The triad concept is to integrate and converge inherent capability from U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Army Cyber Command and Army Special Operations Command to provide campaign options to commanders globally.

“We know Army space capabilities will become even more formidable when used in concert with cyber and special operations,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said Aug. 9 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “This new triad allows us to leverage individual strengths to maximum effect, providing flexible options to counter mis- or disinformation, cyberattacks and irregular asymmetric threats. These options include striking anywhere and anytime with surprise and retaliating or responding to adversary attack.”

In looking at the Army’s warfighting concept — multidomain operations — which lays out how the Army approaches adversaries and threats across all domains, the triad has a role to play whether that is in competition, in crisis or in conflict, Lt. Gen. Jon Braga, commander of USASOC, told reporters in a briefing at the conference.

“Information operations are extremely important, influence operations are extremely important, contributing to integrated deterrence is extremely important,” Braga said, but should operations move into conflict, the triad would have a different role to play, possibly “a combination of non-lethal effects like information operations, then perhaps a more kinetic [option], denying a capability or affecting a certain capability of an adversary — that would be a different flavor of approach.”

The idea for the triad was, in part, born out of Karbler’s previous experience at U.S. Strategic Command where he started to see the power of global integration. Karbler reasoned that Space, Cyber and Special Operations are similarly integrated.

But it wasn’t until Karbler’s deputy commander for operations, Brig. Gen. Isaac Peltier, a special operations officer, brought in that unique perspective that he realized the utility of space, cyber and special operations coming together regularly.

And while each brings its own unique capabilities, there are similarities.

“We all leverage intel extremely well for everything we do,” Braga said, “but there was more and more as we thought about it, a similarity, in a way, of our uniqueness, we are all transregional, we all work for multiple bosses. We all bring effects to try and have larger outsized effects for relatively small forces that contribute to a much larger joint force. We all approach it philosophically the same way.”

“We see this globally,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, US Army Cyber Command commander, said. None of the triad participants are restricted to a particular region even though they support specific COCOMs. “It enables us to deliver more options across the spectrum of competition, crisis and conflicts,” she added.

Additionally, as the triad establishes a framework, “we can turn these things more quickly than done before,” Barrett said, and share data more easily “in an age where data is absolutely paramount.”

The triad leaders have formed a campaign plan to implement the new concept, but one of the ways it is already operating together is through exercises.

The triad is participating together in Project Convergence which is set to begin later this fall and is a wider campaign of learning the Army puts on annually to experiment with emerging concepts and capabilities.

While space capabilities will be used in the exercise, Karbler said, “it’s not just going to be a sole space solution in a particular use case. We’ve got to drive toward SOF, cyber, space integrated solution to that case study.”

That experimentation with combined capabilities will help teach the triad what works best and what it has to go back and tailor, he added.

“Some of the things we have are very unique and different, so just making sure those capabilities can talk to one another is part of the effort we’re working on,” Braga noted.

And Project Convergence and other exercises will give the triad the opportunity to show the Army and the Joint Force what it can offer when it comes together, he said.

The Space Development Agency announced last month that L3Harris and Northrop Grumman had each won a contract to produce 14 satellites for the Tranche 1 Tracking Layer in low Earth orbit. These satellites are designed to warn of and track missiles launches.

The United States, Russia and China are among countries developing hypersonic missiles, which can travel faster than five times the speed of sound and are harder to track than conventional missiles.

The Maxar-provided platforms will carry “various mission payloads, including optical terminals for space mesh networking, Ka-band communications, and infrared sensors,” according to Tuesday’s statement.

Maxar will manufacture the platforms in Palo Alto and San Jose, California, and will delivery them in 2024, with launches to begin in April 2025, according to the release.

Maxar declined to comment on the contract value for the deal with L3Harris, whose contract with the Defense Department has a potential value of about $700 million. L3Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

Based in Westminster, Colorado, Maxar provides space technology and geospatial intelligence to both government and commercial customers.

This version clarifies how fast hypersonic missiles can travel.

Analysts and experts are hoping the fiscal 2024 budget request will prove the Biden administration is committed to a layered homeland missile defense architecture.

Acknowledging the growing array of missile threats, the Trump administration in 2019 removed “ballistic” from its description of homeland missile defense when it released its Missile Defense Review. The Biden administration has not yet released an unclassified version of its review.

But John Plumb, the first-ever assistant secretary of defense for space policy, testified in May before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel that while China is the pacing threat in terms of military strategy, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine emphasizes the need for a broader missile defense strategy for the homeland.

“The sobering reality of the tragic events in Ukraine, in which Russia has used and continues to use a broad array of missiles to attack and, in my opinion, terrorize civilian populations, highlights the extent to which our adversaries are prepared to use missiles in a conflict,” Plumb said. “Missile defenses are critical for defending the U.S. homeland and for defending our deployed forces and our allies and partners.”

Plumb noted the FY23 budget request called for “significant investments in homeland missile defense,” including $2.8 billion to develop the Next Generation Interceptor and for the service-life extension of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system as well as $4.7 billion to transition to a “resilient missile warning and missile track satellite architecture.”

It also sought $4.7 billion for the Space Force, $278 million for new over-the-horizon radars to enhance the ability to detect cruise missile attacks on the homeland and nearly $1 billion for missile defense capabilities for Guam.

Development focus

The Missile Defense Agency has several efforts underway to address a wider variety of threats. One priority is ensuring the Ground-Based Interceptors in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system are replaced by the Next Generation Interceptor.

While Ground-Based Interceptors only have one kill vehicle, allowing each to destroy a single intercontinental ballistic missile in flight, the Next Generation Interceptor is undergoing designs to house multiple kill vehicles, making it possible for one interceptor to simultaneously defeat several incoming missiles.

Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies are competing against a team of Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne to design the Next Generation Interceptor. The Missile Defense Agency hopes to place the first future interceptor into a ground-based silo by 2028.

MDA is also using a competitive development strategy to develop a Glide Phase Interceptor capable of defeating a hypersonic weapon. Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman were selected in June to continue developing the interceptors.

The agency will first focus on providing a capability to the Navy and, if successful, move to develop a land-based battery.

Meanwhile, the agency and U.S. Northern Command are working together to test a possible cruise missile defense capability for the homeland. They plan to conduct a capability demonstration in FY23 that integrates an elevated sensor into a so-called joint tactical integrated fire architecture with fire control for a naval long-range surface-to-air interceptor.

A major endeavor for MDA in the coming fiscal year is to kick off construction of a missile defense architecture in Guam. The agency set an FY26 fielding deadline for the capability and plans to spend $539 million in FY23 to begin the process.

The architecture will be mobile and include Navy SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, the Patriot air defense system, and the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System. The U.S. has operated that latter battery in Guam since 2013.

Those elements are to connect through the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System — command-and-control technology that connects sensors and shooters on the battlefield. The agency will also use the Aegis weapon system’s fire control capability.

Pentagon officials have said the architecture on Guam could serve as a proof of concept or a test bed to contribute to a homeland cruise missile defense architecture.

Money for missile defense

The Pentagon has said it budgeted roughly $20 billion to develop a “missile defeat” capability. This figure appears to be a big boost, Robert Soofer, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy during the Trump administration, told Defense News.

But only about half of that funding will go toward traditional missile defense, Soofer noted. Some of the funding, for example, is for offensive hypersonic weapons development — an area set to receive about $3.8 billion in the FY23 request.

MDA requested $2.8 billion to continue to sustain and upgrade its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, and $225 million to develop the Glide Phase Interceptor to counter hypersonic threats.

A total of $89 million would pay for delivering space vehicles for launch vehicle integration as well as complete development of the ground system for the second quarter of FY23, which will see the launch of two prototypes and on-orbit experimentations of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor.

Congress is also moving to increase missile defense development funding in its FY23 defense authorization bills. The Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the bill in July, which included $50.9 million in additional money for the cruise missile defense for the homeland demonstration.

The committee also doubled the Glide Phase Interceptor weapon account to $518 million.

For its part, the House Armed Services Committee in its version of the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act approved $166 million in additional funding — more than double the request — for continued development of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor.

Capitol demands

Both chambers’ versions of the FY23 authorization bill indicate Congress wants increased oversight and a better sense of who will manage missile defense programs.

The Senate version of the bill calls for a “rapid and complete modernization of legacy nuclear capabilities of the United States and the timely development of a range of ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic boost glide missiles.”

Senators ask for increased notification and reports, should the Pentagon run into issues that could delay or prevent the fielding of those critical capabilities. The legislation also requires Pentagon officials brief Congress twice a year on missile defense policies, operations and technology development.

Additionally, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee want the defense secretary to designate a senior Defense Department official to oversee the missile defense of Guam within 90 days of the bill’s passage.

