ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Space Force sees growing support from Congress for its plans to construct large constellations in low Earth orbit and other priorities the service specified by its 2024 budget request, the vice chief of space operations said May 15.
“We just finished defending our budget on the Hill and it’s been well received,” Gen. David Thompson said at an industry event organized by the Space Force Association.
“We usually are not really seeing any significant pushback,” on Capitol Hill or contained in the Pentagon with regard to what the Space Force is trying to perform, Thompson said.
The Space Force’s proposed $30 billion budget in 2024, which DoD characterised as its “largest space budget ever,” is almost $4 billion above last yr’s appropriations.
The Space Force was established because the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces in December 2019. Initially many on Capitol Hill questioned whether a brand new military service was really needed but that debate has been settled, Thompson said. “I even have not heard these questions or comments in a really very long time,” he added, “Actually, what I hear now, almost routinely is: ‘I don’t think I used to be a giant fan when it began but I feel you guys are doing alright.’”
However the Space Force can’t take this support with no consideration, Thomson said. “We’ve grown so quickly by way of budget capability, now we now have to be sure that that we’re making smart investments with all of that cash.”
LEO satellites a top priority
Thompson identified low Earth orbit satellite networks and training systems for satellite operators because the Space Force’s highest priorities within the 2024 budget.
“We proceed to push hard within the direction, to start with, of resilient and proliferated architectures,” he said.
LEO and medium Earth orbit constellations at the moment are in development to assist defend U.S. forces from hypersonic missile attacks and for transmitting data in space. The Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office are also jointly developing a proliferated LEO constellation to trace moving targets from space.
The conflict in Ukraine has shown that “LEO is the precise answer,” said Thompson. “It’s resilient under attack,” he said. “I don’t think it takes an area expert to have watched what has unfolded in Ukraine to see the worth, profit and resilience of business constellations.”
He noted that space-based communications and data relay will proceed to get significant investment. “I’ll just inform you to proceed to observe this space in 2025 and beyond. That is an amazing growth area.”
DoD has embraced the concept networks of low-orbiting satellites in space can be essential to fight wars in the long run, he said. There’s a necessity for “sensors passing data to decision makers, passing data to firing units, passing data to weapons in flight, and for continuing to get updates over tons of and 1000’s of square miles.”
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“With a view to fight like that, you’re gonna must have an incredible network in space,” Thompson said.
Resulting from the wide availability of business space systems, he said, “We’re on the technique to a future where it is best to expect that, generally speaking, you’re going to be observed and sensed and monitored and tracked from space just about all over the place on a regular basis.”
Education and training
Thompson also highlighted the Space Force’s plans to spend $340 million on a digital infrastructure for training satellite operators and testing the performance of recent hardware.
The service is funding a program called National Space Test and Training Complex. Thompson said it is a critical effort to make sure Space Force guardians are “trained and ready to fight … and meaning an operational test and training infrastructure unlike what we’ve had previously.”
Space Force units need sophisticated training systems just like the ones utilized by the Army, Navy and Air Force, with “true threat replication, live, simulated and virtual pondering adversaries,” said Thompson.