant secretary position have sometimes been fraught — for example, former Air Force acquisition boss Will Roper publicly opposed splitting air and space work between two officials.

In the meantime, Kendall is moving the space directorate from the Air Force’s acquisition branch to the space acquisition and integration office — now known as SAF/SQ.

“For major acquisition decisions in the near term, SQ will report to Darlene Costello, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition,” Kendall said. “She will be the acquisition executive for space systems until that role shifts to the new assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration.”

By law, that handoff will begin in October 2022. But Kendall indicated the Air Force is lobbying to push that date earlier: “We are hopeful that Congress will give us the option to move more quickly in this year’s authorization bill,” he said.

International space programs will move under the Department of the Air Force’s international affairs office, while the technical aspects of international systems interoperability will still reside in the acquisition office.

While Kendall works on the internal reorganization, he is also turning his attention to bringing the Space Development Agency into the Space Force.

SDA is a high-level group under the Pentagon research and engineering boss that wants to create a constellation of thousands of low-cost, replaceable satellites for missions like missile warning and combat data-sharing. That’s slated to join the Space Force as part of the service’s broader acquisition ecosystem starting in October 2022 as well.

The agency will not become part of the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, the successor to the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. It will instead directly report to the chief of space operations.

To smooth the transition, Kendall said he is partnering with Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu on a working group that will plan for and speed up the process. They plan to co-chair quarterly meetings to review those plans and address any issues that arise.

An SDA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a query Tuesday on the working group or whether Derek Tournear, the agency’s director, will follow it to the Space Force.

“We’re going to step [cooperation] up a notch as we move closer,” Kendall said. “While SDA may not yet formally be part of the Department of Air Force, there is no reason why we shouldn’t begin to move aggressively in that direction.”

From the main stage at 2021 Space Symposium, Gen. Jay Raymond painted his own picture of the progress made, arguing that the service has completed major changes even if space acquisitions remain spread out across the Department of Defense and intelligence community.

Congress has questioned in recent months whether the Space Force has done enough to reform the acquisitions environment it inherited from the Air Force.

“In the 16 months since Space Force was established, significant progress has been made in standing up this operations unit,” Rep. Betty McCollum, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense chair, told Raymond in a May hearing. “However, while progress has been made on the operations side, progress in addressing long-standing acquisitions issues has been disappointing so far. Too often over the past two decades, the space acquisitions programs have been delivered late, over budget, and sometimes billions of dollars over budget.”

She went on to dismiss most acquisitions changes as “minor tweaks around the edges,” and a later budget report from the House Appropriations Committee reiterated concerns that the new service had not done enough to reform acquisitions.

As a mile marker of the Space Force’s progress, Raymond pointed to four problems highlighted by Rep. Mike Rogers in 2017, when the Space Force was still two years from becoming reality. At the time, said Raymond, the congressman laid out challenges that a new independent space service should address: a fractured decision-making process, a lack of integration across national security space, insufficient funding and inadequate professional development.

To the first point, Raymond brought up a 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, which pointed out that space acquisitions management and oversight were divided across more than 60 organizations. The Space Force concept has frequently faced criticism for not unifying all of those organizations under its authority. But Raymond has a different interpretation.

“The key point wasn’t the 60 organizations number. It was that too many people could say ‘no,’ and very few people could say ‘yes.’ We were not achieving unity of effort,” said Raymond.

To that end, the Space Force established the Space Warfighting Analysis Center to develop a new force design, which can then be turned into validated requirements. Moreover, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council has directed that the Space Force will be the integrator for joint space requirements. The Space Force Acquisition Council was also created to facilitate communications between various space organizations and ensure that they’re working together.

Those changes — as well as the establishment of Space Systems Command — will help drive a unity of effort and address that fractured decision-making pointed out in 2017, said Raymond.

He pointed to the Space Warfighting Analysis Center’s first efforts as an early sign of success. The center recently put together a force design for the military’s missile warning enterprise, with support from all organizations involved in that mission, such as the Missile Defense Agency, the intelligence community and more.

As for the Rogers’ budget concerns, Raymond pointed out that DoD’s military space portfolio has received a bigger budget every year since 2017.

And finally, Raymond said the Space Force is quickly moving forward with building up professional development for guardians. In addition to a strong recruitment effort, Raymond brought up the establishment of the Space Training and Readiness Command, which is in charge of the Space Force’s doctrine, training, test and education efforts.

Like its predecessor, SSC will be in charge of developing, acquiring, fielding and sustaining capabilities for the Space Force. That includes such activities as developing new satellites, acquiring commercial space services, launching Department of Defense satellites into orbit and testing new space systems on orbit.

SSC will be located at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

Prior to the redesignation, Maj. Gen. Michael Guetlein was named commander of SSC and promoted to a three-star lieutenant general. Guetlein will effectively replace SMC Commander Lt. Gen. John Thompson, who retired in July after a 36-year career in the military. Guetlein previously served as the deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency in charge of America’s spy satellites, where he assisted the director in managing operations while overseeing the Space Force guardians assigned to the agency.

