The United States’ protected military communications satellites do not have the throughput to sustain the data requirements necessary for success in conventional operations, according to an expert on Asian strategic issues.
Ashley Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense and Asian strategic issues, told a House panel Jan. 28 China has made enormous investments in the ability to jam communications satellites. Though the United States has a class of communications satellites coming online that are protected and more impervious to Chinese capabilities, Tellis said much of the Defense Department’s warfighter efficiency depends on being able to use unprotected commercial and military communication satellites, and if the United States loses access to those satellites, it would have a problem.
“I think if we lose the capacity embodied in those unprotected assets, then, of necessity, the burdens that would shift onto our protected communications would be extremely high,” Tellis testified to a joint House Armed Services strategic forces and seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing on China’s counterspace program and the implications for national security.
Tellis also said China’s investment in kinetic kill capabilities has a special effect on low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, which Tellis said are home to key satellites like electroptical surveillance satellites. Tellis said these satellites are most at risk because an enemy can interfere with their operations not simply through kinetic kill but through “laser dazzling,” which is when lasers are used to obfuscate images collected by satellites.
“So even if you don’t get hard kills that contribute to debris, you can interfere with their operations through directed energy devices which China has been pursuing for several years,” Tellis said.
Aries Analytics President Robert Butterworth testified the United States needs to a better job explaining how space support is integrated into the joint effort. Butterworth said DoD, in the past, would assume that space assets would simply be available.
“It’s not that way anymore, but that’s the kind of approach that still exists throughout our work on this problem,” Butterworth said. “I would urge that we try to understand the integrated effect of fighting and not having the space systems and, also, alternative ways to get around it.”
Michael Krepon, co-founder and senior associate of the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, told the panel space debris vulnerability is DoD’s greatest current vulnerability. Krepon said the breakup of rocket bodies and the Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in the late 2000s has magnified the debris problem by a “very, very large number.” Krepon even said the International Space Station (ISS) moves on average of once a year to avoid space debris.
“The more a nation depends on space, the more vulnerable it becomes, just because of a debris problem,” Krepon said. “(I’m) not even talking Chinese counterspace capabilities.”
The Air Force’s next-generation Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) program is an example of a protected communications satellite. The service has launched three as of September with the fourth scheduled for launch in the third quarter of 2016, according to Mark Lewis, a spokesman for prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT].