Photo: Courtesy of Raytheon Intelligence & Space
In this Q&A with Paul Meyer, vice president of Space & C2 Systems for Raytheon Intelligence & Space, we discuss how the organization is supporting all-domain operations with more resilient, higher-rate production, and lower-cost-on-orbit functionality that will help facilitate the future JADC2 framework.
Breaking Defense: Before we jump into missile warning and defense, can you give me a tour of Raytheon’s Space & C2 Systems organization?
Paul Meyer, Vice President of Space & C2 Systems for Raytheon Intelligence & Space
Meyer: Except for a few programs, most of Raytheon’s space business resides in this organization in a variety of groups.
Now, let’s tour the organization: Space Systems is responsible for providing sophisticated payloads to meet DoD, civil, commercial, international, and intelligence community needs. It focuses on highly sophisticated and complex payloads, as well as less complex systems for the proliferated LEO (Low-Earth-Orbit) mission environment.
Strategic Systems is a collection of USSF ground systems. This group includes: the FORGE (Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution) program designed to manage and process missile warning data from the USSF’s Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS); the Global Positioning System Operational Control Systems (OCX) program being developed for the USSF’s GPS modernization program; and RGNext, a joint venture between Raytheon and General Dynamics Information Technology that supports the Eastern Range on the Space Coast of Florida and the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base and other locations.
Space & C2 Systems also includes space Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, with a primary focus on the intelligence community. Our work there mainly consists of key ground capability in constellation management and exploitation product development.
We also acquired Blue Canyon Technologies last December. This brought us a unique capability in small and CubeSats as a small-sat bus provider. We have the capacity now to vertically integrate that small bus with a payload for DoD, commercial and IC solutions.
Our last area in S&C2 is Command, Control and Defense Solutions. It’s made up of ground stations for the USAF’s Global Hawk program and management of NASA climate sensors related to data processing and exploitation. Very important to us are cross-domain operations through the Army’s Distributed Common Ground Station program, and another one that’s emerging today is the TITAN (Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node) solution for the U.S. Army to support long-range fires and future multi-domain operations.
Breaking Defense: Can you share how RI&S’ space-based sensors support missile warning and defense?
Meyer: Data-processing ground systems are the precursor to space-based missile defense. In one program, FORGE, we are working with other industry partners to give customers a framework where they can rapidly change applications, update software, and revise the command-and-control construct to expedite early detection, the tracking, and the command and control necessary to apply an effector to counter a particular threat or set of threats.
From an architecture perspective, we’re focused on what is called Minimally Viable Products through agile software development. We’re applying those technologies to digital engineering threads where we can prove our capabilities with operators in the loop and rapidly deliver software updates to the framework on a recurring basis on timeline not achievable in traditional acquisition programs.
Breaking Defense: So many of these new capabilities in missile warning and defense are software driven rather than being hardware driven?
Meyer: You’re correct. We’re not going back into the traditional PDR/CDR (Preliminary Design Review /Critical Design Review) waterfall [development] events. We perform at a much more rapid pace: test, fail, fix, test again, and deliver. It is a rapid DevSecOps cycle with the operator in the loop using modern software tools and development processes.
Breaking Defense: Another area you’re working on is a space-based layered missile warning architecture. Can you describe that?
Meyer: We have GEO (geosynchronous-Earth orbit) birds, MEO (medium-earth orbit) birds, and LEO birds that are all in different operating altitudes. Depending on the sensor type and its fidelity, they’re going to have different look angles and different resolution against targets. While we don’t determine the CONOPS here, this diversity in orbits offers us varying fields of view as well as resiliency against a growing and complex threat.
With a layered architecture, we’re looking for an opportunity to maximize coverage areas through a multitude of angles and sensing types based on payload and processing capabilities to ensure we maintain early detection and tracking throughout a course of flight or engagement by providing a multi-layered, resilient architecture.
Our customers are also looking for resiliency because space is no longer a safe sanctuary. A GEO system is generally very sophisticated with very precise instruments, but also is very susceptible to some type of attack because of the limited quantity of those on orbit.
MEO, from a portability and resiliency perspective is becoming a medium of choice for many customers. MEO systems are not as expensive as GEO systems because they’re not so far away from the Earth and therefore the sensor can be less sophisticated.
And then the LEO elements provide quick, relatively near-distance and affordable sensing capability that is not only redundant but also resilient in the context that reconstitution can be replicated more rapidly.
In addition, there’s a different quantity associated with each orbit. So again, you may have a handful of assets in GEO, tens in MEO, and multitudes in LEO. Together they give operators the opportunity to find the threat and maintain a track of the threat while also having the resiliency in the event of an offensive attack, whether it be an anti-satellite weapon or a jammer. This approach provides those threats a multitude of challenges associated with hiding or delaying the detection of those satellites.
Breaking Defense: Is this sort of layered architecture targeted at the Great Power Competition?
Meyer. Yes, it is, specifically due to several reasons, including the proliferation of missiles and the advent of hypersonic missiles. The time to detect and maintain a track has significantly shrunk from what it was before.
In addition, we’re faced with countermeasures and reduced signatures of systems after launch that provide very dim targets. The mobility of those particular threats to launch from many locations—as opposed to very precise, fixed locations—has also continued to expand. It’s a matter of keeping our eyes on particular regions of interest, as well as other regions from which an adversary may shoot from next.
Breaking Defense: And you’re addressing that reduced reaction time with software improvements?
Meyer: Software, yes, and communications. So, there’s a question about how much onboard processing versus offboard processing needs to be done. We’re seeing datalink constructs coming to fore today with optical datalinks for sharing data between satellites so as one satellite in LEO travels over the horizon, for example, it passes its information back to the next successive sensor. It has, if you will, a track catalog of what it saw just before it went over the horizon so that the next satellite doesn’t have to revisit that area. Or if the sensor saw a target of interest, it can immediately pass off that data and never lose track of the target.
So, software is a major player regarding the onboard processing. Also, once we get that sensor data to the ground, the challenge becomes how quickly can we respond with a countermeasure, from any domain, be it kinetic or other non-kinetic.
Breaking Defense: Final thoughts?
Meyer: The organization is well into the transformation necessary to understand not only the affordable sensitivities needed for payloads, but also the opportunity afforded to us by a more resilient, higher-rate production, and lower-cost-on-orbit functionality that will help facilitate the future JADC2 framework.
Raytheon Intelligence and Space not only supports that framework from the payload side, but also mirror that on the ground side with continuing advances such as time to market and cost savings relative to software development. We also focus on the functionality necessary to take the best advantage of the data coming off the payload systems. Ultimately, it’s about bringing the entire decision loop into the JADC2 architecture to stay ahead of our adversaries and counter them when needed.