The House version of the bill acknowledges the White House’s FY22 and FY23 budgets make “a needed and significant shift” to address missile tracking and warning architecture. The legislation also notes the Pentagon should continue to fund and deliver the capability from low Earth orbit in the mid-2020s.

Lawmakers also require the defense secretary and MDA to submit a comprehensive layered strategy to use “asymmetric capabilities” to defeat hypersonic missile threats.

Members of Congress appear to be backing off from a push to fund a homeland missile defense radar in Hawaii. MDA has not included funding for the radar for several years, but Congress had added funding the last several budget cycles to move forward on the program.

However, in the latest House Armed Services Committee bill, lawmakers noted they will wait to determine what’s needed in Hawaii until learning more about a review currently in the works by the Pentagon on the integrated air and missile defense sensor architecture of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

House lawmakers have also been pressuring the Pentagon to designate a department or agency to lead its homeland cruise missile defense efforts. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks in late July gave the Air Force lead acquisition authority over homeland cruise missile defense.

A memo from Hicks gives the Air Force 180 days to deliver a plan and proposed architecture that addresses meeting homeland cruise missile defense capability gaps “projected in Fiscal Year 2026 and 2030.”

‘We don’t really get a choice’

But some analysts and experts say the shift toward thinking about missile threats more broadly is inevitable.

“We don’t really get a choice about whether or not we go after this,” Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense News. “We have to counter all of these different pieces of the air-and-missile threat spectrum in some way, be it passive defense, be it active defense, be it distributed ops or what have you. That’s just the reality.”

The architecture at Guam will give the Pentagon an opportunity to look at what’s possible, Karako added.

He said he’ll be watching the president’s FY24 budget request for proof the White House is committed to a more robust defense of the homeland. “Will it go after homeland cruise missile defense like we mean it?” he wondered.

If the White House and the Defense Department don’t commit more money to solving the homeland cruise missile defense mission in FY24, “it sends a signal that there are [other], higher priorities,” Soofer said.

North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, in consultation with the Missile Defense Agency and the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization, are closing in on a design framework for the mission, Brig. Gen. Paul Murray, NORAD deputy director of operations, said last month. The next step is to show decision-makers it will work, he explained.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Defense News that “you can tell if an administration is serious by scrutinizing whether they produce well-formulated missile defense acquisition strategies in a timely manner and request the necessary funding to field capabilities as quickly as possible.”

“Too often, we have seen a dissonance between words and actions,” he added. “I worry we will pay a steeper price for that dissonance in the future.”

The cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center, which SpaceLink announced Monday, allows the organizations to share facilities, intellectual property and expertise to “elevate solutions for both the warfighter and industry,” the McLean, Virginia-based company said in a statement. There is no funding connected to the agreement.

While the work isn’t tied to a specific Army program, it comes as the service is making plans for a Tactical Space Layer that would enable it to use overhead imagery to target beyond-line-of-sight threats. The Army has been partnering with commercial companies and other military services to conduct experiments and prototyping efforts aimed at reducing the amount of time it takes to collect and deliver satellite data to a weapon system.

SpaceLink is investing internal funds to develop a satellite relay system that will reside in medium Earth orbit — between 1,243 and 22,236 miles above planet’s surface — and use laser communications for faster and more secure data transfer. Anthony Colucci, the company’s chief strategy and commercial officer, told C4ISRNET in an interview that SpaceLink is in the “ready-for-production phase” and plans to launch its first constellation of four satellites by the end of 2024.

Colucci said the company views the agreement as a sign the U.S. government understands the value its system will bring once on orbit. Although its constellation isn’t operational, SpaceLink will provide modeling and simulation tools that the Army can use to better understand how the capability could fit into its architecture.

“It can take hours, and sometimes even days, between the time somebody says, ‘I need certain data, I need an impact of what’s going on,’ until they have that data back,” Colucci said. “With our system, it can be minutes to even seconds. So, you can imagine the tactical importance.”

After its first satellites arrive on orbit in 2024, SpaceLink plans to launch new capabilities every two years, increasing processing speed and capacity with each iteration.

Colucci said the company has discussed its plans with the Space Force, Space Development Agency and the Defense Innovation Unit, providing studies and white papers to show how the system could improve data delivery times. He said he expects additional partnerships to be formalized soon but declined to provide details.

The 31,000 square foot plant is dedicated to building cubesats, a class of small satellites that weigh between one and 10 kilograms and are typically the size of a loaf of bread. Since Raytheon acquired Blue Canyon last year, it has expanded production capacity in Boulder and at a facility in nearby Lafayette that builds microsatellites, or those weighing 10-100 kilograms.

“This new manufacturing facility allows us to produce at a larger scale, provide innovative solutions and deliver top-performing satellites to meet our customers’ needs,” John Carvo, Blue Canyon’s executive director of cubesats, said in a statement announcing the plant’s Aug. 4 grand opening.

Blue Canyon produces a range of small space vehicles for customers at the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA. Later this summer, two weather satellites it developed for a joint program led by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the United Kingdom Defence Science and Technology Laboratory will launch as part of the first space mission to lift off from British territory.

Roy Azevedo, president of Raytheon’s intelligence and space business, told C4ISRNET the company’s investment in Blue Canyon is part of a broader strategy to become a leader in small satellite technology.

“In the last two years, we’ve invested over $1 billion dollars — and that’s in small satellites, space-qualified electronics, optics, constellation management systems,” Azevedo told C4ISRNET during a July 19 interview at the Farnborough Airshow. “We have every intent of being a small sat leader.”

Along with its purchase of Blue Canyon, Raytheon last year acquired space-qualified electronics company SEAKR Engineering and in July announced it would buy a United Kingdom-based space domain awareness startup called Northern Space and Security. That deal is expected to close by the end of this month.

Azevedo said Raytheon’s recent acquisitions, while focused on leadership in the small satellite market, are also meant to differentiate the company at a technology level. Blue Canyon and SEAKR provide the company with satellite and sensor hardware expertise and NORSS adds specialization in orbital analysis and surveillance.

“It’s quite congested in space, and that is what their tool sets are made for,” he said of NORSS.

“NRO has a long legacy of innovation, and launching two missions in less than one month from an overseas location is yet another example of our progress,” Col. Chad Davis, who leads the agency’s Office of Space Launch, said in a statement announcing the event.

The NROL-199 satellite mission, run in partnership with Australia’s Defence Department, was launched with a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from the Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island. The event follows the NROL-166 mission, which launched July 13 from the same peninsula. The NRO did not specify the payload.

As initially planned, however, the two missions would have taken place in even quicker succession. The second launch was scheduled for July 22 — nine days after the first launch — but was delayed by two weeks, first because the NRO needed to update the payload software, and later because of strong winds.

MISSION SUCCESS! Electron's Kick Stage has successfully deployed the @NatReconOfC's payload to orbit. Welcome to your new home in space, #NROL199! pic.twitter.com/hOOryOsATG

— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) August 4, 2022

The New Zealand Space Agency licensed the launch, and Rocket Lab, the private company that built the rocket, was the launch provider.

This summer’s NROL-166 and NROL-199 missions are the third and fourth Rocket Lab Electron launches from New Zealand, respectively, with two previous launches occurring Jan. 31, 2020, and June 13, 2020.

The NRO is a Pentagon agency that designs, builds and operates spy satellites.

The Lockheed Martin-built satellite is the sixth and final SBIRS vehicle to launch to geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth. It’s slated to lift off at 6:29 a.m. Aug. 4 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The satellite will fly on an Atlas V rocket built by space lift provider United Launch Alliance.

The mission comes amid a major transition for the service’s space-based missile warning systems. As adversaries including China and Russia develop hypersonic weapons that are harder to track than traditional ballistic missiles, the Space Force and other Pentagon agencies are crafting a strategy for detecting such threats. The vision is for an expanded architecture that reaches beyond the large GEO-based satellites such as SBIRS and draws on smaller space vehicles with advanced sensors operating in a more diverse range of orbits.

Col. Brian Denaro, program executive officer at Space Systems Command’s Space Sensing Directorate, said SBIRS will remain an important capability as the department diversifies. The key to countering more advanced missile threats, he said, will be ensuring that satellites and sensors are integrated.

“It is absolutely critical that our integrated family of systems that provides this overhead persistent infrared capability is not only able to detect the missiles, we’re able to track them throughout their flight and then report on those events on a timeline that’s relevant to being able to engage those targets,” he said during an Aug. 1 briefing for reporters.

“Whether that engagement means notification to the national command authorities to make very important decisions or notification to the Missile Defense Agency and all of its partners to be able to engage those targets, this is an integrated system of capabilities,” Denaro continued.

