John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told reporters that while reducing the classification levels of highly-secretive programs takes time, the process should be easier under the updated policy, which Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed out in January.

“You have to be able to use your systems,” Plumb said during an April 10 briefing at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “And to be able to use your systems, they have to be able to at least talk to each other. . . . Otherwise you just have a bunch of stovepipes. So, I think there is a military necessity of doing this, which I think is going to drive implementation.”

Details on the policy changes are slim as it is itself classified. However, officials have said the rewrite is focused on eliminating out-of-date rules around what information can be shared about certain programs than it is on lifting the veil of highly secret efforts.

Implementing the policy involves changing a security designation called the special access program which, along with the unclassified designation, is one of two labels the Space Force attaches to a program when it is first started. The SAP label restricts information sharing and makes it hard to integrate across platforms, among the military services and with international partners.

The SAP policy is part of a larger effort in the Pentagon to reconsider long-held practices for how it shares information about classified programs. That could mean talking publicly about threats or new capabilities, or changing a program’s classification level — without removing it altogether — so defense agencies can share information with allies.

The issue has presented a particular challenge in the space domain, where many programs are highly secretive. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, told reporters April 9 the constraints are keeping space officials from having crucial conversations with international allies and commercial partners.

“Today, we struggle to have all the conversations we want to have with our allies and partners,” he said during a briefing at Space Symposium. “This new policy that Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks signed is enormously important for us.”

During a speech at the conference and later with reporters, Whiting emphasized the need for the military’s acquisition organizations to work quickly to implement the guidance.

“We’ve updated a policy that was 20 years old, but now we’ve got to go do the hard work,” he said. “we believe it’s part of our job to help and encourage those organizations that have to implement to make sure they’re doing that.”

The Ball Aerospace-built satellite lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base April 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft is part of the Weather Satellite Follow-on Microwave program, or WSF-M.

The launch is a first step toward modernizing the Space Force’s 60-year-old weather constellation, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The legacy satellites’ sensors can measure things like moisture in the atmosphere, cloud cover and precipitation — data that the military uses to plan its missions. The last DMSP satellite launched in 2014.

The WSF-M satellite, which can detect wind speeds and tropical storm intensity and determine snow and soil depth, meets a portion of those requirements. A second WSF-M spacecraft will launch in 2028. The remaining capabilities will come through satellites developed through the Electro-Optical Weather System, with the first slated to launch in 2025 and the second in 2027.

The Pentagon has been trying for more than 20 years to develop a replacement for DMSP. In the ‘90s it kicked off the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. The effort was canceled after repeated cost and schedule breaches. Lawmakers canceled a second attempt, the Defense Weather Satellite System, in 2012 due to mismanagement.

The Mitchell Institute, a DC-based aerospace think tank, said in a November 2023 report that while those efforts were well-intentioned, their missteps have put the military at risk. In that time, the capability of the DMSP satellites in orbit has depleted, and the two remaining spacecraft are on track to run out of fuel in 2026.

“These back-to-back failed mission modernization efforts weakened an already obsolescing national security weather enterprise, burning through time and resources while doing little to produce the operational capabilities necessary to meet demand,” the report states.

The plan to split the DMSP requirements into two programs came in 2018, but the four-satellite mix is not the service’s final strategy for long-term weather coverage. The satellites, each designed to last at least three years, will serve as an interim capability as the Space Force determines how much of the mission can be met by commercially available weather capabilities.

Col. Rob Davis, Space Systems Command’s program executive officer for space sensing, told C4ISRNET the service plans to host an industry day later this month to hear ideas from companies about how their systems and sensors might meet Space Force requirements.

“There’s a lot of interest out there,” Davis said in an April 10 interview at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “I’ve met with several companies this week that are developing commercial weather capabilities.”

Over the next year, the Space Force will weigh those options as part of a study that will inform its new space weather architecture.

The Mitchell Institute report recommends the service pursue a disaggregated architecture comprised of smaller, less expensive satellites as well as government-owned systems.

“Space Force recognizes that it can augment some of its space-based sensing capabilities with commercial services,” the report states. “While this is an important family of systems capability, it is not a substitute for a DMSP replacement system, nor does it provide the necessary organic space-based environmental monitoring capabilities DOD requires.”

True Anomaly, a spacecraft and software company based in Colorado, received $30 million to provide one of its Jackal space vehicles for the mission, slated to launch in 2025. Under the terms of the deal — known as an Emergent Need Small Business Innovation Research award — the firm will match the government investment, providing another $30 million to pay for risk-reduction activities.

“The goal of Victus Haze is to apply state-of-the-art, commercial products to provide highly capable solutions for future TacRS operations,” True Anomaly said in an April 11 press release. “The multi-vehicle demonstration will enable the development of TacRS tactics, techniques, and procedures, and prepare the Space Force and U.S. Space Command to deploy available response options necessary to deter adversary aggression on orbit.”

Rocket Lab’s contract, which came through the Defense Innovation Unit, is worth $32 million.

Victus Haze is the service’s third responsive space mission. Its latest demonstration, Victus Nox, occurred last September when Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket launched a Millennium Space Systems satellite within just 27 hours of receiving initial launch orders.

As part of that effort, Millennium, a Boeing subsidiary, delivered its spacecraft in a matter of months — a process that can take years on traditional acquisition timelines. Once in orbit, the satellite was operational within 37 hours and completed its activation phase in 58 hours.

Victus Haze is focused on threat response and requires satellites that can maneuver from real-time hazards. The mission will pursue similar delivery and operations timelines as Victus Nox, but its goal is to push the Space Force to an operational responsive space capability by 2026.

The service hasn’t released a detailed timeline for Victus Haze, but True Anomaly said the satellite providers are targeting delivery in the fall of 2025. Once they hand off the satellites, they’ll be on standby until the Space Force makes its launch request.

The True Anomaly spacecraft will lift off either from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Rocket Lab’s vehicle will lift off either from Mahia, New Zealand, where the company has a launch pad, or Wallops Island in Virginia. The company will launch its satellite on its Electron rocket.

True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers told C4ISRNET the company’s arrangement with the Space Force — through which it funds risk-reduction and the service buys the resulting product — is similar to a Strategic Funding Increase award, which the Defense Department uses to help start-up companies bridge the gap between development and production.

“We’re funding the risk-reduction, they’re basically buying the capability,” he said in an April 9 interview at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “It’s exactly how it should work. And then we’re looking beyond this demonstration for Victus Haze to eventually a productionized capability that the Space Force will need in an enduring sense.”

The company’s Jackal spacecraft — designed to maneuver around and approach other objects in space — flew for the first time in early March, but the mission was cut short when the company could no longer maintain contact with the satellite.

Rogers said his team is still validating what it thinks was the cause of the issue. In parallel, the company is working aggressively to implement fixes before its next two flights, which are set to occur in the next 12 months.

Those launches will help with risk-reduction for Victus Haze, which will fly a variant of Jackal that features a new propulsion system designed to provide more thrust for dynamic maneuvers.

“There are some fundamental changes and so that’s what we will be doing risk reduction on in the coming flights,” he said. “As we get more comfortable with the avionics and other capabilities of Jackal, then we focus on emergent risks like propulsion.”

The Space Development Agency, a Pentagon space acquisition organization, already has launched 27 low Earth orbit satellites for experimentation and demonstrations in the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture program, Derek Tournear, Space Development Agency director, said Monday here at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

Low Earth orbit satellites orbit about 1,200 miles above the Earth, compared to medium Earth orbit satellites, which run the Global Positioning System and are placed about 12,550 miles above the Earth.

Later in 2024 the second wave of low Earth orbit satellites will go into orbit, Tournear said. By the end of 2025, the program expects to have 160 satellites in orbit, the majority covering the globe to create connectivity across regions, more than two dozen dedicated to missile warning and a handful running missile control.

Marines and other military branches have relied on satellite communications for decades. But advances in low Earth orbit satellites deliver higher bandwidth and lower latency, or delays, meaning users can send more data faster.

Space Development Agency demonstrates Link 16 connectivity

Ukraine has relied heavily on company SpaceX’s commercial satellite Internet constellation Starlink to pass battlefield data throughout its war with Russia. The military version of the system is known as Starshield.

Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, began using the Starshield system recently, according to a March release.

The system allowed Marines to maintain communications services when weather forced power outages that shut down base fiber and cloud cover interfered with other satellite communications, said Maj. Tim Wrenn, 6th Marine Regiment communications officer.

During the September 2023 Archipelago Endeavor exercise, Marines used Starshield with the Swedish marines by mounting the device on a Swedish command and control boat.

“Having high bandwidth, low latency services on a mobile maritime platform allowed U.S. and Swedish Marines to prosecute fire missions and provide reliable and relevant information throughout the battlespace,” said Capt. Quinn T. Hemler, the assistant operations officer with 2nd Marine Division’s G-6 communications.

Marine Maj. Gen. Joseph Matos, commander of Marine Forces Cyber, said that satellite communications such as the Space Development Agency program enable both the crisis response mission of the Marine Corps and its ongoing Force Design changes that aims to better position the service for distributed, long-range operations.

“(Force Design) is really talking about modernization, bringing in new technologies, such as (Proliferated Low Earth Orbit) how do we incorporate that into what we do every day and how we fight,” Matos said.

While missile tracking is crucial, most Marines using the satellites are likely to see improved communication and less down time between transmissions as they pass data in training and operations between various platforms.

The Space Development Agency had demonstrated Link 16 connectivity using its satellites, Marine Corps Times’ sister publication C4ISRNET reported in November 2023.

Link 16 is the tactical data link used by the U.S. military, NATO and other partner nations to share tactical information such as text, voice and imagery.

The Link 16 application uses the “transport layer,” which is one of the layers that the Space Development Agency is developing along with the tracking, custody, navigation, support, emerging capabilities and battle management layers.

Once deployed, the transport layer, which holds most of the program’s satellites, will provide a mesh network of communications satellites that connect to each other and other space vehicles and ground stations, according to the Space Development Agency website.

The next batch of satellites is planned for 2027 and another for 2029, by which time the network is expected to have “full global persistence” and resiliency, Tournear said.

The program seeks to create a hybrid satellite terminal for troops to use. That would allow a user’s terminal to switch between the low Earth orbit satellites transport layer or use dedicated military or commercial bandwidths such as the satellite communication Ka and Ku bands, respectively.

The same terminal could also switch to use the Ka or Ku bands on MEO or GEO satellites.

The system would work much like multiband radios can switch between frequency bands for a variety of communications options.

Matos emphasized that while the low Earth orbit satellites program will give users new ways to communicate it still is only “part of the overall architecture.” If Marines can’t access those satellites for some reason, they need backup ways to conduct operations.

