WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Army has had a role in space for years, from soldiers that operate satellites to roles as astronauts, and the service is reliant on the domain for communications and surveillance. But as the United States expands its mission in space, things are heating up for the typically terrestrial service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army\u2019s Space and Missile Defense Command is the epicenter for the service\u2019s expanding role in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lt. Gen. James Dickinson, the SMDC commander, delivered a speech in early August at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, leading with a hefty dose of the Army\u2019s role in space and how that mission is growing. Typically, the Army is focused on its missile defense mission, and outsiders are rarely aware of the space mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That speech was a bellwether of things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great day to be an Army space soldier,\u201d Dickinson told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army\u2019s annual conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The changes at SMDC are reflective of that. SMDC will be home to the Army service component command for U.S. Space Command. The command is already serving as the Army service component command for U.S. Strategic Command and will follow similar organizational and reporting guidelines with Space Command, Dickinson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReally, it was a very natural fit\u201d for the command, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just as simple as looking at our name, that makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army is \u201cthe largest user of space and has the greatest number of space-enabled systems among the services,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cWe boil it down into soldiers have to see, shoot, move and communicate using satellites in space \u2026 that is our path to the future. We\u2019ll continue with that as we bring in new systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as the Army looks to modernize, its reliance on space will be even greater in order for systems like long-range precision fires and a robust, reliant and resilient network to function effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SMDC doesn\u2019t plan to add personnel when the Army service component command for U.S. Space Command is stood up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done our due diligence and planning,” Dickinson said. “As we looked at it, we didn\u2019t see a need for growth in the organization right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens in the future as Space Command stands up and it becomes more formal and they reach their full operational capability. There might be something where we might have to add a few folks, but as we look at it today, it\u2019s a pretty steady state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The command has also established a Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, mirroring other centers of excellence at commands such as the Fires or Maneuver centers of excellence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe feel it\u2019s time that we formalize our educational process or, really, our institutional processes,\u201d Dickinson said, \u201cso standing up a center of excellence for space and missile defense, formerly the Future Warfare Center within this command, that name more accurately describes what they provide to the U.S. Army.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The center will be responsible for developing doctrine and organizational training materials and will have leadership, education, personnel and facility solutions, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStanding that up gives us that synergy that we need to put resources and expertise in order to do that today and in the future,\u201d Dickinson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The command already had the pieces and elements of what is needed for a center of excellence as part of the Future Warfare Center, but \u201cthis is taking all those and organizing them into that model that represents the center of excellence, \u201c he added, \u201cand maturing those elements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new brigade<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of an internal look at the command to determine how it can be better organized to address the Army\u2019s role in space, Dickinson decided to take the 53rd Signal Battalion and the personnel from his planning staff, who worked on satellite communications efforts at the command, to build the first U.S. Army satellite operations brigade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brigade is commanded by a colonel, and it has moved satellite-communications responsibilities from U.S. Strategic Command to Space Command. \u201cSo now I\u2019m able to provide U.S. Space Command a single commander with a unit that is able to do that mission for the United States.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brigade addresses how the command manages the satellite communications enterprise, according to Dickinson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army is focused on space because there\u2019s nothing that the domain doesn\u2019t touch in terms of capabilities the service is pursuing in its modernization efforts. Army Futures Command\u2019s Position, Navigation and Timing Cross-Functional Team is focused on developing technology within that realm, some of which has spun out of the SMDC\u2019s technology center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal is to \u201cbring space capabilities to the soldier on the ground,\u201d Dickinson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow do we continue today and into the future to provide space capabilities in a timely manner, whether it\u2019s communications, whether it\u2019s intelligence or whether it\u2019s assured positioning information that\u2019s so critical to what we do on the battlefield today?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SMDC has spearheaded several small satellite programs in recent years, including Kestrel Eye. In 2017, the micro-satellite demonstrator hitched a ride aboard a SpaceX Dragon craft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station, where it spent the good part of a year in tests on the utility of micro-satellites in low-Earth orbit, providing images to war fighters on the ground at the tactical level during critical operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe success of that has really informed a lot of the technologies that we\u2019re pursuing today, the small satellites that are in either a [low-Earth orbit] or [medium-Earth orbit] that can provide real-time-type information in an environment where we could have adversaries, and we will likely have adversaries,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cSo how do we make sure that we are able to provide that information even in a degraded environment? So that type of LEO or MEO small satellite technology into a kind of mesh network of satellites that provide redundancy and resiliency is what is key, absolutely key to what we\u2019re doing today and tomorrow in terms of ground combat operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The command is looking for potential follow-on efforts to the Kestrel Eye proof-of-concept program, Dickinson said. \u201cIt was not as capable as we would want in the future in terms of resolution and that type of thing. So things that we\u2019re looking at in the future are low-cost ones that are readily replaceable \u2026 and ones that are able to communicate to some of the common ground networks that we have so we are able to push that information around on the battlefield very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army is also thinking about a tiered and layered approach to space capability, similar to missile defense, Dickinson added. So in addition to LEO or MEO constellations, the command wants to build more capability at a high altitude, but not quite in space. The idea is to deploy something similar to a weather balloon to provide a resilient and redundant layer that is affordable and doesn\u2019t require space launch. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a capability that can be tailored\u201d with various payloads, \u201cthat bolster the LEO and MEO constellations,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Dickinson has led many changes within SMDC related to both space and missile defense, he\u2019s headed to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the near future to become the first deputy commander of the new U.S. Space Command. Defense News first reported his new job in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has yet to be announced where the command\u2019s permanent headquarters will be, but Colorado will at least be its temporary home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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