Overcoming early mistakes

The Department of Defense began building SBIRS in 1996 to replace the legacy Defense Support Program, which has been operating since the early 1970s.

The constellation today is made up of five satellites in GEO, each of which has a scanning sensor that continuously monitors the Earth and a staring sensor that provides more precise, targeted coverage of specific theater missions. It also includes two scanning sensor payloads hosted on classified satellites located in highly elliptical orbits that provide coverage of the polar regions.

The first SBIRS satellite arrived on orbit in 2011 — 15 years after the program’s inception and nine years later than its original 2002 launch target. The effort has become notorious for development challenges, schedule delays and cost overruns. From 1996 to 2020, the program’s total cost estimate ballooned to $20.3 billion from from $5.6 billion, a 260% increase, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The program’s ground processing and control system also faced major development roadblocks that delayed delivery of its full suite of capabilities until eight years after the first SBIRS satellite was launched.

GAO says SBIRS has largely overcome early development issues. The Space Force and Lockheed have also integrated more advanced capabilities on later-model satellites, including the company’s LM2100 satellite bus. The bus, incorporated on GEO-5 and 6, is cyber hardened, has greater power and uses common components that make it more efficient to build.

The fifth and sixth SBIRS GEO satellites were meant to replace older space vehicles that were designed with a 12-year service life. Col. Don Walter, senior materiel leader for SSC’s Missile Warning Acquisition Delta, said the early satellites will operate until they can no longer function, which could be much longer than planned.

Walter said that scenario works in the service’s advantage, explaining that having more satellites on orbit provides overlapping coverage, which increases accuracy.

“As we have launched more SBIRS into that GEO orbit, they work in concert with each other as a family of systems and are all integrated together on the ground in order to provide the effect that the warfighter needs,” he said during the briefing. “When you get multiple looks at a single launch, it really helps with the accuracy and assuredness.”

‘You have to have a bridging strategy’

As the Space Force plans new approaches to counter changing threats and incorporate technology advancements, officials say having a stable missile warning and tracking constellation in GEO is essential.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond told reporters in April that the capabilities the service gains through SBIRS and through the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program, which the Space Force will launch in 2025, are key during the transition.

The service laid out its near-term strategy in its fiscal 2022 budget proposal, requesting $3.4 billion to keep the Next-Generation OPIR satellites and ground system on schedule. It also proposed another $1.2 billion to continue developing more advanced satellites and ground systems to track hypersonic missiles from low and medium Earth orbits.

Having the baseline stability of the more traditional OPIR capabilities that come through SBIRS and Next-Generation OPIR allows the Space Force to experiment with new capabilities without sacrificing its mission.

“I think it’d be fair to say that we don’t have the luxury of going out to the world and saying we’re going to turn off all of these capabilities and we’ll come back in a few years with a bunch of new capabilities. You have to have a bridging strategy,” Raymond said during the annual Space Symposium in Colorado.

Michael Corriea, vice president of Lockheed’s overhead persistent infrared mission area, said in the briefing that the company’s work to upgrade SBIRS capabilities helps support that bridge strategy — especially since it’s under on contract to develop three GEO satellites for the Next-Generation OPIR constellation.

The incorporation of the LM2100 satellite bus and other workflow changes have not only introduced new technology to the program, but have helped the company move faster and learn from past challenges on SBIRS, Corriea said.

“The biggest thing for us has been trying out some of these new techniques in terms of going fast,” he said. “We tried those out for the first time on GEO-5 and made some tweaks on GEO-6 and are going to fold in the subsequent lessons learned on Next-Gen GEO to be able to pull as much time out of the schedule as we can.”

The company’s 2023 launch schedule means the Space-Augmented JADO Environment should be on orbit in time for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Northern Edge exercise next year and other planned Air Force, Navy and Army joint capability demonstrations, the company said in an online posting.

Stacy Kubicek, vice president and general manager of the company’s Mission Solutions business, told C4ISRNET that the Lockheed-funded effort will showcase the importance of space-based networks and be available for the company’s own internal demonstrations and for military use.

“This is helping to buy down risk for future satellites,” she said in a July 19 interview at the Farnborough International Airshow trade exhibition in England. “We’re utilizing this as a testing ground or a proving ground and a demo area to be able to offset risks so that when those things do come along, we’re ready to go and we’ve already done the investment upfront to be able to execute on those capabilities.”

Military leaders see space-based optical communication satellites as the backbone of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort. The Space Development Agency is leading the creation of a satellite network in low-Earth orbit, based less than 1,200 miles from planet’s surface. The optical links that connect the SDA satellites will allow them to send information from space sensors to the ground, pulling together networks developed by the individual services.

SDA plans to launch its Transport Layer satellites in batches, or “tranches,” and Lockheed is on contract to develop 52 of the first 146 satellites on contract. The first of those satellites, Tranche 0, will launch this fall.

Kubicek said the satellites that make up its SAJE testbed are modeled after its work on SDA’s Transport Layer. Two of the satellites, called Pony Express 2, will launch together and showcase networking and tactical communications. The effort follows Lockheed’s 2019 rapid-prototyping demonstration, Pony Express 1.

The third satellite, a tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vehicle, will launch separately to demonstrate ISR sensing and communications capabilities. Dubbed “TacSat,” it will host a Lockheed-built ISR sensor as well as a 5G payload.

The Pony Express 2 satellites will fly on ABL Space Systems’ RS1 launch vehicle. The company signed an agreement with ABL in 2021 to buy up to 26 RS1 rockets through 2025 and up to 32 through 2029 to lift Lockheed-developed payloads.

The proposed increase comes as part of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s $792 billion spending package for fiscal 2023, released July 28. The bill calls for a 9% increase to the Department of Defense’s budget over fiscal 2022 spending levels and is $31 billion higher than what House lawmakers approved in June.

In a report released with its bill last week, the committee labeled space as one of its top priorities, noting that part of the $2.2 billion increase is focused on hypersonic missile tracking capabilities and would support the Space Force’s shift to a more resilient, distributed architecture.

The bill’s major space-focused funding increases includes $700 million to speed up procurement of Space Development Agency missile warning and tracking satellites and support a new constellation of space vehicles in medium Earth orbit, or between 1,243 and 22,236 miles (2,000-35,785 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. It also proposes another $216 million to accelerate SDA missile warning and tracking satellite launches.

The committee’s show of support for space-based missile warning and tracking systems comes as the Space Force reports growing threats from adversaries including China and Russia that are developing and demonstrating hypersonic weapons that can travel at speeds above Mach 5.

The service projects it will need $24.5 billion to develop and procure missile warning and tracking systems over the next five years to develop the follow-on to the Space-Based Infrared System through a program called Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared and to build out additional constellations that will augment that mission in new orbits.

The committee said it agrees with the Space Force’s plan to rethink its missile warning and tracking architecture but wants details on the progress of the programs and a comparison of the cost, schedule and risk associated with each.

Lawmakers also want to see the Space Force invest more in satellite resiliency, adding $250 million in their bill for an initiative to improve on-board protection for important space assets. The bill doesn’t dictate how the service should spend the money, but recommends that it develop an acquisition strategy to provide “a suite of on-board capabilities” that could be made available for program managers to integrate on their satellites or ground systems. The committee also suggests the service make on-board resiliency a requirement when developing new satellites.

The bill also calls for a $250 million increase “to fill a critical gap” in the Space Force’s testing and training infrastructure. The increase comes as the service is in the early stages of developing a National Space Test and Training Complex that would help space operators and testers connect virtually to practice tactics and assess new space systems.

In the area of space launch, lawmakers proposed $100 million for the Tactically Responsive Launch program. The effort was initiated by Congress, and while the service is pursuing responsive space capabilities that would allow it to quickly replace or augment satellites on rapid timelines, it hasn’t committed to funding the program.

Congress has appropriated $115 million for the program since fiscal 2020 and has repeatedly asked the Space Force to develop an acquisition plan. Senate appropriators continue that push, directing the service to deliver a plan “in a timely manner.”

Lawmakers also proposed a $96 million increase across a range of Space Force technology development initiatives, including a project to boost cyber resiliency and an effort to improve space domain awareness near the moon.

If confirmed by the Senate, Saltzman will be the second person to serve as the Space Force’s top officer since the service was created in December 2019. He would succeed Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, who is set to retire after 35 years of service in the Air Force and nearly three in the Space Force.

Raymond strongly supported Saltzman’s selection as his successor, according to SpaceNews, which first reported the pick on Thursday.

Other candidates for the position included Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, who runs the Space Force’s ops branch, and Lt. Gen. John Shaw, the second-highest officer at the Pentagon’s U.S. Space Command.