“We don’t own our own space assets,” Matos said. “We use what industry provides. If that’s not there then we have to look at other means of communication, single channel radio, troposphere, those are the systems we can control at the Marine Corps level.”

The 19-page document, released April 10, provides a broad look at the service’s vision for a more integrated government-commercial space architecture. It promises greater reliance on private systems in the pursuit of a diversified, resilient network of satellites and ground capabilities.

“The Space Force will pivot to a new model for integrating commercial space solutions,” the document states. “The hybrid space architectures we field will integrate Department of Defense, commercial and allied space systems into more resilient, redundant and combat-effective capabilities.”

The Space Force has made some steps over the last few years to better engage with commercial industry, encouraging the acquisition workforce to look for off-the-shelf capabilities before building new government-owned systems. Last year, it created an office tasked with finding more opportunities to buy commercial systems and services.

The service had planned to release its strategy last fall, but Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman called for more details and fewer platitudes. Since then, it has moved through multiple revisions ensure it aligns with a similar Pentagon-level strategy, which was released last week.

The document lays out action steps for the service, designating offices to lead the charge and setting near-term goals. It also spells out which mission areas are most primed for commercial partnership, putting satellite communications, space domain awareness, in-orbit servicing and logistics and tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking toward the top of the list.

However, it only briefly addresses what funding will be required to implement it. An earlier version of the strategy drafted in February and obtained by C4ISRNET included a section committing to prioritizing commercial capabilities in the Space Force’s annual budget and called on the service to double its spending on commercial services over the next two years.

The draft also called for the service to begin to make changes to institutional processes and begin integrating commercial systems and services as part of the fiscal 2026 budget process.

The final version references the need to realign funding with commercial priorities, but doesn’t include the details from the earlier draft.

“Current funding levels and annual budgeting requests must evolve to achieve the desired end states,” the final document states. “As hybrid architectures are integrated into USSF force designs, budgets will be realigned and reprioritized to fully support their fielding. Likewise, as the [commercial space strategy] matures, the USSF will make any necessary organizational adjustments to fully leverage the operational benefits gained by hybrid architectures.”

Speaking April 10 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman acknowledged that the strategy doesn’t provide the granular detail many companies and government organizations may be looking for.

He noted that as the service implements the strategy, it will need to make “tough choices” about where to shift funding in order to invest more in commercial systems.

“If you read the strategy expecting to see the answers to the most challenging promises of commercial integration, you’ll be disappointed,” he said. “But if you understand that effective integration will only come about with a common understanding of our priorities . . . I think you’ll find this document useful — useful as a tool to drive process change, to shift our mindset and useful to see the space versus relationship with industry in a new light.”

Implementation

The strategy’s near-term lines of effort fall into four categories: collaborative transparency, operational and technical integration, risk management and emerging technology. While the document is vague on which specific processes need to change to support the strategy, it notes that it will soon release a planning ordnance that fleshes out any adjustments or new initiatives in more detail.

Within the first focus area, the service aims to increase its awareness of commercial capabilities and find ways to draw them into existing programs. It will also work to expose its own workforce to the private sector to learn from commercial best practices and better understand challenges.

The operational and technical line of effort addresses the policies and processes the Space Force will need to adjust in order to integrate more commercial systems. It lists how each mission area will leverage these capabilities and which will rely more on bespoke government systems. The latter category includes areas like positioning, navigation and timing, and command and control.

“For mission areas where the USSF has determined relevance for commercial integration, all USSF units will be able to operate within a framework and secure the tools necessary to fully integrate commercial space solutions,” the document states. “For each relevant mission, the USSF will ensure that there is a process to flexibly select commercial vendors to meet Joint Force operational needs.”

Mitigating risk

Another goal within this effort is to “aggressively” pursue commercial integration within its test and training systems. That includes taking advantage of commercial ranges and other training capabilities.

The third line of effort is focused on helping mitigate the risk commercial firms accept by supporting military space operations. The service notes that industry needs to have a better sense of the threats they face from U.S. adversaries and says it will develop a process to more quickly provide that information.

The Space Force also commits to reducing the classification barriers and improving clearance processes.

Finally, the strategy calls for the service to develop a process for scouting emerging technology in the commercial sector and work more closely with organizations already doing this work, like the Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX and SpaceWERX.

“The USSF must establish a process to look across commercial offerings, to include traditional and non-traditional space sector, to identify the cross-cutting capabilities and services that can satisfy operational requirements,” it says.

Troy Meink, the NRO’s principal deputy director, said the launch is one of six planned for this year to support the spy agency’s push to increase the number of spacecraft it has in orbit.

“This launch will be the first launch of the actual operational system,” Meink said April 9 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “The system will increase timeliness of access, diversity of communication paths and enhance our resilience.”

Launches to support the NRO’s proliferated architecture will continue through 2028.

Meink did not discuss how many satellites will fly on this first launch, dubbed NROL-146, nor did he offer a sense of the full scope of the program. An agency spokesperson refused to provide more detail on the effort or expand on the mission.

The NRO is responsible for designing, launching and operating spy satellites for the U.S. government. In recent years, it has expanded its use of commercial services to enhance and augment the capabilities provided by the satellites it owns and operates.

One notable example of this is the agency’s Electro-Optical Commercial Layer program, through which it issued 10-year contracts to commercial firms that specialize in providing satellite imagery, like Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs and Black Sky.

While it’s not clear what companies are providing the satellites for this proliferated effort, Meink described it as a hybrid architecture, indicating it likely involves non-traditional firms.

He noted that the agency has been developing the constellation over the past few years and has launched several demonstration satellites to test the concept.

The NRO’s pursuit of a proliferated satellite fleet composed of large numbers of small spacecraft is similar to that of the Space Development Agency, which is working with industry to field hundreds of missile tracking and communication satellites in the coming years.

Meink said these architectures are enabled by a significant drop in the cost of launch, commercial advancements in digital technology and the government’s willingness to take more risk in order to field new systems faster.

“It’s not just that we woke up a few years ago and said, ‘Hey, we would really like to build these kinds of architectures,’” he said. “The technology and other facts just were not available to us, but they are now. And that’s why we’re headed down this path.”

The Koreas each launched their first spy satellites last year — North Korea in November and South Korea in December — amid heightened animosities. They said their satellites would boost their abilities to monitor each other and enhance their own missile attack capabilities.

South Korea’s second spy satellite was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday evening local time, which was Monday morning in Seoul.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it confirmed the satellite entered orbit and communicated with an overseas ground station after separation from a rocket.

“With the success of the second military spy satellite launch, our military has acquired an additional independent surveillance ability and further bolstered our ‘kill chain’ capability,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha Gyu told reporters, referring to the military’s preemptive missile strike capability.

South Korea in 2022 became the world’s 10th nation to successfully launch a satellite with its own technology by using a homegrown rocket to place what it called a “performance observation satellite” in orbit.

Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea was to launch five spy satellites by 2025. South Korea’s first spy satellite launch on Dec. 1 was made from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.

North Korea is also eager to acquire its own space-based surveillance network to cope with what it calls military threats posed by the United States and South Korea.

After two launch failures earlier in 2023, North Korea placed its Malligyong-1 spy satellite into orbit on Nov. 21. North Korea has since said its satellite had transmitted imagery with space views of key sites in the U.S. and South Korea, including the White House and the Pentagon. But it hasn’t released any of those satellite photos, and foreign experts doubt whether the North Korean satellite can transmit militarily meaningful imagery.

On March 31, Pak Kyong Su, vice general director of the North’s National Aerospace Technology Administration, said North Korea is expected to launch several more reconnaissance satellites this year. During a key political conference in late December, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to launch three additional military spy satellites in 2024.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik said Monday that North Korea will likely go ahead with its second spy satellite launch soon to mark the April 15 birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of Kim Jong Un. Shin said it’s still possible for the North to perform the launch later due to technical reasons.

The U.N. bans North Korea from conducting a satellite launch, considering it as a disguised test of its long-range missile technology. The North’s November satellite launch deepened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with both Koreas taking steps to breach their 2018 agreement to lessen military tensions.

In recent years, North Korea has been engaged in a provocative run of missile tests to modernize and expand its weapons arsenals, prompting the U.S. and South Korea to strengthen their military drills in response. Experts say North Korea likely believes that an enlarged weapons arsenals would increase its leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.

As a top Pentagon official noted recently, “our competitors know ... how much the American way of life and the American ways of war depend on space power.” And it is not just Russia; Iran, too, is increasing its space-based capabilities to threaten the United States.

Iran has claimed a string of achievements in space in recent months. In February, Russia reportedly assisted Iran with launching a satellite into space from a Russian site. Iran claimed in September that it successfully used a space launch vehicle, or SLV, to place a military satellite in space. Iranian officials then asserted in January that it put multiple satellites into orbit in a single launch for the first time.

Iran’s recent SLV launches, and its purported ability to put multiple satellites into space, are troubling for four main reasons.

Firstly, SLVs could provide Iran with a rapid route to an intercontinental ballistic missile. Iran’s SLV advancements, according to an unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment, “shortens the timeline to an ICBM if [Iran] decided to develop one because SLVs and ICBMs use similar technologies.” The editor of Iran’s state-run news agency said in 2022: “The minute we built the first satellite launcher, we obtained the capability to build an intercontinental [missile].” Although Iran would need to master the intermediate step of fitting a heatshield onto a missile warhead to enable atmospheric reentry.

Russia, which possesses a large ICBM arsenal, could provide Iran the know-how to incorporate this technology, perhaps in exchange for the drones and missiles Tehran is supplying Moscow for its war in Ukraine.

Second, Iran’s reported use of a solid-fuel propellant to launch its SLVs is concerning, as this would make detection of imminent missile launches more challenging. Unlike liquid-fuel projectile launches, which take hours to prepare and require conspicuous pre-launch activities, projectiles on a mobile launcher with solid-fuel propellants are quicker to prepare and much harder to detect prior to launch.

Third, Iran’s satellite program could enhance its ability to facilitate proxy attacks against U.S. allies and interests. Russia has reportedly supplied Iran with an advanced satellite system to augment Iran’s intelligence-gathering capabilities. The platform was equipped with a high-resolution camera, allowing monitoring of Israeli military bases, regional bases housing U.S. troops and other sensitive targets.

Finally, Iran could use its satellites to interfere with U.S. or allied military assets. Even a supposed communications satellite, ostensibly used for civilian purposes, could initiate downlink signal jamming of radars and other assets. Iran claimed in 2020 to have conducted “space operations” exercises simulating drone and radar jamming. Launching multiple satellites at once could enable Iran to carry out signal jamming over an even greater surface area, leaving U.S. interests and those of its regional partners vulnerable to attack. GPS jamming and spoofing, seemingly initiated by Iran, are reportedly already impacting civilian airline traffic in the Middle East. Iran could represent another threat to stability in space by developing counterspace programs akin to Russia and China.

