The four-year-old Space Force has moved beyond its establishment phase to translate what it means to conduct military operations in orbit, including translating 30,000-foot doctrine to the tactical level, according to two former defense officials. The time has come to consider whether to do so.
“We are at a stage where the Space Force has finally reached a new and advantageous steady state of its organizational structure,” Lt. Gen. John Shaw, former deputy commander of the U.S. Space Force, who retired last year, told Payload. “The only thing left to do is synchronize the roles, responsibilities, and integration between organizations.”
What's next: Kari Bingen, director of aerospace security projects at CSIS and former assistant secretary of defense and director of intelligence, said the Guardian needs to think about how military operations on Earth translate into space. He said there is.
One example she cited is the “target folder” operators at U.S. Central Command have built up during decades of conflict about compounds and terrorist targets in the Middle East, including those in orbit such as Russia's Ruchi-2. He said a similar system is needed for assets. .
Other considerations for the national security space community this year include:
- How to implement the Department of Defense's recent rewrite of space program classification policy.
- How can doctrine be more fully integrated into the service and begin to impact Space Force operations?
- Now that the Space Systems Command has selected Northrop Grumman's fuel ports as its standard design, what are the next steps and how to approach in-orbit maintenance?
Commercial partnership: Bingen said it is also important for the Defense Department to find ways to better collaborate with commercial leaders and leverage innovation and research and development funded by sources other than taxpayers. That's the question NASA answered the private space community nearly 20 years ago when it began commercial partnerships to launch goods and people into space, and Bingen called it a commercial partnership. “It's an interesting case.”
“I think it was partly out of necessity, but it was also the foresight of NASA leaders at the time who said they wanted to implement a strategy that had a strong commercial component,” she said. Ta. “I think the Department of Defense is still grappling with that question. Is the purchase of commercial services an add-on, an afterthought, or is it really built into the toolkit of capabilities from the beginning?”
Threat landscape: Both Iran and North Korea have stepped up their military space programs, with Iran launching three satellites last month and North Korea successfully placing its first spy satellite into orbit in November. But Shaw emphasized that China will remain the primary focus of the U.S. national security space community for the foreseeable future.
“We cannot ignore North Korea and Iran,” he said. “But only China can engage us across that spectrum, in a full cislunar environment and all mission sets.”
+Ichimi: Check out last week's call on civil space policy for 2024.
