While the U.S. Space Force is interested in alternate positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems to alleviate the risk of an adversary or other disruption of GPS, the service’s tactically responsive space concept does not include a reconstitution of GPS or other key U.S. military space systems.
“One of the biggest reasons that we always struggle getting out of the gate with anything ‘tactically responsive’ is because we always use the word ‘reconstitution,'” Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, told a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) forum on Jan. 19. “You’re not gonna reconstitute the entire GPS constellation in a matter of hours. You’re not gonna reconstitute the missile warning it took us decades to deliver overnight. You’re not gonna reconstitute Milsatcom [military satellite communications] in a matter of hours.”
“But there are many other capabilities we need to respond to on tactically relevant timelines,” Guetlein said. “For example, when another nation puts an asset in space and we don’t know what that asset is or its intent or capabilities, we need to be able to go up and figure out what it is…That’s where tactically responsive space comes in. If a near peer competitor makes a move, we need to have it in our quiver to make a counter-maneuver whether that be a show of force or space domain awareness [to] understand–a characterization of the environment.”
Space Force has said that the VICTUS NOX launch last fall kept the service on track to meet a goal of fielding tactically responsive space systems in 2026 (Defense Daily, Sept. 26, 2023). On Sept. 15 last year, a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket lifted a Boeing [BA] Millenium Space Systems’ space domain awareness satellite into low Earth orbit.
Unencumbered by the larger Department of the Air Force stable of non-space needs, Space Force was able to focus on the rapid launch–from warehouse to operational orbit in a week–and make it happen despite the “massive checklists” needed for launch, Chief of Space Operations B. Chance Saltzman has said.
“That’s tactically responsive space,” Saltzman said. “That’s something you can respond to irresponsible behavior on orbit, and the response is directly connected to that irresponsible behavior.”
On Jan. 19, Guetlein said that Space Force’s modernization priorities lie in “cyber defense, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum.”
“We know that that is the next generation of systems and capabilities,” he said. “We know there’s a lot of research and development happening on the industry side, academia, and the allied side. We want to bring all those ideas to bear.”
For tactically responsive space, Space Force wants to hear industry ideas on “how do I short circuit the approval processes to get these capabilities into service faster” and companies’ capacity “to increase my training and readiness level and short circuit the delivery cycle, to help me with analytics to make more sense of the data we’re already bringing down.”