DOD "Must Change" How It Incorporates Space Technology
From the commander in chief in the
White House to a private manning an observation tower on
Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, space is the domain that ties
them together.
Space provides critical capabilities for the Defense Department
and the organization must change its space strategy as the
situations and conditions change, Deputy Defense Secretary William
J. Lynn III said at the National Space Symposium in Colorado
Springs Tuesday. Speaking to about 4,000 civilian and military
space experts at the Broadmoor Hotel complex, the deputy secretary
outlined the Defense Department's strategy to address the changing
space environment.
Space gives the department four critical advantages, he said: to
strike precisely, to navigate with accuracy, to communicate with
certainty and to see the battlefield with clarity. "These
advantages make U.S. forces more accurate and agile than ever
before," Lynn said. "They extend the range of American military
power. They have changed the nature of warfare."
Space allows airmen to fly unmanned aerial vehicles over
Afghanistan from their battle stations in the United States. And,
space-based global-positioning system satellites provide the
capability enabling the extremely precise targeting that's
necessary for overseas counterinsurgency operations, Lynn said.
"The deployment of space-based capabilities in our military today
is so seamless and so ubiquitous that forward-deployed units forget
that many of the capabilities they depend on touch space every
minute of every day," he noted.
The upcoming Space Posture Review is based on the idea that
developments in space challenge our current posture, Lynn told the
group. "The Space Posture Review starts with the premise that space
has become congested, competitive and contested," he said.
Satellites and man-made debris are clogging orbital pathways, as
more than 60 nations operate more than 1,100 orbiting systems. More
than 20,000 bits of known, trackable debris also orbits the Earth,
along with tens of thousands of pieces of space debris that are too
small to monitor, but still pose dangers.
"Space has also become more
competitive, with more nations working in space than ever before,"
Lynn (pictured, right) said. A key to continued progress in
space, he added, is for countries to cooperate in assets and
benefits from space-based systems, citing GPS as a prime example of
a technology with widespread benefits. Nations need to cooperate to
minimize the specter of communications interference in space, Lynn
said, as the sheer number of communications satellites being
launched is causing problems. "We're approaching a point at which
the limitless frontier no longer seems quite so limitless," he told
the audience.
Finally, the deputy said, space is becoming contested.
"We can no longer take access to space for granted," he said,
noting that some nations jam signals to satellites to censor what
their people can see. Other nations can destroy satellites in
low-Earth orbit. "Still others have technologies that can disable
or permanently damage space platforms," he said. "Our space assets
could be targeted as part of a deliberate strategy to deny us
access to the domain. By crippling key sensors and platforms such
anti-access tactics could offset our conventional-force
capabilities. Never before have our space assets been so vulnerable
to destruction."
A new strategy must seek to establish norms of behavior in
space, to use interdependence of space-based platforms as an asset
and to deny any benefit from space attacks, Lynn said.
The United States is working to establish the norms of behavior
in space, he said. Defense Department officials are trying to
ensure communications spectra do not clash, and they're also
working on a cooperative program to track and chart satellites.
Selective interdependence, Lynn said, is the second part of the
strategy. Space is a competitive place "with many rival actors
maneuvering for advantage," the deputy secretary noted. In some
areas - such as surveillance and command and control - there will
be little cooperation, he acknowledged. In others - such as
environmental monitoring and missile warning - "our shared
interests prop open the door to possible cooperation," he said.
Denying benefits from an attack can be done by building
redundancies into satellites and into ground and air capabilities.
Lynn also recommended building smaller satellites with modular
parts that would make replacement easier. The first small
satellites will launch later this year, he said, and will deliver
needed capabilities to American servicemembers in Afghanistan and
Iraq.