Development Aspirations
Informed international reactions are likely to be driven by judgments about how far and how fast the United States is moving toward acquiring absolute space dominance or intolerably intrusive space superiority. The Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) Strategic Master Plan FY 06 and Beyond, which builds on previous SPACECOM planning documents, provides a basic guide for making those judgments. The plan identifies major missions; assesses current capabilities; and sets near-, medium-, and far-term steps to becoming a “full spectrum space combat command” by 2030.91 The analysis includes some AFSPC responsibilities that are not space-specific, such as land-based nuclear missiles, and excludes national security space projects outside of AFSPC’s responsibility. Tracking the progress of efforts to achieve specific types of space capabilities is also complicated by frequent reconfiguration of development efforts, including name changes, shifts in mission emphasis, and cancellation of one program followed by the birth of a new program designed to accomplish similar objectives. In general, though, as adapted in table 1, the Strategic Master Plan specifies the capabilities that SPACECOM considers necessary to achieve effective dominance and provides a baseline for assessing actual accomplishments to date.
Table 1: SPACECOM mission areas
| Mission Areas | Function | Examples |
| Force Enhancement | support warfighter in air, land, sea, and space operations | photoreconnaissance, electronic eavesdropping, communications, GPS, weather |
| Force Application | weapons operating from space against terrestrial targets | space-based global strike weapons (“Rods from God,” space-based laser, space plane with CAV) |
| Space Control or Counterspace | protect U.S. space assets, neutralize adversary capabilities, provide space situational awareness | space surveillance network, passive defenses (hardening, etc.), active defenses (e.g., guardian satellites), anti-satellite weapons (destructive and nondestructive), space-based missile defense interceptors |
| Space Support and Mission Support | satellite launch and control, underlying infra- structure | launch vehicles, launch facilities, satellite control networks, training facilities, security forces, installations |
Force enhancement: From ʴ䷡䰿’s perspective, satellites are invaluable because of “their ultimate ‘high ground’ access, their ability to rapidly forward deploy with minimal logistics tail, and their relative immunity from threats.”92SPACECOM wants to modernize current capabilities to provide more precise and comprehensive information, faster and more securely, in a manner that is integrated into a single network-centric system-of-systems rather than the current mission-unique, stove-piped approach. In the area of satellite communications, DOD plans include launching a number of Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites to replenish its current Military Strategic and Tactical Relay (MILSTAR) secure communications satellites with a constellation that can provide more capacity and speed, then replacing that system with the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT), an ultra-large bandwidth secure communications system that would use lasers to rapidly move information to and from friendly forces operating in even the most remote locations.93 To address emerging challenges such as rogue states, terrorists armed with WMD, or other small-scale threats that are difficult to identify and destroy, the Air Force transformation plans include a space radar that can see moving targets even at night or in cloudy weather and a hyperspectral imaging system that can detect chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive materials.94 The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and manages spy satellites, also has several ambitious and expensive programs, including efforts to deploy a larger constellation of smaller, lighter satellites with radar and electro-optical imagery capabilities to provide more valuable data, on a more frequent schedule, in forms that can easily be integrated with other intelligence information.95 The most ambitious SPACECOM supporters depict these future satellites as the key to having an “unblinking eye” that can be used to find and target any potential threat to U.S. security, allowing them “to know something about everything at all times” and to be able to “switch on the spotlight” to get detailed information if the “illuminator” revealed a potential problem.96
Force Application: SPACECOM argues that addressing emerging threats requires a prompt, nonnuclear global strike capability offering “precise and selective lethality” to be used “when time is absolutely critical, risks associated with other options are too high, or when no other courses of action are avail- able.”97 ʴ䷡䰿’s Long Range Plan proposed that by 2020 the U.S. military should be able to hold at risk 100 percent of fixed, relocatable, and moving high-value targets and to deliver precision-guided weapons anywhere in the world within ninety minutes of launch.98 Global strike capabilities could be provided by mass-to-target weapons, most notoriously the “rods from God” idea of mimicking asteroids by stationing Earth-penetrating rods on satellites in LEO, then deorbiting them so that they would fall rapidly to Earth and destroy the designated target. The global strike capabilities could also come from directed-energy weapons, such as space-based lasers or radio- frequency energy weapons.99 A third approach, officially called FALCON (for Force Application and Launch from Continental United States) but often referred to as a “space bomber,” involves developing a reusable space plane that could be launched on demand and travel above national airspace until it reached the target country (thus obviating the need for overflight permission and avoiding air defenses). The craft would release a (proposed) “common aero vehicle” (CAV) that could selectively strike a wide range of difficult targets, including mobile vehicles, deeply buried bunkers, and aircraft in flight.100 If a CAV-armed military space plane was deployed in orbit, proponents claim that it could strike targets within moments of combat identification and “ensure our ability to kill future terrorists if we know where they are.”101
Space control: Proposals for space control capabilities are motivated by the desire to perpetuate the tremendous asymmetrical advantages that the U.S. military currently gains from space systems by defending friendly space assets “anywhere and anytime on or above the globe” and preventing an adversary’s hostile use of its own space assets or commercial services by the same expansive criteria.102 Space situational awareness is the prerequisite for all other space control activities. This includes continuous and systematic surveillance to identify and track all friendly, hostile, and neutral satellites, as well as any space debris that might interfere with U.S. space operations. Space situational awareness also includes environmental monitoring to forecast natural hazards such as solar flares; on-board systems or inspector satellites to evaluate satellite anomalies and determine whether they were caused by a natural hazard, an internal malfunction, a piece of debris, or a deliberate attack; and damage assessment capabilities to determine if action against a target satellite has had the desired effect.
