By Michael Sirak
Leveraging data from sensors not traditionally associated with space surveillance, such as those on aircraft like the F-22 stealth fighter, could improve the Air Force’s understanding of orbital activities, the vital underpinning of protecting satellites from threats, according to the Air Force’s top space general.
“Any platform that we put out anywhere in the globe doing sensing as part of its mission, I believe, has the potential to contribute to something as unrelated-seeming as space situational awareness,” Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), told Defense Daily earlier this month in his first one-on-one interview since assuming his post in late October. “If we can integrate the data from all of this collection of sensors that we have out there today, that begins to give us a tremendous advantage.”
The Air Force is working to establish a robust network of terrestrial-based and space-based sensors to monitor activities in space. With better monitoring capability, Kehler and additional senior Air Force leaders say the service will be able to differentiate natural phenomena or random failure that might be disrupting a satellite’s operations from a purposeful adversarial attack (Defense Daily, Sept. 25). This awareness of orbital activities is considered crucial, they say, since the United States no longer considers space a sanctuary in the wake of events like China’s successful anti-satellite test in January.
In addition to expanding the existing network of ground-based radar and optical telescopes and adding new on-orbit monitoring assets, the Air Force intends to field an improved command-and-control infrastructure for the network and an integrated data-fusion, processing and dissemination architecture so that the information from the sensing platforms could be passed to warfighting commanders in operationally relevant timelines on a continual basis.
But Kehler said an even greater effect could be achieved by integrating the data from sensors that are not normally part of the space-surveillance network into the mix. The manner in which the U.S. military has effectively linked a collection of various sensors around the world to track ballistic missiles in flight serves as a model, he said.
“We think that same concept that missile defense has brought to bear could be applied to space situational awareness,” he said. “I think that is a terrific example of what we are talking about.
“As long as they are sensing…they are providing what I believe is potentially very valuable information for us,” he continued. “And, it shouldn’t fall on the floor. We ought to go integrate that into our system and take advantage of it…We ought to be collecting it and it ought to be feeding us for our mission purposes just like it is feeding someone in an AOC [Air and Space operations Center] for their mission purposes.”
Utilizing the data from these so-called non-traditional sensors would also potentially fill gaps in space situational awareness that otherwise would have to be plugged by investing in additional space-surveillance sensors, Kehler said.
“That is what integration will do for us,” he said. “And if you add cyberspace to that and the capability to sense through cyberspace, this becomes a very intriguing way to look at the future and a very intriguing way to invest.”