The drive to control space is one U.S. Air Force mission that is fast gaining in urgency. In fact, achieving space superiority has become as imperative as maintaining control of the air. According to Air Force space officials, the country now needs both air and space superiority in the event of war. Under this mission, the Air Force is aiming to improve and widen its situational awareness in space as well as to build upon its capability to defend U.S. satellites. Additionally, many in the military space community believe that controlling space entails the use of weapons to defend military and commercial satellites against attack and to disable enemy space systems, if necessary.

While space superiority was recognized as a top Air Force priority at least two decades ago, the campaign did not garner much attention until the armed conflicts of recent years, starting from the Persian Gulf War of 1991. In 1999, Congress insisted on the establishment of a U.S. space control program, and two years later, the U.S. Space Commission called for the same initiative in a report that led to the creation of the Air Force Space Command's numerous space control programs, say officials.

The war in Iraq further underlined the crucial role of space systems in the effectiveness of U.S. military operations. Iraq's air defense forces had attempted to interfere with the signals of U.S. Navstar GPS satellites, which directed bombs and missiles to ground targets. While the Air Force was able to thwart these efforts, military space officials believe that these attempts are a precursor to more advanced attacks on satellite communications links or on the satellites themselves. In response, the Air Force is strengthening GPS signals, making them much more difficult to disrupt.

Along with upgrading GPS anti-jamming capabilities, the Air Force is also focusing on improving space situational awareness. Currently, it's unable to pinpoint and monitor many objects in space, and is therefore only partially aware of what's happening there. To remedy this, the service is focusing on developing the capability to identify the positions of all operative and inoperative satellites—along with all orbiting debris—and to ascertain who is running which satellites. To accomplish this, they are upgrading long-standing ground-based space surveillance systems and supplementing them with a space surveillance system that's based in space. Expected to become the foundation of such a network is the Space Based Space Surveillance System (SBSS)—a program run by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles. With the SBSS—a group of satellites equipped with electrooptical sensors—the Air Force hopes to achieve the same high level of situational awareness in space that it has attained in the air with the airborne warning and control system (AWACS), says Robert Dickman, Air Force deputy undersecretary for military space.

Another important space control program is the rapid attack, identification, detection and reporting system (RAIDRS). Under this program, the Air Force will place sensors on spacecraft to detect if they are being attacked and how. While RAIDRS represents a defensive counterspace program, the Air Force is also establishing new offensive—yet nondestructive—systems to respond to antisatellite (ASAT) weapons and capabilities. For example, it's developing a counter communications system—slated for initial delivery to the service this year—which will block the space-based communications utilized by attacking forces for command and control. And further into the future, many space officials expect the U.S. to build manned or unmanned combat spacecraft that could be deployed quickly to protect U.S. satellites. Some planners visualize fighting machines that could stop attacking spacecraft and conceivably disable the enemy in the air and on land as well as in space.

Says Dickman to Aerospace America, "We're in the space superiority business. If we weren't thinking about how to defend ourselves actively against somebody trying to do us harm, we'd be foolish."

Source:

Controlling the Space Arena
James W. Canan
Aerospace America Online, January 2004
www.aiaa.org/aerospace/Article.cfm?issuetocid=444&ArchiveIssueID=46