The United States must put Iran on notice for its problematic space activities. Sanctions against Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics agency — responsible for its space activity — and third parties helping the regime evade sanctions, as the United States recently implemented, are a good start. U.S. officials should also encourage allies to sanction banks helping Iran evade sanctions.

India plans to spend $3 billion on space. Can it catch up to China?

The United States should engage the global community to address this threat by imposing the snapback of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council, which would restore prohibitions on Iran’s SLV program that were previously watered down in Resolution 2231. This would reinstate a full-on U.N. ban on Iran’s SLV tests and development, and ban technology transfers to Iran that could enhance its SLV program. The entire free world needs to fully appreciate the potential danger of Iran’s increasing launch capability.

To boost deterrence, the United States should work closely with Middle East partners active in space, like Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Israel — all signatories to the Artemis Accords that commit parties to responsible behavior in space. The United States should increase space-focused collaboration with these partners, including using space assets in bilateral and multilateral drills, as occurred during a bilateral U.S.-Israel drill in January 2023.

Consistent with the U.S. national space policy, the United States should “employ all elements of national power to deter and, if necessary, prevail over hostile activities in, from, and through space.” The United States must convey a strong message to Iran that its current space activity is unacceptable and, if continued, will have further consequences.

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. William Shelton served as the head of Air Force Space Command and was a participant in the 2017 General and Admirals Program with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America think tank and advocacy group, where Yoni Tobin is a policy analyst for its Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy.

The schedule change is linked to its decision to move funding toward higher priority programs and a longer-than-expected process to choose whether Boeing or Lockheed Martin will build the satellites.

“This was a fact of life change,” Space Systems Command spokesman Edgar Nava said in an April 1 email. “The projected launch date of the first MUOS satellite is expected to shift into FY31 based on the delayed contract award and service funding priorities.”

MUOS satellites provide global voice and data capabilities to military forces. The spacecraft operate in a narrowband frequency range that makes them less susceptible to bad weather or tricky terrain — variables that can impact a satellite’s performance. The range is also ideal for secure data transmission.

The Space Force has four operational MUOS satellites in orbit and one spare, all built by Lockheed Martin. Each carries two payloads — one that maintains a legacy Ultra High Frequency network and another that offers a new Wideband Code Division Multiple Access capability. The system provides 10 times the capacity of its predecessor, dubbed the UHF Follow-on system.

The Navy, which is one of the heaviest users of the satellites, oversaw the program for years before it transferred to the Space Force after the service was created in 2019.

The Space Force is crafting a long-awaited strategy for what capability will follow MUOS, but in the meantime plans to launch two more satellites to keep the constellation operational through at least 2035.

In January, the service awarded Lockheed and Boeing each a $66 million contract to design prototypes of the two spacecraft by July 2025. The Space Force had planned to choose one of the two companies by the end of FY25 to build the satellites, but that decision has been pushed to FY26.

The service’s FY25 budget includes $228 million for the effort — about $200 million less than what the Space Force projected the prior year. That funding appears to shift to later years, and the service expects to need nearly $2.5 billion for the life-extension program between FY26 and FY29.

As the Space Force develops its future narrowband communication plans, it’s considering how it might be able to integrate commercial satellites as part of that. That analysis, which began last May and is being led by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, is expected to be finalized this year.

International allies are also helping shape requirements for the effort.

The Commercial Space Integration Strategy, released April 2, calls for improved norms and standards to make space safer for private sector operators, threat information sharing and financial protection for companies that support military space missions.

“The Department will leverage a range of tools across all domains to deter aggression against and defeat threats to U.S. national security space interests, including all space segments and, where appropriate, commercial space solutions,” according to the strategy, published April 2. “In appropriate circumstances, the use of military force to protect and defend commercial assets could be directed.”

The document, which lays out the Defense Department’s priorities for leveraging commercial space systems and services, doesn’t detail what scenarios might call for a military response.

The Space Force, set to release its own commercial strategy in the coming days, has upped its engagement with industry in recent years. Officials have called for the acquisition workforce to consider opportunities to buy services and systems from industry — rather than build a bespoke government satellite — wherever possible. And last year, it established a Commercial Space Office aimed at helping it better integrate these capabilities across its mission areas.

That engagement has also focused on establishing a Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve aimed at scaling up the service’s use of private sector capabilities during a crisis or conflict. As part of that work, the Space Force has met with industry to determine options for defending commercial space assets during wartime.

While some companies, concerned about choosing a side, may opt not to have the U.S. defend their systems, others want assurance that their satellites will be prioritized.

The Pentagon strategy recognizes this concern and notes the department is taking steps to give firms better access to information about threats in orbit.

“The department will work to mitigate barriers including overclassification, clearance processes and cleared facility access to establish scalable procedures for unclassified communications with the commercial space sector,” according to the strategy.

The Pentagon also commits to working with the State Department and the international community to craft norms of responsible behavior in space. It is also taking steps to determine what financial protections commercial companies should have access to should their satellites and ground systems be destroyed or damaged.

Today, companies who support military operations in the air and at sea have access to government insurance, but that financial protection is not available for space firms.

“The department will evaluate gaps in protection from commercial insurance providers, the conditions under which U.S. government-provided insurance would be needed for the space domain, and whether those conditions have been met,” the document states.

Mission categories

The department’s strategy also stresses the need for the military to integrate commercial space capabilities before conflict arises. That means involving companies in wargames and training exercises and creating open lines of communication about what systems and technologies DOD needs and how those requirements align with work that industry is already doing.

Along those lines, the strategy offers some clarity about which space mission areas the department views as primarily government efforts, which are mostly commercial and which offer opportunity for a hybrid commercial-government approach.

Missions that will be performed mostly by the government include command and control; electronic warfare; missile warning; positioning, navigation and timing; combat power; and nuclear protection.

Opportunities for hybrid architectures include cyber and spacecraft operations; satellite communications; space domain awareness; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and electromagnetic spectrum capabilities.

The only mission identified as primarily commercial is space mobility and logistics, which includes refueling, repairing and manufacturing spacecraft in orbit.

“Mission areas may shift between categories over time as commercial space capabilities mature and military requirements and capability needs evolve,” the strategy states.

Through a partnership with the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center and the Defense Innovation Unit, Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, plans to install new space domain awareness sensors on satellites in orbit as soon as 2025.

Those sensors, designed to provide real-time information on the space environment, could help STARCOM create a secure environment to test space capabilities in orbit and train operators on live spacecraft.

“The race is on to get resilient capabilities into space ahead of emerging threats,” Space Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Meghan Liemburg-Archer told C4ISRNET in a March 25 statement. “This capability could enable a more robust on-demand test and training architecture.”

STARCOM’s plan for a live testing and training capability is just one piece of the Space Force’s broader Operational Test and Training Infrastructure, which includes a mix of simulated and in-orbit capabilities designed to train guardians and make sure satellites and ground systems work as designed.

The service’s fiscal 2025 budget request includes $196 million in research and development funding to establish a National Space Test and Training Complex, or NSTTC — a significant jump from the $21.8 million it asked for in FY24.

As for the upgrade mission, details on its potential scope are slim, and Liemburg-Archer said the service is still determining how many sensors it will buy and which satellites it will install them on.

Katalyst Space Technologies, an Arizona-based startup, is providing its SIGHT sensor for the effort as well as its Retrofit Attachment System, which allows it to install a sensor to a satellite in orbit. SIGHT was designed to track debris and other space objects, including active satellites.

DIU awarded Katalyst a $4.5 million contract in January, the funds for which were provided by the Test Resource Management Center, which is also interested in better understanding how satellites could be used to support testing in multiple environments — including for hypersonic systems.

Ghonhee Lee, the company’s CEO, told C4ISRNET the initial contract was for the first ground test unit, which will complete testing this summer. The firm is awaiting additional funding to begin building the flight unit, he said, noting that the prolonged fiscal 2024 appropriations process slowed down that effort.

For the installation itself, the Space Force is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which runs a program with the Naval Research Laboratory called Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites, or RSGS, that aims to demonstrate the ability to inspect and service satellites using a mechanical arm.

Space Logistics – a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman — will fly the RSGS payload, which is set to launch in early 2025.

Lee said Katalyst will work with DARPA and Space Logistics to coordinate and rehearse the installation process and then Katalyst’s analytics software will be sent to government operations centers to support the mission.

The Space Force declined to comment on the timeline, saying information about the schedule is “restricted” and the mission has technical challenges that need to be resolved. Lee noted that the timing is tight and largely dependent on continued funding, including money in the fiscal 2025 budget request meant to support the mission.

Along with schedule pressure, Lee said he’s concerned the effort could end up being a one-off demo rather than an expanded program to provide STARCOM with in-orbit training capability.

“There’s a major risk that this basically ends up kind of in like its own little corner and doesn’t actually make it into the broader Space Force acquisition strategy and capability roadmap,” he said.

That roadmap will drive future investment in space mobility and logistics capabilities and is still in development as the service determines what utility these systems may have for future operations. The Space Force has refueling demonstrations planned in the next few years, requesting about $14 million for those efforts in fiscal 2025, but hasn’t settled on a longer term strategy.

Lee said Katalyst’s hope is that the need for sensors to support STARCOM and the NSTTC will drive the service to consider how in-orbit repair and upgrade capabilities could bring value. If the mission is successful, he said, it could help make that case and perhaps lead to opportunities for other applications.

He added that Katalyst is in discussion with Space Systems Command — the Space Force’s acquisition arm — and the Commercial Services Office about how to scale the technology through other program offices.

“I think it’ll actually increase the adoption of the capability in SSC and the operations community at large,” Lee said. “The Space Force has already done it through the NSTTC, so then there’s already a playbook.”

The agency issued a notice to industry March 25 asking for analysis and studies on the feasibility and availability of in-space disposal services.

“SDA believes there are several industry partners with concepts and business models to support commercial on-orbit servicing, to include assisted disposal operations,” the agency said. “As such, SDA is interested in studying the feasibility of using these services as a ‘belt and suspenders‘ approach.”

In the coming years, SDA plans to launch hundreds of data transport and missile tracking satellites into low Earth orbit, about 1,200 miles above the equator. Those systems are designed to deorbit on their own in compliance with U.S. government standards, which call for operators to remove spacecraft once their missions have ended. Options include moving the satellites to designated disposal orbits where there is less risk that they could cause a debris-causing collision in space.

However, SDA is interested in securing a backup plan should those satellites fail earlier than expected or be unable to deorbit on their own. Companies including Blue Origin, Impulse Space, Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman subsidiary Space Logistics are developing orbital transfer vehicles that can essentially provide a satellite tow service, among other missions.

Derek Tournear, SDA’s director, said March 18 at the Satellite 2024 conference in Washington, D.C., he’s interested in the business model these firms are pursuing.