Saltzman has recently become the go-to person for high-level military planning initiatives, from the Air Force’s enterprise study of multidomain command and control in 2017 to serving as the Space Force’s first deputy chief for space, cyber and nuclear operations.

A proud Boston University graduate, he commissioned into the Air Force in 1991 as a nuclear missile operator before switching to military space jobs. Later, he took on higher-level programs and planning positions as well as a yearlong tour as deputy commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command — the first non-flyer to hold the post.

Along the way, Saltzman has cultivated a reputation as an articulate, big-picture thinker who is leading the way in breaking down the Pentagon’s most entrenched hurdles to joint operations.

“He has reinforced all of the space and cyber functions across the different divisions in the Combined Air Operations Center by elevating their stature within the divisions to make sure those pieces are also integrated into everything we do,” Air Force Col. Byron Pompa, AFCENT’s air, space and information operations director, said in a 2020 press release.

Since becoming the Space Force ops boss in August 2020, Saltzman has tackled the broad questions behind space warfare: How should the service define its readiness, and how can it work seamlessly with other parts of the military behemoth?

The Space Force now has nearly 16,000 guardians and civilians. They either wear the service’s uniform or are assigned from other branches and handle U.S. military satellites and radars for missions like GPS, communication, missile warning and surveillance as part of the Department of the Air Force.

It was largely formed out of the former Air Force Space Command, and includes rocket launch bases in California and Florida, plus a host of other installations in Colorado and around the globe.

The service has taken on a leading role in naming and shaming foreign actors for what it sees as bad behavior on orbit, such as foreign spying on others’ systems or launching anti-satellite missiles that can spread damaging debris across the cosmos.

“Protecting and defending our space-based capabilities and defending our joint force from irresponsible or hostile use of space-based capabilities is the reason that your Space Force was established,” Saltzman said at the 2022 GEOINT Symposium.

He’s kept an eye on possible lessons learned from Russia’s war on Ukraine, in which commercial satellite constellations are playing a key role for intelligence-gathering and public transparency despite Russian cyber attacks.

“If you think the only way to dismantle space capabilities is by shooting down satellites, you’re missing the bigger picture … as these cyber attacks are on ground networks,” Saltzman told reporters in May.

Two key challenges will be to advocate for a growing military space budget to lawmakers who are wary of bureaucratic bloat, and to convince the American public of the merits of their newest military branch.

He’ll also represent the service as it tries to make its own mark on issues from troop recruitment and retention to a nontraditional approach to Guard and Reserve components.

The Space Force is working through the details of bringing the Space Development Agency under its roof to fast-track a vast constellation of commercial satellites for military use, and taking on parts of the Navy and Army’s space enterprises, among other initiatives.

Saltzman must go before the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of a confirmation vote by the full chamber. A Space Force spokesman told Air Force Times on Wednesday that a change of command could come toward the end of 2022.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that it renamed and expanded the authority of the government’s chief UFO office. Formerly known as the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group, the office will now be known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO.

With the new name comes increased responsibilities, the Defense Department said in a statement. While the group was mostly focused on airborne and threats in space, the renamed office will also look into unidentified objects that are submerged in water or deemed “transmedium.”

Transmedium typically refers to the ability of an object to fly across multiple environments. For example, an object could be considered “transmedium” if it could fly through Earth’s atmosphere in addition to another environment, such as space or underwater.

The office’s new scope and name result from a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2022. The bill included a provision to establish an office with responsibilities that were broader than those originally assigned to the old office.

The renaming comes amid an uptick in interest in UFOs in Washington.

Congress takes renewed interest in issue

Earlier this year, Congress held its first hearing on UFOs in over a half century. During the hearing, lawmakers questioned Pentagon officials for more information about sightings of UFOs, with many lawmakers voicing criticism about a lack of transparency surrounding the issue.

The House voted last week to create a government system for reporting UFOs as an amendment to this year’s defense bill. The amendment would also compel current and former defense officials to reveal information about the phenomena.

In June 2021, the intelligence community released a long-awaited report on what it knows about a series of flying objects observed over the past few decades. The release of the report, while revealing little about the sightings, marked one of the first times the government acknowledged the mysterious sightings.

In addition to investigating objects, the renamed office will also be tasked with synchronizing efforts across the Department of Defense and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies to detect and identify objects of interest near locations pertinent to national security, such as training areas or military installations.

In cases where a relevant object is identified and deemed a hazard to national security, the office is also responsible for mitigating the threat.

NROL-162 is the first of two missions being conducted in quick succession and in coordination with the Australian Department of Defence, with which the NRO seeks to expand its competitiveness in intelligence gathering from space, it said in a statement. The other launch will be the NROL-199 is planned for July 22.

“The NRO works with allies and partners to identify and advance common goals,” Chris Scolese, director of NRO, said in the statement. “This collaboration with Australia bolsters our partnership and strengthens the foundation for future coordination as we work to secure and expand our intelligence advantage in a competitive space environment.”

The July 13 launch of NROL-162 highlights the importance of space in the larger national security strategy of the U.S. military. By launching multiple missions in a short time frame, the NRO said this demonstrates the speed and agility needed to innovate quickly ― and compete in space.

The NROL-162 launch carries a payload that was designed, built and will be operated by the NRO in consultation with the Australian Department of Defence. The mission will provide intelligence to more than half a million government users within the U.S. national security apparatus, which include all intelligence agencies, two dozen domestic agencies, the U.S. military and lawmakers, the statement said.

The NRO worked closely with the New Zealand Space Agency, which licensed the launch for the NROL-162. The launch services were acquired through NRO’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket contract.

“No launch can succeed without the talent and dedication of the people on the ground,” Chad Davis, NRO’s director of the Office of Space Launch, said. “The teams from Rocket Lab and the New Zealand Space Agency demonstrated outstanding skill and dedication in getting this mission into orbit, and I am confident they are up to the challenge of doing it again soon.”

The Space Development Agency on July 18 said the companies will each produce 14 prototype satellites for the Tranche 1 Tracking Layer, a key component of the National Defense Space Architecture, which will consist of hundreds of satellites operating primarily in low-Earth orbit.

Together, the agreements are valued at more than $1.3 billion. The L3Harris deal came in at $700 million, making each satellite and related service package worth roughly $50 million. The Northrop Grumman deal came in at $617 million.

Seven proposals were received. SDA Director Derek Tournear on Monday declined to say who else was interested in furnishing the systems, but did say the competition was healthy and heating up.

The SDA published the Tranche 1 Tracking Layer solicitation in March.

“The primary purpose of this contract is so that we can provide, for the department and for the nation, missile warning and missile tracking capability for the advanced missile threats and to deliver that as rapidly as possible,” Tournear told reporters.

The first launch is expected in April 2025. Three more are expected to follow.

The satellites will be installed in different locations, traveling north to south on polar orbits, and will carry overhead persistent infrared sensors. They will be constructed with the contemporary space environment in mind, according to Tournear, who emphasized the threat of attrition and the real-world value of strength in numbers.

“Historically, our architecture was designed in an environment that was very benign. In other words, an environment that was not threatened at all,” he said. “Now, we’re in an environment where space is challenged, people talk about space as a warfighting domain. Because of that, we’ve had to completely change the way that we do our space architecture. The space architecture now is designed to be more resilient, based on proliferation.”

Congress in fiscal 2022 gave the SDA an extra $550 million, accelerating the agency’s schedules and helping almost double total development and prototyping funds to $1.2 billion from $636 million, C4ISRNET reported.

The Pentagon reiterated the point Monday, adding that specific attention was to be paid to the Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. is investing much time and money to counter China.

“As you as you see in the news, our adversaries, primarily Russia and China, have been developing and testing hypersonic glide vehicles, these advanced missiles that are extremely maneuverable,” Tournear said. “These satellites are specifically designed to go after that next-generation version of threats out there.”

The two services have been conducting reviews and meeting with industry over the last year to define their distinct roles in providing tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and develop a plan for a space-based ground moving target indicator, or GMTI, capability. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond said in January the service would likely request funding for a new program in fiscal 2024.

Those studies have concluded, and Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter told reporters July 16 they confirmed the important role space will play in the GMTI mission.

“Space is where we need to go,” Hunter said during a media briefing at the Royal International Air Tattoo here. “It is our expectation that we can deliver pretty quickly on those capabilities — and we need to.”

The Air Force is on a path to divest its primary GMTI platform, the aging E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, retiring its first JSTARS aircraft in February. Rather than develop a direct airborne replacement, the service is creating the Advanced Battle Management System to better share data from multiple sources and connect forces on the battlefield. That system will rely heavily on space sensors to provide ground targeting information.