SPACECOM wants full-spectrum defensive and offensive counterspace capabilities. This involves some innocuous measures, such as camouflage, hardening satellites and communications links, and increasing satellite maneuverability. Guardian satellites have been proposed for active defense of U.S. satellites.103 Desired offensive anti-satellite capabilities include some nondestructive techniques, such as deception, jamming communications or navigation signals, and blinding satellite sensors. But they also comprise some destructive capabilities to be used if temporary or reversible options are deemed inadequate, such as attacks on ground stations and kinetic or direct- ed energy ASATs. While SPACECOM documents indicate a preference for non-lethal over lethal effects, they want both types of capabilities.104 SPACECOM also foresees a possible need to negate satellites that belong to neutral or friendly parties to prevent their use by hostile forces.105 Finally, the SPACECOM vision includes missile defense systems that could target satellites in orbit more easily than ballistic missiles in flight and it emphasizes space-based missile defense interceptors that could, in theory, stop missiles (or satellites) launched from locations that sea- or air-based boost-phase interceptors could not reach.106 In the most ambitious version of the SPACECOM vision, this capability would enable the United States to veto any use of space that did not meet its approval.107
Space Support: Responsive spacelift is the most important transformation objective in this mission area. Fulfilling ʴ䷡䰿’s ambitions would require dramatic reductions in launch costs without any decrease in reliability in order to have any chance of being economically feasible. Deploying enough satellites to provide all of ʴ䷡䰿’s desired capabilities on schedule would also require a significant reduction in the amount of time it takes to build satellites, to mate them with launchers, and to have a turn on the launch pad. Transformational objectives also include “responsive” capabilities to launch new satellites on short notice or reconfigure satellites already in orbit to replace ones that had been attacked or to provide new capabilities tailored to a particular crisis or conflict situation.108
ENDNOTES
91. See Air Force Space Command, Strategic Master Plan FY 06 and Beyond, 2003, 2, http://cdi.org/news/space-security/afspc-strategic-master-plan-06-beyond.pdf.
92. AFSPC, Strategic Master Plan, 36.
95. This was originally called the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) program and is described in John Pike, "Future Imagery Architecture," .
96. Noah Shachtman, "Feds Want All-Seeing Eye in Sky," Wired, October 17, 2003, . Shachtman quotes Stephen Cambone, then undersecretary of defense for intelligence, speaking at the 2003 Geo-Intel Conference. Although Cambone acknowledged the utility of various sources of intelligence information, he emphasized the value of radar satellites for imagery collection around the clock and in any weather.
97. AFSPC, Strategic Master Plan, 27.
98. United States Space Command, Long Range Plan, Chapter 6, p. 18.
102. AFSPC, Strategic Master Plan, 21.
105. Air Force, Counterspace Operations, 40–42.
108. AFSPC, Strategic Master Plan, 29–31. On responsive lift for reconstitution of damaged satellites and the short-notice deployment of new space capabilities, see also Simon P. Worden and Randall R. Correll, "Responsive Space and Strategic Information," Defense Horizons 40 (April 2004): 1–8, http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/defense_horizons/dh40.pdf.