“A critical task of the SSC commander and of the Space Force is unifying effort across the entire national security landscape. Lt. Gen. Guetlein has the network and the record of accomplishment to get that done,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond during the Aug. 13 redesignation ceremony.

Guetlein was replaced by Maj. Gen. Donna D. Shipton, who took over as NRO deputy director after serving as director of strategic plans, programs, requirements and analyses at Air Force Materiel Command headquarters Aug. 9.

SSC is the second of three Space Force field commands to be designated, following the October 2020 creation of Space Operations Command, or SpOC, which is in charge of operating the service’s satellites. The Space Force is expected to officially establish the third field command — the Space Training and Readiness Command — in the coming weeks. The deltas that will make up STARCOM, which will educate and train guardians, have been operating under SpOC to date.

The highly anticipated SSC is not exactly the same organization previewed by the Space Force in 2020. Neither the Space Rapid Capabilities Office nor the Space Development Agency will be part of SSC, instead reporting directly to the chief of space operations. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s space-related activities will remain under its commander while being under SSC’s administrative control.

SSC will include all of the units assigned to SMC, as well as several Air Force units that will be transferred to the Space Force. That includes the Strategic Warning and Surveillance Systems Division, which is in charge of ground-based radars, missile warning, space domain awareness, missile defense and shared early-warning capabilities.

Perhaps the most significant part of the reorganization under SSC is the unification of the service’s launch enterprise under the SSC deputy commander. SSC will take over Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and Space Launch Delta 45 at Patrick Space Force Base, Florida.

And it’s largely worked. The Space Force tracks thousands of missiles a year, and in one high-profile case in 2020, America’s premier missile detection satellite system was credited with giving a last-minute warning to war fighters in Iraq who were able to seek shelter from incoming missiles launched from Iran.

But that constellation structure is no longer sustainable. The proliferation of anti-satellite weapons is challenging the approach. It no longer makes sense, U.S. military leaders have said, to put all of their billion-dollar eggs in one basket.

What the Space Force wants is a distributed architecture, meaning more satellites for each capability that are layered in different orbits. Instead of just having a few missile warning satellites in geostationary orbit at 22,236 miles above the Earth’s surface, the service wants to place some in medium Earth orbit — the area from 1,243 miles above Earth up to geostationary orbit.

Meanwhile, the Space Development Agency is developing a new constellation that will also track missiles, made of hundreds of satellites closer to the surface in low Earth orbit. Those are to start operating years before the Space Force could expand its missile warning system.

That sort of distributed architecture across the three levels of orbit not only would offer flexibility; it would ensure adversaries can’t knock America’s space capabilities offline by disabling or destroying a single satellite. If the satellites in geostationary orbit aren’t available, the Space Force can rely on satellites in other orbits.

Now, digital engineering tools are giving Space Force officials new insight into how to achieve that distributed architecture to augment high-orbit satellites that watch for missiles. The service is heavily investing in digital engineering concepts that have made headway in parts of the aerospace community and other industries, enabling it to test and validate new satellite designs and constellation structures in a digital environment. More than simply providing graphics, the tools allow users to test their designs in simulations that accurately represent space environments, and track how changes affect performance.

America’s next missile warning constellation — the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared — was designed as one of those large, exquisite systems with sophisticated, expensive technology. The first block will comprise five satellites placed in high orbit, effectively replacing the Space Based Infrared System satellites in a like-for-like move with some small changes. The Space and Missile Systems Center awarded Lockheed Martin $2.9 billion in 2018 to design three geostationary satellites, and $4.9 billion in 2021 to build them. Northrop Grumman secured $2.4 billion to design the constellation’s two polar satellites.

But in May, the Space Force announced two contracts that could radically change the future of the system. The SMC issued two awards — $29 million for Raytheon Technologies and about $28 million for Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary — to build digital models of the next generation of Next Gen OPIR satellites. The companies will use digital engineering practices not only to design the satellites, but to validate whether they can effectively operate in medium Earth orbit.

A transition to MEO satellites would be a seismic shift for America’s missile warning architecture, and the move to use digital engineering provides one of the first looks at what the Space Force meant when it said it wanted to be the world’s first fully digital service.

Why branch out to other orbits?

According to Rob Aalseth, executive director with strategic systems in Raytheon Intelligence and Space’s space and command-and-control systems division, this journey began in 2019. That year, the company secured a study contract from the SMC to perform reconnaissance on the maturity of technologies in industry for the Block 1 satellites for Next Gen OPIR. The Space Force awarded the company a follow-on option for that effort to discuss how it could change the system’s architecture.

“One of the areas that we had discussed at great length was moving sensors to medium Earth orbit, MEO, and there was a lot of benefits. For one, there’s some sensitivity gain because you’re a little closer to the Earth,” Aalseth told C4ISRNET.