Along with a future GMTI capability, the Advanced Battle Management System will leverage the Space Development Agency’s data transport layer, which is on schedule to launch its first satellites this fall.

Because ABMS will be providing the much-needed infrastructure to ingest the new inputs from space, Hunter said the Air Force needs to stay on schedule and be ready to “move the data where it needs to go” once the space sensors are on orbit.

GMTI is likely just the first step in an incremental process to provide more ISR capability from space. Though satellites won’t fully take over the mission, the military increasingly wants multiple data sources for a more complete understanding of threats.

Col. Eric Felt, who recently transitioned from his role as head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate to a new position in the Space Force acquisition executive’s office, recently told C4ISRNET that while the GMTI capability is within reach, the military must work toward more advanced space-based ISR.

AFRL has been working behind the scenes on space-based tracking technology for years, and the Space Force revealed last year it had been working with the lab since 2018 on a classified GMTI program, which will lay the foundation for a future effort.

“There will be a growing space role over time,” Felt said in a June 24 interview at AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “To get it at scale, where you can see everything of interest, everywhere, all the time and in real time, that’ll take a little bit longer. But the basic technology building blocks will be there.”

Felt said the confidence from Air Force and Space Force leaders in the ability to conduct GMTI from space is “well justified” based on work AFRL has done to prove the technology. However, he noted that just because the technology is feasible, there will still be development hurdles.

“Even when you can see that there’s no technical barriers, that doesn’t mean it’s easy,” he said. “It’s lots of engineering and little things along the way. We’re good at solving those, but it does take some time.”

Beyond GMTI, the Space Force is considering whether it can track airborne targets from space, a mission currently performed by the Air Force’s E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System. Space-based AMTI presents a harder challenge, and Felt said AFRL will play a key role in helping determine whether it’s feasible.

Putin removed Dmitry Rogozin as the head of the state-controlled Roscosmos space agency that oversees the country’s space program and includes rocket factories, launch facilities and numerous other assets.

He replaced Rogozin with Yuri Borisov, a deputy prime minister who was in charge of weapons industries. Borisov’s duties were handed over to Denis Manturov, the minister of industry and trade who was also given the rank of a deputy prime minister.

Manturov has held the ministerial job since 2012 and reportedly has Putin’s favor, accompanying the Russian president on most foreign and domestic trips.

The reshuffle follows predictions of Borisov’s removal from the job that he held for four years amid reported flaws and deficiencies in Russian weapons programs highlighted by the military action in Ukraine. Borisov acknowledged some of the shortcomings in recent comments, saying that military industries should have been more active in developing and producing drones.

“I think we were late with the deployment of drones,” he said in an interview with state television.

Borisov’s appointment to the important position of Roscosmos chief indicates he hasn’t completely fallen from grace, despite the weapons procurement issues.

There was no immediate word on a new job for Rogozin, who had served as Roscosmos chief since 2018 and became known for his blustery anti-West rhetoric.

In the early 2000s, Rogozin led a nationalist party, winning notoriety for his anti-migrant stance, and later served as Moscow’s envoy to NATO. In 2011, he was named a deputy prime minister in charge of weapons industries and space, the job he held before Putin named him Roscosmos chief.

Some Russian media speculated that Rogozin still retains Putin’s favor and could be given a new senior job to oversee Moscow-controlled territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state Tass news agency that there were no complaints about Rogozin’s performance as the Roscosmos head, adding without elaboration that Rogozin will receive a new position.

That’s why we created the Space Force in 2019 — to maintain our edge in space. Active duty Air Force units with space missions were transferred to the new service to intensify focus on this critical domain. But there was a key exception: Space units in the National Guard were left under the Air Force because a corresponding “Space National Guard” was never formed.

We have proposed establishing a National Guard component for the Space Force to eliminate that needless division. On June 22, the House Armed Services Committee voted to include this provision in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Senate should follow suit.

Our space units should operate as a seamless team, but they can’t do that while divided between two services. Instead, they’re dependent on added bureaucracy to conduct basic functions — training troops, acquiring resources, setting standards, inspecting units and mobilizing personnel. The division also makes it impossible to build a strong organizational culture.

Moreover, unless the Air National Guard’s space units are transformed into a Space National Guard, those units may lose their space mission. That would come at great cost. We would likely lose the wealth of expertise that exists in 14 Air National Guard space units in seven states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, New York and Ohio) as well as Guam.

There would also be a financial cost. A 2021 Air Force report found that decommissioning the Air Guard’s space units would create “an immediate gap in capability” and incur “a cost to rebuild the mission capability within the US Space Force.” The report concluded that shifting those units into a Space National Guard would be the most cost-effective path forward.

In contrast, the Office of Management and Budget cited an annual price tag of “up to $500 million annually” as its reason for opposing a Space National Guard in last year’s defense bill. But that was a Congressional Budget Office estimate to create a Space Guard vastly larger than anyone is proposing.

Similarly, the CBO estimates it would cost $100 million annually and $20 million in construction to shift existing Air Guard space units into a Space Guard. But that is just as exaggerated. It’s based on assumed liabilities, including a new $20 million headquarters building and 260 additional full-time employees, which the Air Force, Space Force and National Guard Bureau say are unnecessary — and which are not part of our legislation.

As a nation, we can’t let distorted budget estimates distract us from the urgent task at hand: maintaining our edge in space. Retired Air Force Gen. Dave Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said it well: “It is time to take action to do what should have been done at the stand-up of the Space Force — transfer the space forces in the Air National Guard into a Space National Guard.”

This issue’s importance transcends partisan boundaries. Legislation to create a Space National Guard was introduced last year in the House by a Democrat and a Republican, and last month in the Senate by a Democrat and a Republican.

It comes down to this: A brain drain in the space arena will have detrimental effects on our national security and our states’ readiness, and creating a Space National Guard is the best, most cost-efficient way to prevent that from happening.

Congress can’t afford to look the other way on this. America’s future depends on it.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is a member of the Appropriations Committee and its defense panel. She also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is the vice chairman. He also serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees.

Just before leaving that post, Raymond co-authored a paper with retired Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski titled “Operationally Responsive Space: A New Business Model.” In the paper, they argued that the Air Force, which was then the service primarily responsible for the DoD space portfolio, needed to develop a way to meet the operational demand for space capabilities on faster timelines.

Their proposal? Create a mechanism to rapidly develop and launch space capabilities that can augment or replace satellites destroyed in conflict, a concept known as operationally responsive space.

“Rather than treating our operational- and tactical-level commanders as a lesser requirement in the overall national space plan, this business model designs a capability to meet their specific warfighting needs,” Raymond and Cebrowski, then-director of the force transformation office, wrote. “Done correctly, this approach can complement and add to national space capabilities.”

Seventeen years later, and with Raymond now leading the newly created Space Force, the department is still working in fits and starts to close the business case for that approach. In that time, the Pentagon created and canceled an Operationally Responsive Space office dedicated to developing an on-demand launch capability that could augment or reconstitute existing satellite constellations. Despite lawmakers creating a formal Tactically Responsive Space Launch program, and appropriating tens of millions of dollars to fund it, the Space Force has yet to prioritize or budget for the effort, relying on congressional adds to conduct demonstrations.

SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket demonstration

There are signs the Space Force may finally be ready embrace the concept of responsive launch in the coming years — a paradigm shift that would allow the service to reconstitute satellites within a few days or weeks of notice rather than the months and years it often takes today.

Russia’s recent demonstration of a destructive anti-satellite weapon, China’s advances in space technology and concerns about a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific are driving pressure from Congress. And the creation of the Space Force in 2019 provides the leadership and bureaucratic heft needed to develop the underlying doctrine.

Outside experts and military officials point to recent and planned demonstrations, momentum in the commercial sector and a growing acknowledgement of the threats to military space assets as reasons to think the service may overcome the bureaucratic, budgetary and technological hurdles that have slowed this effort over the last two decades.

Doug Loverro, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy and now a consultant for government contractors, told C4ISRNET that while he doesn’t see the service prioritizing responsive space and launch capabilities at the level he thinks they should, he does see signs that “the Space Force is trying to think about this.”

“They’re coming along, but certainly they’ve been slower to adopt it than one might have expected,” he said in an interview. “This is a long build-up.”

In 2007, two years after Cebrowski and Raymond’s paper was published, the Air Force established the ORS office, responsible for developing and acquiring satellites and other space capabilities. It was located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

ORS worked with other space technology offices as well as industry to develop small satellites and find rides for them on launch systems. The first ORS mission, dubbed ‘Jumpstart’, launched in June 2008 on a SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket. The mission carried three payloads and demonstrated concepts for rapid launch.

