Military Space Operations: Planning, Funding, and Acquisition Challenges Facing Efforts to Strengthen Space Control

摘要

The United States is increasingly dependent on space for its security and well being. The Department of Defense's (DOD) space systems collect information on capabilities and intentions of potential adversaries. They enable military forces to be warned of a missile attack and to communicate and navigate while avoiding hostile action. And they provide information that allows forces to precisely attack targets in ways to minimize collateral damage and loss of life. DOD's satellites also enable global communications, television broadcasts, weather forecasting; navigation of ships, planes, trucks, and cars; and synchronization of computers, communications, and electric power grids. This growing dependence, however, is also making commercial and military space systems attractive targets for adversarial attacks. According to DOD, our adversaries are exploring such capabilities as directed energy weapons, space object tracking systems, physical attacks on satellite ground stations, and signals jamming. Moreover, our adversaries are gaining access to space-based information as well as acquiring new spacebased capabilities. In view of this growing threat, DOD is taking on efforts to strengthen its ability to protect and defend space-based assets, also known as 'space control.' Given the importance and potential costs of its acquisitions related to space, we identified DOD's efforts to strengthen its ability to protect and defend its space assets and the challenges facing DOD in making those space control efforts successful.