The U.S. Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) is examining how to pursue more live exercises.
While the other military services have had their own dedicated, live test locations, including the U.S. Air Force’s Nevada Test and Training Range, “it’s a little hard for us,” Maj. Gen Shawn Bratton, the head of STARCOM, told a Space Force Association virtual forum on July 18th. “We can’t just sequester a portion of the GEO [geosynchronous orbit] belt and say, ‘Hey. This is where we’re gonna do our training activities, but we have to do that. Certainly, we can do some via simulation, but I think more and more we have to do some live training.”
Col. Kyle “Puma” Pumroy, the former commander of Space Delta 11–the Space Force’s training range and aggressors group at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., worked “to understand the threat and the capabilities and replicate that threat on orbit, whether through simulation or live flying an aggressor spacecraft to challenge ‘blue’ forces in training,” Bratton said.
“There’s a lot to do there,” he said. “We’re learning how to operate an orbital range, how do we ensure safety of flight and responsible behaviors, how do we make sure everyone understands what we’re doing in the AoR [area of responsibility], but if you need to understand the tactics to defend against a potential adversary’s rendezvous and proximity operations with your spacecraft, the best way to do that is train it live.”
STARCOM has held two Black Skies electronic warfare (EW) exercises and is preparing to hold another this fall, as the command also gears up for a Red Skies orbital warfare exercise and a Blue Skies cyber warfare exercise next year (Defense Daily, May 10).
Bratton said in May that, in preparing for the Red Skies exercise, Space Force’s orbital warfare range and aggressor units had conducted an experiment in February with Boeing‘s [BA] Millenium Space Systems’ TETRA-1 microsatellite.
“We flew TETRA-1. We did some distant RPO [rendezvous and proximity operations] activities out at GEO [geosynchronous orbit], thinking through range procedures,” Bratton said. “That will all feed what we’re learning with the range and aggressor units to feed into Red Skies.”
Space Force has said that Black Skies provides “advanced EW training to space warfighters focused on protecting and defending aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum, like those that intervene with GPS and communications signals.”
The most recent Black Skies exercise was a live simulation involving systems and 42 simulated targets, Space Force said in March.