By 2013, the Air Force was ready to cancel ORS. Its mission focus was too niche, officials said at the time, arguing the service didn’t need an office dedicated to responsive capabilities and instead should integrate those concepts throughout its space portfolio. However, lawmakers liked the agile structure of ORS and the idea of an acquisition office designed to move fast.

For the next several years, the service repeatedly asked Congress for permission to close ORS until finally, in fiscal 2018, lawmakers included a provision in that year’s National Defense Authorization Act to create a new Space Rapid Capabilities Office in its place. That office, the Space RCO, is focused on quickly developing high-need space capabilities with less emphasis on launch.

Loverro said ORS in the early 2000s was “a vision in search of a mission and in search of a capability.” The Air Force hadn’t developed a doctrinal case for responsive space, the Space Force had not yet been established and a robust market for small satellites and launch vehicles hadn’t materialized.

Raymond’s paper, it seemed, was ahead of its time.

Understanding threats in space

While ORS was successful in demonstrating some innovative launch concepts, the office’s former Program Element Monitor Col. Eric Felt told C4ISRNET in a June 24 interview at Kirtland the industrial base and military space architecture at the time were not postured to support or justify it.

The situation is different today, Felt said, and it’s giving rise to a new momentum for on-the-ready, responsive space capabilities. There are more companies developing small satellites, loosely defined as any space vehicle that weighs less than 1,200 kg. Commercial launch costs have dropped significantly and companies are developing innovative ways to lift rockets that don’t require the level of range infrastructure a larger launch might demand.

New hybrid architecture concepts that include large constellations of small satellites in diverse orbits are emerging within DoD that are more feasible candidates for replenishment than the exquisite systems the department has traditionally relied on.

“Now we’re at the point where we have these proliferated [low Earth orbit] constellations that are very militarily useful, those are the ones that can be reconstituted,” said Felt, who now serves as the head of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate and will soon take a new position as the deputy executive of the Space Force’s Space Architecture and Science and Technology Directorate. “In that sense, it was kind of early to need back in the 2000s when we were doing it. I think it’ll be more successful this time.”

The Pentagon’s understanding of threats in space has also changed in recent years. When people talk about the need for responsive space capabilities today, they talk about the likelihood of a future conflict in which China or Russia destroys U.S. satellites on orbit.

“The first shots in pretty much every wargame we have now, especially if it’s Russia or China, are fired in space and cyberspace,” Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., told C4ISRNET in a June 15 interview.

Waltz, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing for DoD to invest in the capabilities and infrastructure needed to replenish satellites should they become a target for an adversary.

“We built our architecture decades ago when we did not have adversaries in space. It was not considered a warfighting domain,” he said. “So, we have a lot of our eggs in just a few baskets. We have these massive satellites that are phenomenally capable, but are also big, fat, juicy targets. And the Chinese know that, the Russians know that.”

Growing concern about adversarial threats in space was the motivation for a recent letter Waltz co-authored with Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., and sent to House appropriators. The April letter called for a $150 million increase to the Space Force’s budget for responsive space in fiscal 2023, specifically for a program called Tactically Responsive Launch that was created to demonstrate and mature concepts.

Twenty-three lawmakers signed on to the letter with Waltz and Horsford. The committee ultimately recommended two-thirds of what the group proposed, including $100 million in its version of the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill.

National Defense Authorization Act

Despite pressure from Congress to prioritize Tactically Responsive Launch, the Space Force has yet to request funding for the effort. Instead it has relied on lawmakers to appropriate funding each year, including $15 million in fiscal 2020, $50 million in fiscal 2021 and another $50 million in fiscal 2022.

The service is also late completing a report on its plans to develop responsive space capabilities, which was required in the Fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and due for delivery with the release of the DoD budget in March.

Waltz said he’s had “good conversations” with Space Force and Air Force leaders about responsive space capabilities, noting that he’s encouraged the service is spending the funding Congress has provided. Still, he’s concerned the Space Force isn’t moving fast enough.

“I think it’s a priority, but I mean, a priority is reflected in the budget,” he said. ‘And while I’m pleased with the increase that the Space Force got this year . . . it’s not enough to get us to the new architecture in the timeline that I, others and the intelligence community believe we need. So, it’s a time factor that’s the key issue.”

Space Force leaders, including the commander of Space Systems Command Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, have said they’re putting in the work to develop a comprehensive plan for responsive space that isn’t centered on launch.

“We’re trying to understand where we need rapid space capabilities and rapid space replenishment going forward,” Guetlein said April 20 during the virtual C4ISRNET Conference. “Rather than just focusing on the launch problem, we’re focusing on the entire launch to capability on orbit construct.”

The program office in charge of executing the Space Force’s tactically responsive space space efforts is called Space Safari. Modeled after the Air Force’s Big Safari program office, the team is focused on demonstrating end-to-end responsive space and launch capabilities, understanding what commanders in the field might need from the capability and informing the Space Force’s understanding of and planning for the concept. The program partners with the Rocket Systems Launch Program, which provides launch services.

The first Tactically Responsive Launch mission, TacRL-2, flew last summer on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. Carrying an experimental space domain awareness satellite, the rocket took off from aboard a modified Stargazer L-1011 aircraft positioned about 40,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

The mission set records for its acquisition and fielding timelines. Whereas it typically would have taken the Space Force two to five years to develop and launch a satellite, Space Safari was able to complete the process in 11 months. Once the payload was ready, the program entered a six-month standby period and two months later awarded defense firm Northrop Grumman a contract.

The program then executed a 21-day call-up period during which it retrieved the payload, integrated it with the launch vehicle and the aircraft and sent it to orbit.

How quickly can Space Force launch?

For the next mission, which Space Safari has named “Victus Nox,” the Space Force wants to broaden its scope from focusing on launch to looking more closely at the supporting elements of responsive space. At the same time, it wants to compress the launch call-up period to just 24 hours from three weeks. The mission doesn’t have a set launch date, but the program office is targeting mid-2023 and expects to award a contract for the rocket by the end of the summer.

Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough told C4ISRNET in a June 27 interview the shortened timeline for the Victus Nox mission is a major leap for the program.

“This isn’t just taking the next step, but it’s really pushing as far as we can to what we think that we will need and want in real-world scenarios going forward,” she said. “Getting to that 24 hours is a challenge that’s been provided to us from Space Force leadership. We wouldn’t be going after it if we didn’t think it was in the realm of the possible, though.”

Arthur Grijalva, deputy director of Space Systems Command’s Space Warfighting Division, told C4ISRNET in the same June 27 interview that Victus Nox will shape decisions about how the Space Force might incorporate and budget for responsive space in the future.

“It’s not just about launching something really fast,” Grijalva said. “We’re going to actually have a real capability that warfighters will be able to use at the end of it.”

As Birchenough and her team plan for the Victus Nox mission, they are also working closely with the combatant commands, particularly U.S. Space Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, to understand and document their requirements.

“There are a bunch of different mission areas that tactically responsive space could apply to,” she said. “Where we’re at right now is trying to put all of those needs together and getting them documented into official tactically responsive space requirements.”

Birchenough said she expects her office to have at least drafted requirements with SPACECOM before the Victus Nox mission, but noted those will likely be revised with lessons learned after the demonstration.

The office is also planning an industry day in late August to get feedback and ideas from companies and will participate in some tabletop exercises aimed at understanding how tactically responsive space could be used in future conflicts.

Space Safari’s work is funded almost entirely through the Tactically Responsive Launch program that Congress created, though it did receive about $8 million through an internal Space Systems Command funding transfer in fiscal 2022. Because the Space Force has yet to include the effort in its annual budget request, Birchenough said it’s hard for the office to plan ahead for its missions, invest in long-lead parts and make sure it has the required satellites and sensors on hand.

“No matter how fast you move, if you don’t plan ahead, the supply is not going to be there on short notice unless we do that planning and we have that funding ahead of time,” she said. “Being able to have stable funding in the future would help us really get after all of those different missions that we might be asked to do.”

AFRL has been working since 2019 to develop an interface that allows combatant commands to buy satellite imagery from commercial providers and allied partners. The capability, called the Global Unified Environment, is expected to transition to the Space Force in fiscal 2024.

Col. Joseph Roth, director of the Innovation and Prototyping Delta at Space Systems Command, told reporters during a visit to Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico June 23 that the Space Force is considering how it can leverage AFRL’s work. GLUE’s transition is part of a larger effort to protect the service’s constellations by diversifying its capabilities and operational concepts, be it launching small satellites to different orbits or leveraging technology that’s available from commercial providers.