He noted that if these spacecraft materialize, it could reduce the cost of SDA satellites, eliminating requirements for the backup systems that add size and weight.

“I want to be able to take more risks on my satellite, not have redundant propulsion, things like that,” Tournear said. “There’s several companies that are working on that, and I hope they’re successful,” he said.

Orbital transfer vehicles are part of a broader space logistics market that includes services like in-space satellite refueling and repair. The Space Force is exploring the use of these capabilities for some of its spacecraft — particularly those that need to maneuver to observe activities or objects.

Tournear said he doesn’t expect SDA systems to need services beyond an end-of-life tow because they’re not designed to last beyond a few years, at which point they’ll be replaced with fresh technology.

“I still do not want these LEO satellites to be maintained or refueled or fixed on orbit,” he said. “I want them to be more expendable.”

The list, obtained by C4ISRNET, includes $846 million in classified projects. The remaining $305 million is largely focused on improving the resiliency of Space Force systems and training capabilities.

The military services and combatant commands send Congress a similar document each year, detailing programs they want to fund but that weren’t included in the annual budget request.

The unclassified efforts included on the Space Force’s list reflects its focus on making its satellites and ground systems resilient against adversary threats. In recent years, the service has started to shift toward building smaller satellites in large quantities across key mission areas like missile warning and communications.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who provides civilian oversight for the Space Force, said that while the service’s $29.4 billion FY25 funding request is sufficient to continue those efforts, it won’t allow it to move as quickly as he would like in other missions, like positioning, navigation and timing and its mostly classified counterspace portfolio.

“We need to find a way to have PNT be more resilient, and I think there are some additional communications things that we need to do,” he told reporters March 8.

Among the unfunded projects is a request for $159 million to establish a fund to procure commercial satellite communications. Another $9 million would support an effort to improve the power supply at certain facilities that operate wideband SATCOM systems.

The list includes $42.5 million for the Space Development Agency’s fleet of demonstration and experimentation satellites. Without additional funding, the program would likely be delayed, the service said.

The service also asks for $60 million for an effort to improve energy efficiency at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado and $19 million for the National Space Test and Training Complex, increasing the number of wargames the service conducts each year.

An additional $59 million in FY25 would allow the service to conduct up to two more Rocket Systems Launch Program missions, which support science and technology efforts across the Space Force, National Reconnaissance Office, NASA and the Missile Defense Agency.

“Restoring RSLP is not just a matter of maintaining ongoing projects, but is critical for progressing towards the goals set forth by the [National Defense Strategy] to innovate and ensure security in space,” the service said.

The Colorado-based firm’s Rapidly Attachable Fuel Transfer Interface, or RAFTI, is designed to be installed on satellites to allow them to receive propellant either in space or on the ground before launch.

For the last two years, Orbit Fab has been working to validate the port is ready to fly in the harsh space environment, conducting ground and in-orbit tests that show it can withstand extreme weather.

With that qualification completed, the company this week started shipping its first 12 RAFTI ports to customers who want to install them on their satellites. Eight of those are for the Space Force and the remaining four are for other customers, including Astroscale, which is developing spacecraft designed with refillable gas tanks.

The company expects to produce another dozen or so RAFTIs in the next month, and Orbit Fab Chief Commercial Officer Adam Harris said production should reach about 100 units this year. It‘s also crafting licensing agreements with other firms to allow them to produce the ports, making them more available in the marketplace.

“That allows it to be not just one company offering it, but multiple companies offering something,” he told C4ISRNET in a March 19 interview. “Then we can really enter this era that I think the Space Force wants – this transition to reusable, refuellable satellites.”

The Space Force plans to conduct satellite refueling demonstrations in the coming years that will help it determine what military benefit the capability offers. U.S. Space Command officials have called for all DOD spacecraft to be equipped with refueling ports by the end of the decade to enable key spacecraft — particularly those designed to maneuver and observe adversary activities in orbit — can move more freely without the fear of running out of propellant.

Multiple firms are developing refueling ports to provide options for the government, including Northrop Grumman’s Passive Refueling Module, which the Space Force recently approved for inclusion on DOD satellites.

Harris said Orbit Fab’s intent is to offer RAFTI whenever possible.

“Anytime the Space Force has a new satellite that they’re building, we’re making RAFTI available to them,” he said.

That includes a recent request for information the service released seeking space domain awareness satellites that feature options for refueling.

In the meantime, the company is working with the Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit and the Air Force Research Laboratory to support an upcoming refueling demonstration and help advance technology development efforts.

Orbit Fab’s fuel depot and its RAFTI port will both play a role in the demonstration, scheduled for 2026. The plan is for a spacecraft made by Impulse Space to host the fuel depot — essentially a gas station. The depot will then refuel an Astroscale-built servicing vehicle, which will then provide fuel to three satellites that are part of AFRL’s Tetra-5 mission.

Harris said Orbit Fab’s depot has moved through its major design reviews and will begin manufacturing the system and preparing for testing this year with the goal of having it ready for launch in 2025.

The company is also working with the Space Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office on a separate effort to advance refueling technology. That program will run through 2025, he said.

The bulk of the request — more than $800 million — would support classified programs to develop capabilities aimed at deterring and fending off aggression from Russia and China. That includes a U.S. Navy Mobile Counterspace Capability and an effort called Lunar Locust, neither of which were detailed in an unclassified version of the command’s unfunded priority list obtained by Defense News.

Northrop, DARPA envision moon ‘railroad’ for lunar logistics

Each year after the White House unveils its budget submission, the military services and combatant commands send Congress a rundown of programs they want to fund but that weren’t included in the request. This year’s list comes as Space Command officials express growing concern about how China and Russia’s space ambitions could impact U.S. military operations.

In a memo accompanying the document, SPACECOM Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting labeled China’s activities in particular as “increasingly assertive actions” that threaten critical space infrastructure.

“This in turn puts Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Guardians at risk, who rely on space capabilities every day,” he said. “Both states are already deploying counterspace capabilities that can target U.S. space systems.”

Whiting raised particular alarm about threats to GPS, a Space Force-run satellite constellation that provides navigation and timing capabilities to civilian and military users. He also highlighted Russia’s growing focus on cyber and nuclear capabilities, a concern that follows reports that Russia may be building a nuclear-armed spacecraft.

Beyond the classified space efforts, the command’s list also includes $393 million for commercial and military operations facilities and space domain awareness sensors and radars.

Space Command said it needs another $26 million for its Joint Commercial Operations Cell, which pulls commercial tracking data and uses it to augment military inputs. The cell has agreements with 14 international allies, and additional funding would improve access to the data it provides. It would also help support more robust space observation capabilities.

“Without funding, expansion capabilities will not be integrated, putting U.S. allies and partner nation protect and defend operations at risk,” the command said.

The list also includes $161 million for an effort called Project Lighthouse, which integrates space domain awareness radars and sensors to help coordinate Space Command’s understanding of what’s happening in orbit. The money would fund software upgrades, improved data flow and completion of a Multi-Mission Advanced Radar Capability.

To support further space observation capabilities, the command requests $179 million for sensor modernization, including the Army’s Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar located at the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands.

“Radar capabilities and infrastructure at the Reagan Test Site are the only multi-phenomenology, deep-space surveillance systems in the Pacific,” Space Command said. “Loss of transmitters, power supply or . . . all-weather deep space coverage will take years to recover from.”

Bryant Harris contributed to this story.

“The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface — contributing to a space economy for the United States and international partners,” Northrop said in a March 19 statement.

The company’s work will focus on identifying the interfaces, resources and funding needed to build such a network as well as the technological and logistical risks. Northrop will also propose lunar rail system prototypes explore how the capability could be built and operated.

The effort is part of DARPA’s Lunar Architecture Capability Study, or LunA-10. The seven-month study will not fund construction or hardware development but is instead designed to identify the technologies that are foundational to developing a future infrastructure on the moon.

Northrop was one of 14 companies DARPA selected in December to explore concepts to support a future lunar economy by 2035. Focus areas for those studies include power generation, moon mining and resource utilization, navigation, and mobility and logistics. The firms selected include launch providers, startups, defense prime contractors and tech companies. DARPA has not disclosed the value of the contracts it awarded.

The studies come as the U.S., its international partners and commercial firms envision future activity around the moon. In recent years, DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory have started several programs to explore logistics and satellite sensing in a lunar environment.

The Space Force’s interest in the military utility of operations around the moon is also growing. The service in February announced plans to create a Space Futures Command that will validate forward-looking concepts and emerging missions. Cislunar operations — defined as activity around the moon — is one of the first concepts the command will explore.

Speaking March 18 at the Satellite 2024 conference in Washington, D.C., Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton — the Space Force’s chief strategy and resourcing officer — said Space Futures Command’s cislunar work will focus on understanding whether operations in that environment offer military benefits to the service.

The plan is to then share that information with Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

“I think there’s important mission there. I can’t prove that there’s military utility there,” Bratton said. “I think we owe the boss, both Gen. Saltzman and the secretary, a little bit better data that validates that . . . yes, cislunar is critical and here’s how we should use it.”

The mission, known as Orbital Express, was full of technology firsts, according to Fred Kennedy, who led the project for DARPA.

Along with demonstrating the first-ever in-space refueling operation, the U.S. mission showcased the ability to use tracking and imaging sensors to attach to a receiving satellite and perform maintenance, such as swapping out a battery or replacing a flight computer.

“The big deal was autonomy,” Kennedy told C4ISRNET in a Feb. 27 interview. “We were able to show sort of a push-button approach to getting up close and personal to a spacecraft and delivering a variety of servicing capabilities.”

But four months after it took flight, the Air Force and NASA — DARPA’s mission partners for the effort — pulled the plug on the program.

The project, conceived to support a space-based radar program that was canceled before Orbital Express even got off the ground, lacked a clear mission application, according to the Air Force and NASA.

The outcome wasn’t particularly surprising for DARPA, whose projects often explore technologies that are ahead of their time. Kennedy said he and his team hung up their hats and assumed the refueling and servicing concepts they demonstrated would eventually resurface as agencies realized their importance.

“I think all of us thought maybe there would be some slight hiatus,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think anyone expected it would take 18 years to really start realizing the fruits of those successes.”

Now, in response to calls from U.S. Space Command officials to equip future space domain awareness satellites with refillable tanks by the end of the decade, the Space Force is exploring the military utility of refueling capabilities.

The Space Force in 2020 identified servicing, mobility and logistics as core competencies. The service has since crafted broad requirements for the mission area. Last year, it established a dedicated program office to coordinate near- and long-term development efforts as well as work with companies to demonstrate refueling capabilities.

