The U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) has finished a force design effort for future missile warning, USSF Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond said on Aug. 24.
“The Space Warfighting Analysis Center’s first assignment was to tackle one of our most important missions—missile warning—and to design the force structure we need for a contested space environment,” Raymond told the Space Foundation’s 36th annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “I’m proud to say that their final results were supported by all organizations involved in that mission. It’s not the SWAC’s force design. It’s not the Space Force’s force design. It’s the nation’s force design.”
At the symposium, Raymond cited the work of Maj. Amanda Salmoiraghi, who led the SWAC force design team on missile warning. That team evaluated “thousands of force design concepts, narrowing them down through rigorous technical and cost analysis,” Raymond said. “Her team worked hand in hand with the Missile Defense Agency, the intelligence community, and multiple acquisition organizations throughout the entire process.”
By press time on Aug. 24, USSF had not responded to a request for the results of the SWAC missile defense force design.
Besides devising future USSF plans for missile warning and tracking that improve system resilience through an open, layered architecture, SWAC is charged with force design efforts for wideband satellite communications (SATCOM) that mix military and commercial systems with protected tactical waveforms; position, navigation and timing to enhance resilience through an open, layered architecture; environmental monitoring through a proliferated Low Earth Orbit constellation; space domain awareness; strategic SATCOM; tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and space control.
“We have to identify a future force design underpinned by world class analysis to balance performance, cost and resilience,” Raymond said on Aug. 24.
The Joint Requirements Oversight Council has designated the USSF as the integrator of joint space requirements to eliminate fragmented decision making and lack of integration across the Department of the Air Force. The Space Force Acquisition Council to be chaired by the USSF space acquisition executive is to align space acquisition programs across the Department of the Air Force and the intelligence community.