“We need all hands on deck to get our capabilities up there because our systems are vulnerable,” he said. “If we do not do something about it quickly, our adversary is going to take advantage of it. And it’s not going to be 2030 when we’ve invested and all of our new systems are coming online. It’s going to be sooner than that.”

Creating a more resilient architecture is a top priority for Air Force and Space Force leadership. Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of Space Systems Command has said that as the service invests in new technology that could take years to develop, it needs to take near-term steps to augment its current systems, setting 2026 as a target timeline for delivering those incremental capabilities.

GLUE is an outgrowth of AFRL’s work to demonstrate the resilient capabilities Space Force leaders want through a program called the Hybrid Architecture Demonstration. 1st Lt. Jacob Perry, deputy program manager for HAD, told C4ISRNET in a July 8 email that HAD was designed to assess “the military utility of commercial and allied ISR” and GLUE is a suite of tools that will allow users to tap into that data.

Commercial satellite imagery is in high demand and its utility for military operations has been on full display during the war in Ukraine. Data from commercial space-based imagery providers is supplementing government-owned space capabilities, providing detailed insights into Russian troop movements in Ukraine.

The National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have both ramped up efforts to buy more commercial data. The NRO awarded satellite imagery providers Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs and BlackSky 10-year contracts in May and the NGA has more than doubled its purchases of commercial imagery in the last year.

The Defense Innovation Unit is also aiding the Space Force as it shifts to a new architecture, selecting four companies this week to participate in its Hybrid Space Architecture program, which will demonstrate a space-based communications network composed of commercial and government systems. DIU announced July 7 that Aalyria Technologies, Anduril Industries, Atlas Space Operations and Enveil -- all technology companies -- will demonstrate a range of capabilities during on-orbit demonstrations, including secure software, data-sharing, cloud-based analytics and network security.

“The initial goals are on-demand collection and exploitation of overhead imagery and beyond-line-of-sight tactical situational awareness,” DIU’s program manager Rogan Shimmin said in a statement. “Hosting internet-of-things sensors and edge processing on every satellite further enables breakthrough civil applications, including comprehensive space domain awareness and high-fidelity mapping of the space radiation environment.”

The Space Rapid Capabilities Office was created by Congress in fiscal 2018 to develop high-need operational prototypes as part of a push to speed up space acquisition. The office received its first projects in early 2019 and today manages 14 classified programs with the goal of transitioning them to operations within five years.

With its first projects approaching delivery at the end of this year and into 2023, Space RCO Director Kelly Hammett told reporters during a July 23 visit to its headquarters at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico that the office is meeting schedule targets and working closely with the Space Force to ensure a smooth transition.

Because the programs are classified, Hammett said he could not discuss them in detail.

Foundational to the Space RCO’s ability to move fast are its decision-making authorities and its status as a direct reporting unit to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond. The office has no special exemptions from federal acquisition regulations or, as Hammett described it, “a magic wand” to move faster, but it does have independence and focused requirements.

Also key are its partnerships with the Space Force, Hammett said, noting that being co-located at Kirtland with organizations including Space Systems Command’s Innovation and Prototyping Delta and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate helps to reinforce that collaboration.

While the offices all have a hand in the acquisition process, their roles are distinct. AFRL is focused on maturing technology and has deep space science and technology expertise. Space Systems Command fields operational capability. And the Space RCO delivers prototypes that can be quickly transitioned into SSC program offices.

Col. Jeremy Raley, outgoing director of the Space RCO’s strategic capabilities group and incoming head of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, said that while the lab is good at running experiments and proving that a technology will work, the Space RCO brings urgency and measured risk-taking to the table. Those niche abilities offer opportunities to learn from one another and to capitalize on the unique strengths of each organization.

“Collaboration is absolutely important,” Raley told C4ISRNET in a June 23 interview. “If we’re going to make efficient use of the taxpayers’ money, we more or less have to kind of divide our lanes and understand what each of us are doing and how we are leveraging our strengths.”

Integration over consolidation

The cooperation and alignment happening among the organizations represented at Kirtland is representative of the type of acquisition system the Space Force is trying to build. A major task for the service has been to streamline space acquisition, long hampered by bureaucratic decision-making processes. Lawmakers have criticized the service’s progress on this front, saying they want more details on its plan.

For the Space Force, streamlining has not necessarily meant reducing the number of organizations that acquire capabilities, but instead making sure their functions are clearly defined and integrated. For example, the service established a program integration council that includes representatives from SSC, Space RCO, Space Development Agency, Missile Defense Agency and other organizations involved in space acquisition. The council meets regularly to discuss projects and deconflict any overlap.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Frank Calvelli, whose role was created by Congress to better coordinate space system development and procurement, told reporters in his first press engagement last month he’s “quite happy” with the organizations he inherited.

“I plan no organizational changes at all,” Calvelli said during the June 28 roundtable, speaking specifically of SSC, Space RCO and the Space Development Agency, which today resides within the under secretary of defense for research and engineering’s portfolio, but will shift this fall to the Space Force.

Calvelli said that while there are a number of organizations working in space acquisition, he’s “OK with that.” Instead of targeting or consolidating, he plans to use his authority to make sure their work is integrated.

“They all have unique attributes, unique strengths and unique authorities that are kind of neat to be able to take advantage of,” he said.

Recurve is one of several CubeSats designed, built and operated within the Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. A new feature includes cognitive radio frequencies capabilities, Recurve program manager Kate Yoshino said in a news release from the lab.

“AFRL’s CubeSat program is advancing the nation’s space portfolio in developing a hybrid space architecture that encompasses both large and small satellites,” Yoshino said. “Recurve will push CubeSat technology forward by demonstrating adaptive radio frequency [RF] system capability from a low Earth orbit platform.”

The launch by space service provider Virgin Orbit also supported the STP-S28A mission, which included six payloads meant to demonstrate available technology that can put Space Force capabilities on orbit.

The experimental technology of Recurve can evaluate mesh network behavior across multiple nodes. Instead of gathering information from only one node, mesh networks connect to as many other nodes as possible to improve resilience. Through those connections, the nodes work together to move data among users.

These advances will better support the transmission of information to fighters, Lt. Col. David Johnson, who serves as the chief of the Space Vehicle Directorate’s Integrated Experiments and Evaluations division, said in the release.

“Recurve advances us towards a vision of ubiquitous communication networks, to include beyond line of sight, to ensure that our warfighters have the information they need both quickly and reliably,” Johnson said.

The launch is the first of three missions the Space Force has contracted with Virgin Orbit.

The lab is on track to launch in late 2023 the third Navigation Technology Satellite, or NTS-3, built by prime contractor L3Harris Technologies. The effort will showcase advanced capabilities that could improve future GPS satellites or inform a new program to augment today’s constellation. Those technologies include steerable beams to provide regional coverage, a reprogrammable payload that can receive upgrades on orbit and protections against signal jamming.

Speaking with reporters during a recent visit to the Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, NTS-3 program manager Arlen Biersgreen said the effort is part of a legacy of experimental positioning, navigation and timing, or PNT, missions that have shaped key military and civilian space technology.

The last NTS satellite flew in 1977 and showcased capabilities that proved integral to the GPS program. Biersgreen said the goal is for NTS-3 to create a pathway for a more regular demonstration cadence.

“The whole team has a vision for this not to be the last NTS in the near future,” he said. “The reality is — because of the threats GPS is experiencing and because of the importance that it has to military and civilian operations all over the world — we’ve got to have a faster cycle to keep up with the threats as they develop.”

In preparation for the 2023 launch, Biersgreen and his team expect to finish integrating and testing the spacecraft’s hardware and software this fall in time to deliver the satellite by the end of the year. The program recently completed key tests of major hardware and software components, including antenna arrays and the command-and-control system for the satellite bus and payload.

For the program’s ground segment, which will operate NTS-3 once on orbit, the team is eyeing integrated testing this fall and has ordered the hardware for its eventual mission operations center. In the meantime, the program has set up a mock-mission operations center for training and to ensure the various interfaces and systems work together. Once the real mission operations center is completed later this year, Biersgreen said, the team will use it for a factory compatibility test that will demonstrate functionality between the ground system and the spacecraft.

The program is also developing NTS-3 ground receivers, which allow military users to tap into the satellite’s advanced PNT capabilities. To date, the team has built four receivers and plans to provide six for the NTS-3 experiment.

Biersgreen said the program office is also eyeing opportunities to validate NTS-3′s performance during exercises with the military services. For example, the team had a chance to validate the receivers’ performance during a March exercised called NAVFEST, which is held annually at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. And in August, NTS-3 will be a part of the Army’s yearly PNT Assessment Exercise, or PNTAX.