As momentum builds toward operationalizing these concepts, current and former defense and industry officials say that due to pioneering missions like Orbital Express and efforts from the commercial sector to build on that work, today’s challenge isn’t necessarily a technological one. Instead, the task for the Space Force is to define both a clear vision for the military’s use of on-orbit servicing and its role in funding and establishing the standards that will shape the market in the near term.

From Kennedy’s perspective, who now leads the company Dark Fission Space Systems that aims to break ground in nuclear thermal propulsion, success will depend in large part on the Space Force backing up its rhetoric with action.

“Words are nice, but we really need to get moving,” he said. “I think we’ve already waited 18 years too long.”

Dynamic space operations

On-orbit servicing refers to a broad range of capabilities aimed at extending a satellite’s life or changing the way it performs a mission. That can include refueling, but it might also involve maintenance, upgrades or providing a secondary propulsion source.

While the Space Force started exploring on-orbit servicing more seriously a few years ago, the real push in that direction came in 2022 when Space Command began to recognize the satellites it uses to monitor the space environment were severely limited by the amount of fuel in their tanks.

The mission of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites is to essentially serve as a neighborhood watch in geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth. The GSSAP satellites do this by performing what are known as rendezvous and proximity operations, drawing close to other spacecraft — including those operated by U.S. adversaries — to observe and provide data on them.

Like other military space assets, the satellites were launched with a limited amount of fuel, which typically dictates how long they can operate. While that may be appropriate for a GPS or communication satellite that doesn’t need to maneuver to perform its mission, Lt. Gen. John Shaw, then-deputy chief of Space Command, observed it was restricting how the Space Force uses GSSAP and other space domain awareness systems.

In one instance, Shaw told C4ISRNET, Space Command was speaking with GSSAP operators, asking them to prioritize observations of certain objects and apply different maneuvers to make it harder for the owners of those assets to know they were approaching.

The operators pushed back, according to Shaw, saying the satellites didn’t have enough fuel to perform those maneuvers and still remain useful through the end of their service lives.

That response concerned him. Space domain awareness is key to understanding threats in space, and the limitations on these satellites were impeding their ability to freely perform that mission.

“I was like: ‘How much is this constraining us? How are we in a learned helplessness state here where we write off the ability to go after certain targets?’ ” said Shaw, who retired from Space Command in October 2023 and was appointed to Sierra Space’s strategic advisory group in February. “When we started to peel it back, it’s rather significant.”

As he began to share his observation with others in Space Command, Shaw said the concerns started to “snowball,” eventually growing into a vision for what he calls dynamic space operations. The new way of operating involves more maneuverable satellites that can travel more freely to inspect the space environment or to avoid adversarial threats or debris.

The vision for dynamic space operations hinges on the availability of servicing, mobility and logistics technologies, like refueling, which is why last year Space Command called on the Space Force to quickly get those capabilities in place.

The service’s response was fast, and its new acquisition office, led by Col. Joyce Bulson, has been conducting tabletop exercises and planning demonstrations to better understand how the Space Force can meet operators’ needs today and in the future.

Bulson had recently told reporters that as the Space Force looks across the mobility and logistics enterprise, it is trying to leverage commercial technology as well as capabilities currently under development with NASA and DARPA.

DARPA is working with SpaceLogistics, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, to build a spacecraft to perform satellite repairs and upgrades through its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites program.

NASA, in partnership with Maxar Technologies, was developing an on-orbit servicing and manufacturing vehicle designed to perform satellite repairs. However, the agency canceled the $2 billion program March 1 due to cost and schedule overruns.

“All of these technologies and things we’re looking at are based on what others have already started doing,” Bulson said in a Jan. 31 media briefing at the Space Mobility Conference in Orlando, Florida. “We are not trying to duplicate the efforts that are being done.”

Analytical rigor

The Space Force is eyeing refueling demonstrations over the next few years to shape its plans moving forward. The service last year awarded Astroscale U.S. a $25.5 million contract in September to develop a refueling spacecraft. The goal is for the vehicle to refuel a satellite in a 2026 demonstration.

As part of that effort, the service is also working with the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub. The plan is for Impulse Space’s orbital servicing vehicle, called Mira, to host a fuel depot built by Colorado-based Orbit Fab. The depot will then refuel Astroscale’s vehicle via Orbit Fab’s Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, which feeds gas into the spacecraft. It will also support an Air Force Research Laboratory demonstration called Tetra-5.

Beyond refueling, the Space Force is also interested in other technologies that can provide satellites with additional propulsion, including jetpacks that can attach to satellites with depleted fuel tanks.

As the acquisition team plans for refueling demonstrations, the service is pursuing additional analysis to better understand how the capability contributes to its role in future conflicts. A new Space Futures Command, aimed at improving the service’s analytical rigor, will likely consider satellite refueling as one of its first emerging mission sets.

Doug Loverro, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy from 2013 to 2017 and is now an independent consultant, told C4ISRNET it’s important for the Space Force to study use cases for refueling before adopting a formal program.

“There’s a lot of discussion, but there’s not a lot of analysis that shows how this would work,” he said. “There’s not been a really good analysis done to show where in the operational chain this would work, what would the requirements be and those kinds of things.”

Kennedy noted that while Space Command has been vocal about needing some sort of refueling capability for its space domain awareness systems, the service should consider what other satellites and missions could benefit from mobility and logistics capabilities. That includes transfer vehicles, which are designed to move spacecraft to different orbits.

“If all you’re saying is you want GSSAP to last a little longer,” he said, “that doesn’t feel like dynamic space operations.”

“In my opinion, this is all about access and the effects that you can achieve once you get to all the places you need to go. You need access to all the regimes,” he added.

Signaling demand

Though the Space Force is making acquisition plans and establishing an analytical foundation for its refueling endeavors, it has yet to request funding for these efforts through its annual budget submission. Instead, it has relied on plus-ups from Congress to pay for servicing, mobility and logistics demonstrations as well as prototyping efforts, including $30 million in fiscal 2023 that funded its contract to Astroscale.

Bulson said the Space Force has no plan to invest a large amount of funding into a bespoke government satellite refueling capability. Rather than be the anchor tenant, the service wants to follow the lead of commercial companies in this area.

“We’re looking to leverage commercial services to the maximum extent possible,” Bulson told reporters. “We’re not looking for a significant government investment in bringing these capabilities to bear.”

She would not confirm whether the service will request funding for space servicing efforts in its FY25 budget, which is expected to be released this month.

Many of the companies developing refueling capabilities and other servicing systems say that in the near-term, the Space Force is the most logical customer because there isn’t yet a strong commercial business case for satellite refueling.

Erik Daehler, vice president of orbital systems and services for Sierra Space, said it’s more likely for a commercial satellite to be decommissioned because its payloads need to be replenished than it is for it to run out of fuel.

Companies have also shifted toward launching smaller, lower cost, more disposable spacecraft with shorter mission lives into low Earth orbit, an altitude of about 1,200 miles, further reducing the need for refueling services.

“That starts to point to the U.S. government as being a primary anchor tenant,” Daehler told C4ISRNET.

While a commercial business case may materialize, some businesses say the military needs to play a greater role in helping the nascent market take shape. That means sending a stronger demand signal in the form of consistent funding and clear requirements.

Lauren Smith, who leads Northrop’s in-space refueling efforts, said the Space Force’s establishment of a program office dedicated to servicing, mobility and logistics is a positive step, but it’s not enough.

“Actually seeing it show up as a line item in a budget is critically important for this technology to progress,” Smith told C4ISRNET. “If the funding isn’t there to sort of meet that sense of urgency that we’re hearing from them, it’s really a question of how fast do they need us to go. And that will help to accelerate and propel things forward.”

She added that while the Space Force can communicate its needs through funding and budget lines, clear requirements from Space Systems Command would also help companies ensure the systems they’re developing will meet the service’s military-unique needs.

“You want to minimize redesign,” Smith said. “And so if we have a clear understanding from the start of what it is that they’re looking to do, we can be more targeted and more efficient.”

Interface standards

Companies are also calling on the Space Force to establish standards for the refueling ports or interfaces that future satellites will need.

The service has worked with several companies to approve interfaces that could serve as standards for those satellites, and in January it announced the approval of Northrop’s Passive Refueling Module as one option.

The Space Force is also evaluating interfaces from other companies, including Orbit Fab, and Bulson said the service wants to make more designs available for broader use.

Sierra Space’s Daehler said establishing common standards is important for firms that are developing refueling and other servicing capabilities — and want to ensure the interfaces they use will be compatible.

He said there’s a particular urgency for Sierra Space, which is designing the Dream Chaser spaceplane for NASA and is aiming for a 2025 launch of a separate rapid demonstration platform.

“We just want a standard that can be adopted so that when we adopt it ourselves, we know that it’s going to be usable,” Daehler said. “And from our refueling standard needs, we need to be ready for launch in 2025. That means a standard needs to be available right now.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters March 8 that the smaller budget request – which is, like the rest of the Defense Department, constrained by funding limits set in the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act — means the service won’t be able move as fast as he’d like to build more resilient systems that can counter space threats from China and Russia.

“China has fielded a combination of anti-satellite capabilities and space-based targeting capabilities — so they’re threatening our space assets and they’re threatening our joint force,” he said during an embargoed media briefing. “We’ve got to respond to that. . . . I’d like to move faster on that than we currently are.”

The Space Force’s budget has nearly doubled since it was created in December 2019. Its fiscal year 2021 request for $15.4 billion jumped to $30 billion by FY-24. That growth was due largely to the consolidation of space systems and personnel under the service’s purview.

Service officials, including former Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson, have said the Space Force’s funding must continue to increase as it takes on new responsibilities and missions.

“The budget needs to grow because there are still more missions that are migrating to space,” Thompson told C4ISRNET in December. “The challenge is, in this environment, defense budgets are likely not to grow significantly in the near future the way they have in the recent past. "

Kendall said the service is making progress toward improving the resilience of its systems. He pointed to the shift toward building smaller satellites in large quantities across key mission areas like missile warning and communications.

However, he wants to be able to invest more in other mission areas — like positioning, navigation and timing — and improve the service’s portfolio of offensive space programs, which are largely classified.

“We need to find a way to have PNT be more resilient, and I think there are some additional communications things that we need to do,” he said.

Funding modernization

The largest portion of the Space Force’s spending request, $18.7 billion, would fund the development of satellites, ground systems and other supporting technology and modernization of existing capabilities. That’s about $300 million less than FY24, due in part to the Space Force’s classified portfolio.

According to Kendall, a portion of the service’s FY25 budget is part of a separate account known as “pass-through” funding, which typically goes to outside organizations like the intelligence community. Kendall would not confirm whether or how much Space Force funding had shifted from its base budget to this account, but said that part of the service’s smaller request is owed to some of its funding being tagged as pass-through money.

