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Meeting Challenges To Maintain Space Superiority
by David Vergun, DOD News
September 5, 2020
U.S. Space Command operations in space deter conflict; deliver
space combat power for the joint force, allies and partners; and
defeat aggression if necessary, a leader of that command said. These
are just some of the challenges being met and overcome to maintain
space superiority.
Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Tim Lawson,
mobilization assistant to the commander, U.S. Space Command, spoke
via video remote from Colorado Springs, Colo., to the National
Defense Industrial Association in Washington, D.C.
For
decades, the U.S. has been the most dominant space power, he said.
But that dominance has been challenged, most notably in 2007, when a
Chinese anti-satellite missile struck a weather satellite, sending
3,400 pieces of debris into orbit, most of which are still in orbit
creating a hazard, he said.
Then beginning in 2017, Russian
threats in space emerged with a series of anti-satellite testing,
Lawson said.
"Adversaries don't have to dominate space, they
merely need to have the capability to disrupt space operations," he
said. That's worrisome because warfighting operations in the land,
air and maritime domains depend on space superiority for GPS,
navigation and communications.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, Saturday, May 30, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Demo-2 mission is the first launch with astronauts of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The test flight serves as an end-to-end demonstration of SpaceX’s crew transportation system. Behnken and Hurley launched at 3:22 p.m. EDT on Saturday, May 30, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. A new era of human spaceflight is set to begin as American astronauts once again launch on an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit for the first time since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011. (NASA photo by Bill Ingalls
and Joel Kowsky)
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Some of the emerging threats to space assets that he listed
include jamming communications, high-energy anti-satellite lasers,
capabilities for attacks on ground stations and possible nuclear
detonations in space.
In response to these threats, U.S.
Spacecom has been working closely with industry partners to put
numerous small satellites in orbit so that an attack will most
likely fail to take them all out, thereby ensuring resiliency, he
said.
Additionally, Spacecom is partnering with
inter-government agencies like NASA, the Commerce Department, the
State Department and the National Reconnaissance Office. "These
partners are critical," Lawson said, because Spacecom is fully
integrated with these agencies and their agency representatives
participate in military exercises with Spacecom.
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Air Force Master Sgt. Mickey Shaffer, left, and Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Shrift, both radio frequency transmission specialists with the 271st Combat Communications Squadron, Pennsylvania Air National Guard, adjust a satellite system attached to a small-scale communications suite in order to provide the strongest possible signal at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, Michcigan on July 27, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Brian Jarvis, Air National Guard)
The 374th Communications Squadron’s Operating Location C’s AN/GSC-52B satellite communications terminal stands outside building 771 at Camp Zama, Japan on July 24, 2020. (U.S. Army photo by Winifred Brown)
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The other big collaborative effort, he said, is working with
allies and partners. For instance, allies such as Japan, the United
Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France and Australia are currently working
side by side in command centers. Strength is gained through
partnering.
Of note, while it is common knowledge that the
U.S. Space Force stood up last year, it is less widely known that
France and Japan also stood up their space forces.
Summing up, Lawson said
Spacecom is about ensuring the access and freedom to navigate in
space to advance. national security as well as global security and
economic prosperity.
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