During PNTAX, program officials wants to observe how the system works in a real-world environment and identify any necessary changes. The exercise also provides a chance to measure the satellite’s anti-jam capability, giving the Air Force Research Lab a “more convincing example of the utility of the techniques that we’re demonstrating,” Biersgreen said.

Once on orbit, NTS-3 will spend its first year performing more than 100 experiments, which will test various technologies and techniques. When the formal demonstration phase is complete, the satellite will continue to provide data for about two years.

As the lab plans for the experiment, acquisition offices within the Space Force and the Air Force are preparing strategies to buy and field the new technology. The Space Force is in the midst of a force design study that could drive changes to its current PNT architecture, and the serivce closely watching NTS-3 to see how it might augment GPS satellites.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is particularly interested in the user equipment segment of the program and is making plans to take advantage of the program’s software architecture.

“We’re working closely with our mission partners so that the data coming out of the experiment is relevant for transition across space, ground and user segments,” Biersgreen said.

Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told reporters at a June 28 briefing that he expects the strategy for the Phase 3 of the National Security Space Launch program to be completed by the end of the fall.

The Space Force in 2020 awarded five-year contracts to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX to provide lift services for more than 30 planned Phase 2 NSSL launches between fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2027. ULA, once the sole government large-class launch provider, won a 60% cut of the missions and SpaceX, a commercial launch company and new entrant to the national security market, secured the rest.

Although the launches included in the Phase 2 deal will continue through fiscal 2027, orders for those services end in fiscal 2024, and the Space Force plans to begin soliciting bids for Phase 3 that same year.

The Phase 2 NSSL contract was significant in that it opened what was a closed, sole-source market for major military space launches to more companies. Lawmakers including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., want the Space Force to consider more ways to spur competition in the next round of contracts.

In the committee’s version of the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill, lawmakers called for the service’s strategy to account for growth and innovation in the launch industry as well as the Space Force’s plan to shift to a hybrid architecture with smaller satellites located in more diverse orbital regimes. The committee also urged the service to consider a range of contracting approaches, including options to add providers during the execution of Phase 3 “to address manifest changes beyond the planned national security space unique launches at the time of the initial award.”

The service has yet to finalize its plans for Phase 3, Calvelli said. It’s considering the possibility of including smaller launch vehicle classes as part of the contract.

“There’s all these different providers out there, there’s some really great ones out there,” Calvelli said. “So, how do you take advantage of some of that and make sure that you’re able to be innovative in terms of allowing new folks to be on the contract?”

He highlighted one of the Space Force’s small launch contracting mechanisms, the Rocket Systems Launch Program, which coordinates launch services for non-NSSL missions and works with a growing pool of commercial providers. He said one consideration for the acquisition team will be whether to keep RSLP separate from the NSSL contract.

Calvelli told reporters he will travel this week to ULA’s factory in Decatur, Alabama, to get an update on the company’s progress with its Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will replace the company’s Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles and carry a propulsion system developed by space launch company Blue Origin. Development issues with Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine have slowed ULA’s launch plans, but the company plans to launch Vulcan this year.

“One of the first industry visits I make is down there to make sure they understand the importance of hitting their milestones with that engine delivery as well as with the launch,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Space Force is on track to launch two missions this week -- one procured through RSLP and one through NSSL.

The RSLP launch, dubbed STP-S28A, will fly Wednesday from Virgin Orbit National Systems’ air-launched rocket, LauncherOne. The rocket will carry seven experimental payloads. Based in El Segundo, Calif., Virgin Orbit National Systems is a national security focused company owned by Virgin Orbit. Wednesday’s mission will lift off from a Virgin Orbit 747-400 carrier aircraft, which will begin its flight at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

The NSSL mission, USSF-12, is scheduled to launch June 30 and will carry multiple payloads meant to reduce risk and mature technology for future programs. One of those satellites, the Wide-Field-of-View Testbed demonstration, was designed to mature technology for the Space Force’s Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program.

The service awarded $36 million each to software company Palantir Technologies and defense firm Raytheon Technologies for work on the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, which is currently under development. TITAN is expected to help connect sensors with users in the field to support beyond-line-of-sight targeting.

The Army selected both companies in January 2021 to mature their respective designs during the program’s first phase. The new awards for the second phase will be used to transform their plans into prototypes. Phase II is expected to last 14 months and will culminate with a capstone demonstration and a contract to a single provider. The third and fourth legs of the development effort will focus on refining the prototype and preparing the system to integrate sensors and future technology improvements.

During Phase I of the effort, the Army worked with Palantir and Raytheon to ensure their designs met the usability and workflow requirements for soldiers operating in a multidomain environment. In a statement Tuesday, the Army said soldier feedback from Phase I will inform Phase II prototypes.

As the two companies mature their TITAN prototypes, the Army and the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit have partnered with defense contractor Northrop Grumman to develop two pre-prototype ground stations, which the program can use to demonstrate TITAN capabilities before the system is ready.

The Army expects to begin using the Northrop systems as TITAN surrogates in demonstrations later this year. A senior engineer with Palantir told reporters that the pre-prototype capabilities will eventually be part of the software specialist’s prototype and will be integrated toward the end of Phase II.

Connecting data systems across warfighting domains through programs like TITAN is a key piece of the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept and is a major focus for the Army. The service has been testing this concept with TITAN surrogates, including during its 2020 Project Convergence demonstration. During that event, the Army linked tactical satellite imagery to a TITAN stand-in system that used an artificial intelligence program to develop targeting options with the data. Those options were transmitted to the demonstration site at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and a separate AI system sent a targeting solution to a designated shooter.

The agency released a draft solicitation June 3 for the National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed, or NExT, seeking a satellite provider to integrate government-provided payloads onto 10 satellites that SDA will use to test new capabilities.

The testbed will support SDA’s vision of creating a constellation of hundreds of satellites operating in low Earth orbit and is on track to launch the first of those systems this fall. While the initial solicitation will be for 10 satellites, an SDA official told C4ISRNET June 14 the agency expects NExT to provide an “enduring” test and experimentation capability. The official spoke on background to freely discuss the program.

“SDA is going to fly these things in this experimental testbed so that if the threat changes or if the warfighter comes to us in two years or four years or sometime in between and says, ‘We need a way to do this,’ we will have already checked out a number of payloads,” the official said.

The testbed will also allow the agency to work ahead, answering key questions about whether it can launch large quantities of the payloads and how they integrate with command-and-control systems on the ground.

“We’ll know a lot more information about these payloads than we would have without this experimentation testbed,” the official said.

SDA will hold an industry day June 22 to brief companies on its plan for NExT and expects to release a formal solicitation in July or August. The official said the agency has identified which government payloads the satellites will carry, but declined to provide details.

Separate from NExT, SDA is also preparing to buy up to 12 satellites that will carry experimentation payloads to inform future capabilities for its transport layer, set to create a mesh network of communication satellites that can transfer information from on-orbit sensors to users on the ground. The 12 satellites will integrate with “tranche 1″ of that transport constellation under an effort called Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation Satellites or T1DES.

SDA will release a formal solicitation for T1DES by mid-July.

The move confirmed for European military leaders how they had long suspected that future conflicts with Russia could play out.

While the discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Europe’s largest army tradeshow being held this week near Paris focused on how militaries fight on the ground, Maj. Gen. Michel Friedling, the head of France’s Space Command, said Russia’s use of cyber and space weapons sent a critical message.

“What Ukraine has shown us well is that things will begin in [the] cyber and space domain before beginning on the ground,” he said Wednesday. “The cyberattack against Viasat was done the day before the beginning of the ground invasions. This is very significant. And this is very interesting. This is a big lesson. I would say it’s something we were thinking but now it’s real.”

Last month, U.S. and European leaders blamed Russia for a Feb. 24 cyberattack that disrupted internet service for tens of thousands of people in the critical moments that preceded the invasion of Ukraine. The attack on Viasat, a California-based provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems covering military and commercial markets worldwide, was meant to cripple Ukrainian command and control as Russian forces advanced, U.S. and U.K. officials said May 10.

A few months earlier, on Nov. 15, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites in an anti-satellite weapon test, according to the U.S. State Department, creating more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris that led astronauts on the International Space Station to take cover on several occasions. Space debris-tracking company LeoLabs identified the satellite in question as Cosmos 1408.

The anti-satellite test showed Russia was “ready to deny us space capabilities to other players, even if it creates some debris,” Friedling said. “And even if it denies, to [Russia, themselves] the use of space capabilities.”

Friedling also said as companies such as Viasat or Maxar Technologies, which provided satellite imagery of Russian equipment before and during the conflict, or Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which offered communications services within Ukraine, become more entwined in the day-to-day events and provide military-like offerings, their role becomes blurry to adversaries.

“This is a question of the future,” he said.