Elsewhere in its research and developing account, the Space Force requests $4.7 billion to develop satellites in multiple orbits that can spot and warn of traditional and advanced missile threats.

Within that portfolio, the service proposes $2.1 billion for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program. The effort is the successor to today’s Space-Based Infrared System, which detects and tracks ballistic missiles. It includes two satellites built by Lockheed Martin that will reside in geostationary orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth, and two Northrop Grumman-built polar satellites destined for a highly elliptical orbit.

The Space Force also wants $2.6 billion for its Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking program, which aims to field satellites in low Earth orbit, about 1,200 miles above the planet, and medium Earth orbit, at an altitude of between 1,200 and 22,000 miles.

Funding for the MEO portion of the program would support initial satellite development and ground support. The LEO funding, which sits around $1.7 billion, would go toward the Space Development Agency’s efforts to launch 28 satellites in FY25.

Another $1.7 billion would support other SDA activities, including expansion of the agency’s fleet of communications, or data transport, satellites.

The Space Force’s request includes $1 billion for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications program, which is developing secure, survivable communications capabilities for strategic missions. The satellites are designed to withstand nuclear attack, and the service wants to award a contract and begin production in 2025.

The request also calls for $237 million to start a new program, Protected Tactical SATCOM Global. Initial budget documents did not describe the effort in detail.

The Space Force’s $4.3 billion procurement account — which is about $400 million smaller than it was in fiscal 2024 — would fund 11 launches, down from 15 planned missions in FY24. Four of those launches will carry SDA satellites and the remaining 7 will be for Space Force missions.

Another $527 million, if approved, will buy two GPS IIIF satellites, a modernized version of navigation spacecraft designed to provide better accuracy and anti-jam capabilities. The service expects to start launching the satellites in 2027.

French Space Command has determined the move is deliberate, and intelligence shows the enemy spacecraft is equipped with a robotic arm that would allow it to de-orbit the friendly asset. The French-led blue team moves a “patroller” satellite into a protective position – a capability France is working on, but now lacks – to block any hostile action by the U.S.-led red team.

While fictional, the scenario played out March 7 during Europe’s largest space wargames is credible and based on real capabilities, said Colonel Mathieu Bernabé, who is leading the exercise. During the event called AsterX 2024, some 190 participants from France and 15 partner countries are training for everything from jammed space communications to hostile satellites maneuvering to take out friendly orbiters.

“This type of exercise is absolutely essential for our operators, but also our processes, training for what we call operational readiness, so we’re ready to fight a real war,” General Philippe Adam, the commander of France’s space command, said during a presentation of the exercise in Toulouse in south-west France. “It’s as realistic as an exercise scenario can be, obviously – inspired by a lot of things you’ve probably recognized.”

Adam said “unfriendly behavior” by Russian satellites, with uncoordinated and unannounced approaches, happens “all the time,” in all orbits.

Space is becoming more dangerous, and militarization is on the rise, Adam said. Earth orbits have become busier, with increased competition between commercial players and states, while satellites are becoming a lot more capable and maneuverable.

Space-based systems have become an integral part of military operations, from communication to ballistic-missile detection, navigation, planning and targeting. Meanwhile, the value of the space economy rose 8% to $546 billion in 2022, according to the non-profit Space Foundation.

UK space chief flags moon mining as next conflict ‘gray zone’

French President Emmanuel Macron created a military space command in 2019, with the goal of boosting the country’s awareness of the security situation in space, and to better protect its satellites. France had 91 satellites in orbit in February 2023, the most of any European Union country, according to data published by Statista.

AsterX is “absolutely essential” for ramping up French Space Command, which doesn’t have operational status yet, though it’s performing operations, Adam said. The command is expected to pass an initial stage of operational qualification when it moves into new headquarters in Toulouse next year, and targets full operational capability by 2030.

France is organizing the AsterX wargames for the fourth year, pitting the French-led blue team against the fictional country of Mercure, an adversary trying to destabilize the nation of Arnland. What’s new this year is that the red team, with “significant” space resources, is played by U.S. Space Force personnel, the first time a foreign nation plays the role of adversary.

The exercise simulates more than 4,000 objects in orbit, spinning around in simulated space already days before the exercise, and with the blue and red teams not fully aware of the spatial capacities of their adversary. The knowledge gaps create an intellectual challenge, and the red team being played by the U.S. results in a non-deterministic scenario, Bernabé said.

“AsterX is a laboratory in which you’re confronted with situations, where you experiment with solutions, and get feedback,” Bernabé said. “The challenge is to train how to manage a space situation, but backed up by an inter-army and multi-domain environment, which also means cyber or informational, so this scenario provides for conditions that enable us to play the full spectrum.”

Americans playing the red team provides an additional element of surprise to the exercise, according to Bernabé.

The exercise runs through to March 15 and will include 14 different types of threats and 23 events, within the scenario of a gradually worsening crisis, headed towards high-intensity warfare. Adam said a crisis situation is a useful exercise, as there’s “a lot of ambiguity” to be resolved, while a high-intensity scenario is in some ways simpler because “anything goes.”

Worst-case scenario

A worst-case scenario for orbital conflict would be generalized war with a completely uninhibited enemy attacking satellites “quite indiscriminately,” according to Adam.

“Then we’re going to be losing satellites all over the place, we’re going to lose resources, we’re going to create debris, and then it’s a bit of a snowball effect,” Adam said. Failure to quickly stop such an adversary would create “a problem that will last for decades. Once you’ve created debris everywhere, some orbits become completely inoperable.

”So yes, a generalized conflict in space would be very, very bad news.”

Through the exercise, France also seek to develop a common culture of space operations with its allies and partners, under realistic threat conditions. In addition to the U.S., countries participating in AsterX include the U.K., Japan and South Korea, as well as a number of EU partners.

“We understand each other better after this exercise, in the nature of the responses we can provide, since we’ve experimented with things together,” Bernabé said.

Interoperability challenges between countries’ space forces are “extremely numerous,” including distinct vocabulary for the same things and different procedures and policies, according to Adam.French Space Command targets about 500 personnel in 2025, from around 350 now, according to Adam. He said partners such as Japan, Germany and Italy are creating commands similar in size, between 300 and 600 personnel, adding that human resources are “a tremendous problem” for everyone.

Those goals compare to around 13,900 staff for the U.S. Space Force at the end of December. France doesn’t have the ambition of creating anything similar, which would require “being rich like an American,” the general said.

In addition to the new Toulouse headquarters, the main priority for France is to get patroller satellites into orbit, according to Adam. He said the country also needs to strengthen the terrestrial part of its space capabilities, and needs more space-surveillance sensors.

He said the country’s Yoda agile satellite demonstrator, which has been held up by a lack of launch slots, may become operational “in the next few months,” with operational space-patrol capacity following within one to two years.

“These are not very big satellites, they’re not very complicated satellites,” Adam said. “What’s most complicated is knowing how to use them.”And that’s what France is preparing for with AsterX.

Space Systems Command — the service’s acquisition arm — is in the early phases of planning for the capability, according to March 5 notice, and is seeking industry feedback as it studies the prospect of increasing its portfolio of observation satellites.

Domain awareness is a top priority both for the Space Force and U.S. Space Command as they look to better characterize and deter threats from adversaries like Russia and China. As the service prepares to release its budget request for fiscal 2025 next week, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein on March 7 called for more funding for space domain awareness capabilities, among other areas.

“We must invest more in test and training, space domain awareness, command and control, and in the ability to control the domain,” he said in a March 7 speech at the McAleese & Associates annual defense forum in Washington.

The service already operates a fleet of Geosynchronous Space Situation Awareness Program, or GSSAP, satellites that serve a kind of neighborhood watch function. They also perform rendezvous and proximity operations, drawing close to other satellites to observe and provide data on them.

Details on GSSAP’s full suite of capabilities are slim as the program is largely classified. The service first launched the Northrop Grumman-built spacecraft in 2014 and in 2022 fielded two more to replenish the constellation. Last year, it deactivated one of the six GSSAP satellites in orbit.

It’s not immediately clear how the additional GEO satellites would be distinct from GSSAP. However, one key difference is that the service wants the spacecraft to carry carry a Space Force-supported, in-orbit refueling port that would allow them to extend missions.

In recent years, Space Command leaders have pushed for the service to field more refuelable spacecraft to support more dynamic operations, noting that satellites like GSSAP are somewhat limited due to their fixed fuel supply.

Last year, then-deputy Space Command commander Lt. Gen. John Shaw called on the Space Force to equip all space observation satellites to be equipped for refueling by the end of the decade.

The notice indicates the satellites would be highly maneuverable and would carry an electro-optical payload. The service is also looking for low-cost systems that require minimal development and could be quickly built and launched.

The spacecraft wouldn’t need bespoke ground systems or operational units but would instead rely on existing capabilities.

A scenario of nations jumping on lunar mining to refill their dried-up, terrestrial stocks has the potential for gray zone conflict, the kind of amorphous contest that transcends traditional notions of two warring parties shooting at each other, Air Vice-Marshal Paul Godfrey said at the Space Comm Expo trade show here.

For now, there is no commercial proposition for what Godfrey likened to a science fiction version of the U.S. Gold Rush of the nineteenth century.

“The cost of getting to the moon, creating a lunar base, extracting the minerals and getting them back to earth probably far outweighs mining precious minerals on the Earth,” he told Defense News in an interview.

It’s also still unclear exactly what types of rare-earth metals, critical in producing high-tech components, exist under the lunar surface. On Earth, China is a critical supplier of such ingredients. European and NATO nations are eager to diversify their supply chain as they view Beijing as an unreliable partner politically.

Godfrey characterized developments toward lunar mining as purely commercial, but, by raising the matter, made clear it has started to pop up on the radars of armed forces, with very practical questions emerging.

“Do you ring-fence your particular area on the moon if you strike gold, so to speak?” Godfrey asked.

Whether moon mining will become feasible one day depends on key technologies and ensured access to space for all, he said, adding that proliferating space debris could make the journey impossible for everyone at some point.

Reducing the cost of space launches and advancing the field of on-orbit manufacturing also are stepping stones to the vision of moon mining, Godfrey added.

Link 16 is a commonly used military signal SDA satellites will use to connect to radios on the ground. U.S. forces, NATO and international allies rely on the capability for real-time data exchange.

The agency has been working with the FAA to get approval to test Link 16 over national airspace, but the process has taken longer than anticipated.

“Primarily, the FAA wants to make sure that we have compatibility features that are tested on our satellites so that we can’t interfere with any radio navigation aids,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said during a March 6 Space News webinar. “That makes sense, and we’re working with the FAA to get a plan in place to do that.”

The Defense Department established SDA in 2019 to build a constellation of low Earth orbit transport and missile tracking satellites on rapid timelines, augmenting constellations of large spacecraft with hundreds of small, relatively low-cost satellites. Those spacecraft make up what SDA calls its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and will serve as the data backbone for joint, multidomain command-and-control capabilities.