In fact, MEO covers a broad swath of space significantly closer to the planet. While geostationary orbit is constant at 22,236 miles up, MEO covers everything below that down to 1,243 miles above the Earth’s surface. While most major Pentagon-owned satellites operate in GEO, the department has some in MEO — most notably the GPS constellation.

“MEO has a lot of great benefits,” said Millennium Space Systems CEO Jason Kim. “What MEO does is you can see a larger swath of the Earth with less satellites than in LEO — LEO you would need hundreds of satellites to get to global coverage, and if you lose some of the satellites in critical spots that opens up a gap in coverage. LEO is also limited by the horizon.”

That poses a challenge for SDA’s planned LEO missile tracking satellites, which will operate closer to Earth to more easily detect hypersonic weapons. Their limited vantage means they only track the weapons for a short period before those missiles disappear behind the horizon.

The SDA hopes to solve that problem by creating an on-orbit mesh network connecting hundreds of missile warning satellites, enabling them to pass tracking custody from satellite to satellite as threats travel around the world. Higher up in orbit, a MEO satellite can track threats longer before the horizon cuts off its view.

For Kim, MEO represents a better option than LEO and GEO. It has more satellites than GEO to provide resiliency but doesn’t need the massive number of satellites required for worldwide coverage in LEO.

As part of its study contract with the Space Force, Raytheon used internally developed algorithms to show how placing Next Gen OPIR satellites in MEO could provide resiliency through layers while also picking up performance at a discount over exquisite systems’ prices.

While neither company provided estimates for what their satellites could cost, MEO satellites are typically smaller, making them cheaper to produce and launch.

“It was a neat thing to watch the lightbulb go on when they realized just how capable some of these things could be if you just applied certain algorithms in novel ways and you applied sensor combinations in novel ways that they really hadn’t sort of conceived of,” Aalseth said.

Both satellite designs under development by Raytheon and Millennium would be able to operate in MEO and GEO, giving the government flexibility.

“It’s a very affordable approach where you can develop sensors that can operate in different orbit regimes without having to radically change those sensors,” Aalseth said.

Not only would the offered solutions improve the capability and resiliency of the constellation — both Kim and Aalseth said their satellites would be cheaper than the status quo.

“We went with a compact vehicle that is high performing and affordable, so our customers could pay significantly lower costs for more satellites. And we’ve already demonstrated that our system provides a significant improvement in capability by using SBIRS data in a high-fidelity simulation,” Kim said.

To briefly restate: The contractors assert that adding a MEO Next Gen OPIR architecture would be cheaper and more resilient, and deliver a higher-resolution product. And if the Space Force likes what it sees from these contracts, there could be lucrative awards for the two companies in the near future. Following critical design review of the payloads in 18 months, the Space Force could pick up future options for integration and launch of up to three space vehicles from each provider to start the more spread-out design, said Kim.

How digital engineering works

Just as radical as the potential changes to the Space Force’s missile warning architecture are the new digital engineering priorities of this contract.

Aalseth said analog design practices are more divided, with individuals and teams working on the satellite system’s different parts. In that environment, it might not be immediately apparent how a change on one part could affect the rest of the system. With digital engineering, on the other hand, every team member has access to every part of the design, and changes to one part of the system are reflected immediately in the digital model. The team is able to see how work by an individual affects system performance.

The high-fidelity environments that digital engineers use more accurately show how the system will work on orbit. They’re more than simple animations — engineers are able to take the actual dimensions, capabilities and physical properties of the system and test them in a realistic re-creation.

“You can float requirements all the way through, but digitally. You actually have a full representation of a product as well as all of the parameters to a high level of detail,” Aalseth said. “You could actually measure the performance of your electronics against the output, because it’s a realistic depiction.”

Announcing the digital engineering-focused contracts in May, SMC Program Executive Officer for Space Development Col. Timothy Sejba said they would “support U.S. Space Force’s architecture analysis by providing realistic cost, schedule and performance predictions, essentially enabling a digital ‘try it before you buy it’ approach.”

Digital engineering contributes to the Space Force’s goal of avoiding vendor lock. With standard industry tools, the Space Force can take parts or satellites from third parties, introduce them into the digital environment and see how they impact its systems.

“This effort is a key component of SMC’s Digital Engineering strategy, enabling the government to incorporate and connect multiple contractor models in an automated digital environment,” Sejba said.

This is the first major contract announcement to emphasize digital engineering since the Space Force declared earlier this year that it would be the world’s first digital service, though industry and significant parts of the aerospace community already use digital engineering practices.

“But this is more of a new approach, as you know, for space. The airborne world has adopted this for several years, and then the Formula race car world and the automobile world has adopted this for many, many years,” Kim said.

Millennium Space learned about digital engineering from its parent company and will use the same industry standard tools the Space Force is adopting.

“We have an incredible opportunity to help the U.S. Space Force with the digital models and show the benefits of using these digital models in the trade space to move fast and also to have the flexibility to trade multiple designs and validate those designs as you’re building the systems,” said Kim.