WASHINGTON — Military satellite procurements for strategic defense and communications are drawing increased funding and congressional scrutiny. These are the biggest satellite acquisitions planned by the U.S. Space Force over the subsequent several years and “represent a fundamental departure from how DoD has historically carried out these critical missions,” says a latest report by the Aerospace Corp. published June 22.
A proposed budget of $30.3 billion for 2024 is the Space Force’s largest ever, nearly doubling the service’s first budget request 4 years ago.
“The rise supports growth in next-generation nuclear command and control spacecraft, which can look much different than their predecessors, and reflects the administration’s push toward extra space assets in lower orbits,” in response to the report by analyst Sam Wilson, of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
Some takeaways from the report:
- The rise on this 12 months’s request and planned growth for future years highlights long-term changes and latest priorities for a way the department is approaching lots of its defense space missions.
- Critical next-generation defense space systems, akin to nuclear command and control satellites, will devour a significant slice of the Space Force budget within the years to come back.
- Next-generation nuclear command and control systems will look much different than their predecessors, with the variety of among the satellites increasing and the roles of among the spacecraft splintering.
- DoD is advocating for more spacecraft in lower orbits although it can proceed to depend on higher orbit systems for a lot of missions.
Space assets for nuclear command and control include missile warning infrared sensing spacecraft, in addition to satellites that transmit messages to and from nuclear forces and between senior leaders within the event of a nuclear war.
A brand new program called Evolved Strategic Satcom, and two families of missile-warning programs — Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared and Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking, collectively make up nearly half of all the Space Force’s research and development budget through fiscal 12 months 2028, Wilson points out.
The ESS satcom program is a dedicated constellation for nuclear command and control. By contract, DoD today uses satellites for each strategic communications and tactical communications.
“With the next-generation systems, this dual function of the satellites will go away,” writes Wilson.
DoD’s next-generation missile warning programs also represent a fundamental shift for the department, he adds. “For several many years, DoD has used a small variety of systems in high orbit for missile warning. For the subsequent generation of programs, the department is starting to pivot to an architecture with a bigger variety of assets in lower orbit.”
The Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next Gen OPIR) and the Resilient Missile Warning and Missile Tracking (MW/MT) systems collectively make up for nearly $5 billion of the Space Force’s 2024 request.
DoD within the 2024 budget is accelerating a pivot to lower orbit, adding funds for MW/MT in low and medium orbits, and cutting one in all three previously planned Next Gen OPIR geostationary satellites.
Wilson notes that Congress has been a robust supporter of the shift to lower orbits and has increased funding for the Space Development Agency that’s leading these efforts. Nevertheless, Congress has raised concerns about costs and criticized the Space Force for not providing sufficient information on the risks related to the brand new architecture.
House appropriators challenge Space Force plan
During last week’s markup of the defense budget, the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee challenged DoD’s plans to eliminate a Next Gen OPIR satellite.
Next Gen OPIR “is a critical component of the strategic missile warning and nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) enterprise,” said a HAC-D report accompanying its markup of the 2024 budget.
“The Committee is troubled by the shortage of study to support the proposal to cancel the GEO–3 spacecraft, especially given its importance to the NC3 mission.”
The HAC-D “understands the Space Force is pivoting to more resilient, proliferated space architectures, and strongly supports those initiatives. Yet the Department of Defense has not addressed how these latest architectures will meet the NC3 mission needs, and if not, how the NC3 mission needs might be met after the Next Gen OPIR program.”
Appropriators direct DoD and the Department of the Air Force to report back with answers on these questions.
The complete House Appropriations Committee is marking up the defense spending bill June 22.