After launching its first satellites last April, SDA had hoped to move quickly to validate the capability and integrate it as part of large-scale Defense Department exercises, like Northern Edge — a joint training event conducted in the Gulf of Alaska.

Instead, the agency opted to perform initial tests over international waters, starting in November. During the initial demonstration, three satellites built by Denver-based York Space Systems transmitted signals from low Earth orbit — about 1,200 miles above Earth — to an international test site.

The Air Force’s 46th Test Squadron supported the mission from the ground.

SDA now has 27 satellites in orbit. Those spacecraft are not only equipped to communicate through Link 16, but also have what are called optical inter-satellite links that allow them to share data with one another.

SDA first tested those inter-satellite links in 2021 during a demonstration mission with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called Mandrake. Tournear said the agency has begun to test the capability with the first batch of satellites it launched and expects to expand that across the constellation later this summer.

As the agency works to test and demonstrate the capabilities of its first tranche of satellites, it’s also preparing for its next launches, which are expected to begin in September. That mission will set off a nearly yearlong campaign to launch around 161 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

“We expect to have at least one of those launches by the end of this calendar year and then the rest will essentially be as fast as we can get them through the payload processing facilities,” Tournear said.

The Space Force is the Pentagon’s hub for organizing, training and equipping the units that provide satellite communications to the joint force, track missile launches, catalog debris that could damage spacecraft, take images of troop movements and wildfires from orbit, and more.

But as the newest service has taken shape — pulling together soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and fresh recruits to form the military’s smallest branch — the growing importance of space in global security has highlighted the need for a flexible, collaborative workforce for the decades to come.

“I’m extremely proud of the Space Force and all the good that it has accomplished,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said Feb. 13 at an Air and Space Forces Association conference in Colorado. “But as good as we are, as much as we’ve done, as far as we’ve come — it’s not enough.”

The service hit its congressionally authorized staffing goal — about 13,900 billets overall — for the first time in 2023.

As of Dec. 31, the Space Force employed around 4,400 officers, 4,600 enlisted guardians and 4,900 civilians. The service plans to expand to 14,526 members, including 9,400 in uniform, in fiscal 2024.

Each year, that number creeps closer to the 16,000 personnel the Pentagon estimated the Space Force would reach as it lobbied Congress to create a lean new service in 2019.

Katharine Kelley, the Space Force’s civilian personnel boss, predicts “steady-state growth” that allows the service to keep up with operational needs without stressing the training pipeline or setting unattainable recruiting goals.

“We’re realists about what we can actually produce,” she said in a Feb. 23 interview. “There are plenty of people that say to me, ‘Why don’t you just add 10,000 more people?’ … We’re not trying to grow for the sake of numbers. We’re trying to grow for the sake of the mission capability.”

The Space Force is preparing to welcome reservists to its ranks under a new model that will allow guardians to serve in a full- or part-time capacity without leaving active duty. That approach lets the Space Force avoid the bureaucracy of standing up a separate reserve component while ideally offering troops more flexibility than active military service typically provides.

The window for reservists in the other armed forces to apply to transfer into the Space Force will likely open this summer or fall, Kelley said.

In the meantime, service officials will continue hashing out the details of how that hybrid workforce will function: How would it affect military housing or health care? How would promotions work? What would it mean for unit staffing? And what back-end human resources software does that require?

“It’s not copy-and-pasting the reserve model and dropping it into the Space Force,” Kelley said. “It’s truly, how are you going to manage one composition that has a couple of different ways to serve?”

Further growth may require the Space Force to take a more active role in its own recruiting. The Air Force has so far handled guardian recruitment in an effort to minimize overlapping bureaucracy between the two services, which comprise the Department of the Air Force.

But Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna, the service’s top enlisted leader, said that could change.

“We don’t have Space Force recruiters right now,” he told Air Force Times in a Jan. 11 interview. “That’s probably something we have to do.”

Still, the Space Force’s accession numbers haven’t suffered from a lack of in-house recruiters.

More than 4,000 people sought to fill just 492 enlisted billets in fiscal year 2023, the service told Congress in January. It signed up all but three of the 259 officers it sought last year.

The Space Force plans to recruit nearly 700 new enlisted guardians and 321 new officers in fiscal year 2024.

Bentivegna plans to work on refining the Space Force’s recruiting strategy in 2024, to give potential enlistees a better understanding of the service’s mission and what their place in it could be. That might mean mounting an ad campaign targeted at those who future guardians might ask for advice on joining the military.

“What do they say? What do they know about us?” he said of recruits’ family and friends. “I want to ... start owning that more as a service.”

Rethinking training

As the service continues to expand, leaders are reconsidering whether the foundation they’ve built can carry them into the future. That begins with an overhaul of the training pipeline.

The Space Force has already designed a service-specific curriculum for enlisted recruits inside the Air Force-run boot camp. Now it wants to shake up how guardians train for their first job in uniform, starting with the officer corps.

Rather than sending officers to technical school to learn about a narrow slice of military space, the Space Force will start them out with an introductory Officer Training Course that exposes troops to the basics of its three core operational fields — intelligence; cyber; and running the satellites, radars and other systems that comprise space operations.

Once the foundational course is done, guardians will pick the career field they like best and head to their first operational unit for on-the-job training, rather than spending more time in the classroom, Kelley said.

That means the Space Force will eventually stop sending guardians to some Air Force-run tech schools, like intel training at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas.

The service eventually plans to expand the same idea to the enlisted corps. It’s unclear how long the vision might take to implement.

Officials hope the idea will lead to a more intuitive workforce that better understands how the military space enterprise functions overall. Graduates will go on to staff units that increasingly look to blur the lines between operations, acquisition and sustainment of military space assets.

“It is very difficult to separate satellite operations, cyber operations and the intelligence that you need to understand to deal with the domain,” Saltzman said.

For example, he said, “a cyber operator will be far better at their job defending the network if they understand the satellite operations, and they understand the intelligence and the threat, and how to ask the right questions.”

The new ops floor

As the pace of operations mounts — fueled by wars in Europe and the Middle East, deterrence in the Pacific, the proliferation of satellites on orbit and burgeoning threats to the U.S. military space ecosystem — the Space Force is unsatisfied with the number of troops it has focused on the daily mission, Kelley said.

The service plans to bolster its shift work, hoping to ease burnout among operational teams, make better use of the troops it has and create more bandwidth in case of a surge.

The Space Force wants to grow the number of crews who staff ops floors around the clock from three to five or so, Kelley said, to give guardians more time to train when they aren’t handling the mission.

To build those rotational crews, the service aims to more cleanly divide guardians who handle administrative work from those who staff daily operations — allowing more operators to focus on the mission rather than distracting them with managerial tasks.

Those crews will form standard packages of combat squadrons the service offers the joint force for daily missions around the world, like the Navy’s carrier strike groups and the Air Force’s future expeditionary wings.

That comes as the Space Force continues to open service component units that work directly with combatant commands like U.S. Central Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to ensure precision-guided weapons can land on target, pass communications between troops, protect U.S. satellites from electronic attack and flag incoming rockets, among other tasks.

The tenor on ops floors is changing, too. Space leaders want guardians to see themselves not as button-pushers at desks, but as warriors in a fight that extends around the globe and into orbit.

In the past, “it was not about what happens if somebody actually tries to take out one of your satellites,” Kelley said. “What we’re focused on now is where to put that manpower and those resources to really flesh out the operational warfighter capabilities.”

The service expects to lean more heavily on enlisted guardians to run daily operations, while officers handle more of the joint force planning to which space is key. Bentivegna noted the Space Force plans to open a retraining program this year to more easily balance its noncommissioned officer corps and others across specialties.

Space Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. David Miller told reporters on a Feb. 27 call that the service is “in a good place” in terms of the staff needed to handle daily tasks, though it’s “in no way … overmanned.” He declined to say in which fields the Space Force is spread thinnest.

But he acknowledged that as the mission set grows, so will the need for staff in expanding areas like missile warning and tracking. That’s especially driven by the Pentagon’s plans to put hundreds of disposable satellites on orbit to become more resilient in case of attack.

It’s time for the service to take a hard look at how many people it needs in each of those roles, and figure out how to promote and pay them fairly, Chief Bentivegna said.

“Am I happy with the structure? No,” he said.

Bentivegna said he’d like to see all guardians who are fully qualified be promoted, up to the first noncommissioned officer rank of sergeant (E-5) — when troops start vying for a smaller number of leadership positions.

“I don’t want to have commanders make a decision that, ‘Only 65% can get promoted this cycle,’” he said. “The only thing that the guardians should be … comparing themselves against is the standard, not one another.”

Kelley, the civilian personnel boss, said the service will advocate for guardians to be allowed to pocket salaries that rival those in the commercial space, cyber and other technology-focused sectors that compete with the Space Force for talent. When guardians may qualify for bonuses and how large those might be is also under consideration.

Officials contend there’s no time to lose in nailing down the details.

“There’s [a] real world at stake here. This is not hypothetical,” Kelley said. “As much as I worry about how much we’re trying to attack at once internally, to get stood up and do all these new things and build new laws and new policies, what’s at stake is you’re farther and farther behind where you need to be. And so I’m excited for what we can do.”

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — India plans to spend about $3 billion on space-related contract awards over the next few years to reduce its dependence on foreign satellites and bolster its counter-space capabilities, according to the head of the military.

Gen. Anil Chauhan’s call to close the gap between India’s own capabilities and other nations that are developing countermeasures in space comes amid tension with China. The neighbors have clashed over a shared border area in the eastern Ladakh region, with both sides in 2020 suffering casualties. In August 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the unresolved border issue and try to deescalate the situation.

Speaking at the DEFSAT conference, held Feb. 7-9 in New Delhi, Chauhan called for greater investment in India’s military space sector and noted the military has already signed five contracts with the private sector, with four more being drawn up. In addition, the government plans to spend 250 billion Indian rupees — or about $3 billion — on contract awards over the next few years, he added.

“It’s the right time for the private industry to utilize this opportunity,” Chauhan said. “Our leadership has envisioned big targets for the nation, from space augmentation to space exploration.”

Sino-Indian space race

During his speech, Chauhan outlined several areas of focus for India’s space sector. First, he called for an indigenous constellation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites equipped with optical and hyperspectral sensors.

Next, he said, the military cannot remain dependent on foreign constellations for positioning, navigation and timing requirements.

“We should also be investing in launch on-demand capabilities in the near future. As the national requirements of ISR, PNT and communication grow, this will resultantly increase the number of Indian satellites orbiting the space, [thus requiring the need for] securing these particular assets, which will require space situational awareness.”

