Some decision-making authorities, previously closely held by the president or secretary of defense, have been delegated to US SPACECOM, according to sources, but military space leaders want more freedom to act.
The document argues that the US needs to establish space superiority as a precondition for winning a war, and explains that the Space Force does that by exercising "space control."
CDAO’s Advana data analytics platform is ingesting data from about 500 DoD business systems.
The program was designed to both to increase mobility and improve the jamming capabilities of the Space Force's legacy Counter Communications System, to include providing multi-frequency jamming in S-band and X-band.
"The US and France recently conducted our first ever bilateral rendezvous and proximity operation to demonstrate combined capabilities in space in the vicinity of a strategic competitor spacecraft," SPACECOM head Gen. Stephen Whiting said today.
The report finds that Russia has been increasingly successful at blocking Ukraine's use of SpaceX's Starlink communications constellation, citing media reports in December 2024 about a new system specifically targeting Starlink called Kalinka and developed by the Russian Center for Unmanned Systems and Technologies.
The chief of space operations said the Space Force is examining how to best invest in six categories of counter-space weapons, because China is doing the same.
Modeling and simulation get an AI upgrade for more realistic training and improved autonomous platforms.
The new report cautions the Space Force against an "over reliance" on commercial capabilities and worries that Space Force is not concentrating enough on the need to win future space conflicts not simply "endure" attacks.
"You are warfighters, whether you carry a gun or not," Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told Guardians on Dec. 10. "You are trained and expected to carry out offensive and defensive actions against military forces of other countries."
US Space Command has been clamoring for new technology to enable "dynamic space operations," which include "sustained" maneuvering that doesn't eat up fuel to allow US military spacecraft and satellites to outrun suspect adversary satellites — or potentially be able to chase those suspect birds down both to assess any threats and possibly take action to neutralize them.
NATO's planning directorate is creating war games for space activities to work out national contributions, including for offensive capabilities that require allied consensus for use in a conflict.
Onshoring and investment in military-specific semiconductors anchor a cornerstone of the defense industrial base.
Space & Missile Defense Command has been pushing to make space a formal "military occupation specialty" for enlisted personnel wishing to specialize, and has submitted a proposal to that effort to Army personnel leaders to that effect.
The new version of Joint Publication 3-14 explains that "offensive and defensive space operations" are supported primarily by "direct capabilities" — that is, "fires that impact an adversary."
The unclassified strategy communicates "our commitment to protect the Joint Force from adversary hostile uses of space," said DoD Space Policy czar John Plumb.
"The phrase in, from, and to space is a direct reference to the core functions of the Space Force. Guardians secure our Nation’s interests in space through space superiority activities that protect the Joint Force and the Nation from space and counterspace threats," wrote Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman in a memo obtained by Breaking Defense.