The Air Force needs to think of ways that don’t necessarily involve offensive capability to protect its space assets as space becomes increasingly congested, the service’s top civilian said yesterday.
“We have to think about how we protect what we have up there, which doesn’t have to mean some offensive capability,” Acting Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning said yesterday at the Defense One summit in Washington. “It just means an architecture that is harder for an adversary to take out or attack.”
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| Acting Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning. Photo: Air Force. |
Fanning’s remark could be good news to those who favor space aggregation, a concept in which capabilities are spread over multiple platforms or systems. Disaggregation is commonly thought of as using smaller satellites instead of the huge, monolithic satellites the Defense Department has traditionally developed for space capabilities. Disaggregation could drive down costs in both launch and production while still providing capability.
“We’re looking at new strategies and new architectures for space to try to increase resilience,” Fanning said.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, military deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, said there are “active looks” being taken at disaggregating weather and communications satellites. Davis also said the head of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), Gen. William Shelton, is pursuing disaggregation for the next generation of infrared (IR) and communication satellites.
“Where he wants to go…instead of building these school bus-sized satellite communications (SATCOM) platforms, they’ll put smaller sensors and relay nodes on basically an ongoing common bus,” Davis told reporters Tuesday at the Defense Daily Open Architecture Summit.
AFSPC also touted the advantages of space disaggregation in a white paper released in August. The white paper also said, in addition to smaller, more affordable satellites, disaggregation improves mission survivability by increasing the number and diversity of potential targets (Defense Daily, Aug. 23).
Leading Washington analysts have also warned the Pentagon about the dangers of being slow to disaggregate space architecture. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), said the United States is at risk of creating a “Maginot Line” in space, primarily with military satellite communication (MILSATCOM) assets, because it continues to assume that space systems will not be attacked in conventional conflict (Defense Daily, July 26).
Davis said the Air Force needs to prove that disaggregation will work to win over those opposed to a new way of doing business. Davis said there are a lot of people who don’t necessarily agree that disaggregation is the way to go, but the service can win people over by taking risk in other areas and proving the approach will work.