To fill these gaps, the general recommended high-speed satellite communications, a satellite-based internet of things and robust, ground-based infrastructure.

“Lastly, when we are developing all this, I think we need to look at counter-space capabilities, which nations are developing, as a means of deterrence. And maybe this would be required in [the] future to safeguard our assets. In order to ensure that these capabilities are rightfully utilized, doctrinal and connected concepts need to be developed,” he added.

Indeed, there is an inequality in China’s space-based assets compared to those of India. According to the “Military Balance” report released in February by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, China operates 245 military satellites, compared to India’s 26. China also has a reusable spacecraft and counter-space technology, the London-based think tank found.

China is certainly interested in dominating the space domain in terms of control and denying access to adversaries, according to Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst focused on space and Chinese military modernization at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“They’re also developing the counter-space capabilities to threaten U.S. and allied satellites and developing sophisticated launch capabilities that are moving much more toward reusable launch vehicles, heavy-lift and encouraging the growth of commercial space,” he told Defense News. “So in every sense of the word, I think the Chinese are determined to overtake the U.S. in space.”

India is a major ally of the United States, whose own Defense Department warned last year of China’s rise in space capabilities. Its report last year asserted more than 290 systems made up China’s ISR satellite fleet.

“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] owns and operates about half of the world’s ISR systems, most of which could support monitoring, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces worldwide, especially throughout the Indo-Pacific region. These satellites also allow the PLA to monitor potential regional flashpoints, including the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Indian Ocean, and the SCS [South China Sea],” the report noted.

For example, China has dozens of Yaogan-class satellites in orbit, with 54 dedicated to ISR and another 46 providing electronic or signals intelligence, per IISS data, gathered as late as November.

On Dec. 15, China launched the large Yaogan-41 optical satellite into geostationary orbit. There are also about five Huoyan-1 early warning satellites, and China is testing a quantum-enabled communications satellite that could lead to virtually unbreakable communications.

Beijing’s progress in space, including the creation of its Strategic Support Force in 2015, which is responsible for nearly all PLA space operations, shows “forward thinking,” said David Stupples, an expert in space-based systems and professor at City, University of London.

“China [has] a very agile military, and they follow the latest trends very quickly,” he said, comparing the nation to the U.S. and NATO, which have historically focused more on kinetic capabilities. “Warfare has changed a lot over the last four to five years: Whereas it was 90% kinetic and 10% electronic warfare, it’s now probably 50% to 60% electronic warfare and 40% kinetic.”

China also has its own facsimile of GPS. Known as BeiDou, this constellation has 45 satellites, with the final system launched in June 2020 to provide positioning accuracy at up to 5 meters (16 feet).

China is also developing counter-space capabilities through direct-ascent technology, co-orbital systems, electronic warfare, cyberattacks and directed-energy weapons. These can deny access to and operations in the space domain.

“What you’re seeing is that while the Chinese are developing [these] sort of direct-ascent, kinetic-kill anti-satellite [technology], the favored capability for them will be soft-kill systems that are either co-orbital or ground-based because they can deliver reversible, scalable effects, and they also don’t create clouds of space debris,” Davis said.

Asked whether China has interfered with foreign satellites, Davis said he hasn’t heard of “actual attacks so far, but what they’re demonstrating — perfecting — is the technological means to do these sort of attacks in a crisis leading up to war, to exploit the gray zone attack using, for example, a dual-role commercial satellite that has an anti-satellite capability.” (Gray zone military activities fall below the level of traditional armed conflict.)

China reportedly has multiple ground-based lasers that can disrupt, degrade or damage satellites, with the Pentagon describing the technology as a “current limited capability.”

“They do have lasers powerful enough at the moment probably to destroy a satellite in low Earth orbit,” Stupples concurred. “But they’re also developing satellite-killer satellites, which will go alongside another satellite and then aim a laser at the solar panels or antennas.”

China demonstrated its counter-space work with an anti-satellite test against a defunct weather satellite in 2007. It has continued to launch multiple anti-satellite missiles, like the SC-19 used in 2007, proving Beijing can target systems both in low-Earth and geosynchronous orbits. And in 2018, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, then-director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, warned China was working on the ability to jam satellites from the ground.

Stupples said while the anti-satellite threat is “very serious,” any attack would lead to fratricide due to the likelihood of American retaliation. “What China has then said is: ‘OK, you can do all of that, but we will flood space with our signals intelligence satellites and our reconnaissance satellites, etc., and therefore we’ll make it very difficult to do that.’”

Other notable Chinese capabilities include three tests of a reusable spaceplane and the fielding of transportable, quick-response, solid-fueled space launch vehicles. These could help the PLA rapidly reconstitute its low-Earth orbit capabilities by launching replacement satellites.

China’s commercial constellations also benefit the government, Stupples noted. For instance, Beijing is working on its Guo Wang constellation that could include 13,000 satellites for widespread internet coverage — a concept similar to the Starlink network created by American firm SpaceX. The state-owned company SatNet is to operate this massive constellation.

Juliana Suess, an analyst with the British think tank Royal United Services Institute, wrote in an article that “there are many reasons why China would build a satellite-enabled internet constellation in LEO,” not least of which is to expand its influence overseas.

“The existing strides that China has made in terms of soft power, specifically on the continent of Africa and with regard to internet infrastructure, suggest a relatively fast and easy plug-in into Guo Wang,” she noted.

Playing catchup

In comparison, India’s space efforts, historically headlined by the Indian Space Research Organisation, appear rather modest. But the country has achieved notable feats, including the July 14 launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission into orbit, which then successfully landed on the moon.

M. Matheswaran, a retired Indian Air Force air marshal, told Defense News the major drivers for India’s focus on space are the 1999 Kargil War, fought against Pakistan over disputed territory, and China’s 2007 anti-satellite test. The Indian government eventually created its tri-service Defence Space Agency in 2019.

“Now the government has brought out a new space policy opening up the space segment to the private sector,” said Matheswaran, who leads The Peninsula Foundation, an India-based think tank. “India is on the right track now to meeting both its civilian and military requirements, but the pace is not going to be comparable to China’s.”

“There are startups that are doing well, and ISRO [Indian Space Research Organisation] is supporting them as well. That needs to be accelerated, which can only be achieved by adequate government and funding support,” he added. “I suppose India will close the gap, but catching up with where China is today is going to take a long time.”

Stupples agreed India is “a long way behind,” citing a lack of research and funding for military space initiatives. “India has the capability of launching satellites,” he said, “but it doesn’t have the impetus to develop this further. Its thinking is more like America’s — you know, kinetic.”

Last year, the Indian government released a space policy to encourage developments in the domestic space sector through private participation. And in February 2024, the government approved a more liberal foreign direct investment policy to attract investors to the industry.

ISRO also announced plans for 30 space launches by March 2025; that’s compared to an average of about three annually in recent years, Matheswaran said.

Meanwhile, China plans to execute about 100 space launch missions this year, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Among India’s private sector, Tata Advanced Systems has emerged as a key player, with local media reporting it can build up to 24 LEO satellites annually. And the startup GalaxEye Space plans to launch its Drishti satellite this year equipped with synthetic aperture radar and multiple sensors to perform multispectral imaging.

The Indian military is also eyeing December for the launch of its GSAT-7R communications satellite for the Navy, reportedly followed by a 2026 deployment of the GSAT-7B that will provide the Army with its first dedicated communications satellite.

India is increasing its navigation capabilities with the so-called NavIC system; that constellation is to grow from seven satellites to 11 within the next five years. A decade later, the government hopes to have 26 satellites in operation to give India a GPS equivalent.

But among India’s production efforts are destructive aims. In 2019, the country test-fired an anti-satellite weapon that destroyed a low-Earth orbit satellite and resulted in additional space debris. Modi said the test was “not against anyone.”

However, Matheswaran said the experiment was meant “to send a message to the rest of the world, particularly to China, because they did it in 2007.″ He said the move exhibited India’s “capability to protect our assets in space, [showing] we have the ability to interfere with your assets in space as well.”

He agreed with Chauhan that India is overly reliant on foreign sources for surveillance data. “When it comes to security-related issues, India cannot depend on that alone for our entire capability. There’s no substitute for creating your complete independence in that capability from other countries, and therefore this is an urgent requirement.”

In January, India and France signed a memorandum of understanding covering satellite launches and space exploration initiatives. The collaboration is expected to lead to a joint constellation of surveillance satellites focused on the Indian Ocean within four years.

They key here is collaboration rather than dependence, Matheswaran said.

“Down the line, it should result in joint training, joint research and development and joint work, including industrial partnerships,” he said. “That’s the way to go.”

The U.K. arms of Belgian-based company Rhea and American firm Lockheed Martin won separate contracts, cumulatively worth £4 million (U.S. $5 million).

The deals were announced Feb. 14, although both contractors have worked on their potential offerings since mid-2023, when they were selected from six firms initially tasked to undertake work on what is known as Project Beroe.

The amount of money involved may be small, but the outcome of the research and development work by the two companies could be key, according to Commodore David Moody, the head of capability at UK Space Command.

“This is a pivotal moment for UK Defence and the UK Space Sector as we develop software and partnerships that will determine the future of how we manage our activities in space,” Moody said in a statement released at the time of the announcement. “This project will enable us to define and understand how we will control and optimise the use of our satellites in a safe and sustainable way and is an important part of UK MOD’s future satellite aspirations.”

The 20-month-long contracts are scheduled to conclude in March 2025. There is no public timeline regarding the possible acquisition or future development phases of the software.

Existing British satellite control is focused around the Skynet 5 communications spacecraft network but Project Beroe is expected to enable satellite taskings from a much wider group of government entities and satellite types, individually or in concert.

Project Beroe is not directly related to Skynet and will support future non-Skynet satellite constellations like the low-Earth orbit ISTARI and Minerva programs.

Together, ISTARI and Minerva are to form the building blocks of a low-Earth orbit ISR capability for the British military.

ISTARI is a 10-year, £968 million program planned to deliver a multi-satellite system supporting surveillance and intelligence gathering for military operations.

Minerva is a £127 million project to develop four concept demonstrator satellites: Titania, Tyche, Oberon and Juno.

Tyche, which is the first of the four to launch, is scheduled to enter orbit this year. The Minerva group is meant to demonstrate the ability to autonomously collect, process and disseminate data from British and allied space assets, and this will inform how the ISTARI project moves forward.

Both programs are part of a planned £6.4 billion fund spread out over 10 years, as announced by the MoD when it rolled out its space defense strategy in 2022.

At a cost of about £5 billion, the lion’s share of that spending will go toward the procurement of a new generation of satellites and ground facilities under the Skynet 6 program.

Airbus is already building the first of those satellites, known as Skynet 6A, and a further competition is underway to provide a new generation of narrowband and wideband satellites under the Skynet 6 banner.