AT: Surveillance – Non-Inherent – Military Satellites

AT: Surveillance – Non-Inherent – Military Satellites

The U.S. military is more dependent on Space-based assets than any other military on earth. The mission of the national Space programs includes launching military satellites designed to: 1) provide worldwide command, control, and communications between deployed elements and their respective command structures, 2) provide extremely precise navigational aid to maneuvering military forces and guidance assistance to advanced weapon systems and 3) conduct Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) of enemy military bases, assets, and deployments. The RSTA element of the national military Space program permitted the collection of various types of intelligence in order to rapidly assess a potential adversary’s military current order of battle and capabilities, and to provide insight into their intentions or to provide warning of impending hostile action. As the level of technology and the capability of satellites increases, these assets will continue to be increasingly more important to all aspects of U.S. military operations. Satellite support is critical to the U.S. military, especially taking into account the fact that the United States could be and often is conducting military operations in several different theaters at any one time. These theaters of operations can be located on opposite sides of the globe from one another. U.S. military satellites provide increased flexibility while increasing overall efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. military forces, operations, and weapon systems.

As the backbone of the U.S. military's global satellite communications capabilities, the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) constellation provides nuclear-hardened, anti-jam, high data rate, long haul communications to users worldwide. DSCS supports: the defense communications system, the Army's ground mobile forces, the Air Force's airborne terminals, Navy ships at sea, the White House Communications Agency, the State Department, and special users. Overall DSCS responsibility resides in the United States Strategic Command.

Space warfare capabilities are applicable across the range of conflict scenarios both at the strategic and tactical levels, serving most effectively as “deterrence” or to bring about a speedy conclusion to a ground war. In the prevailing scenario, space based assets i.e. satellites for military use are employed for purposes of reconnaissance, surveillance, communications, navigation, monitoring of weather and a variety of alert warnings. Some of these activities such as reconnaissance and surveillance are carried out by satellites placed in Low Earth Orbits (LEO) that are polar, and are in the nature of intelligence gathering thereby enhancing the speed and accuracy of decision making at all levels of command. Development of anti-satellite weapon systems is likely to render satellites in LEO quite vulnerable.

As widely acknowledged, space is increasingly being militarized as more and more states place military satellites into orbit and use space as a force multiplier for military operations. Space control provides the key to military victories in modern warfare, as amply demonstrated by the Gulf War of 1990-91, where the U.S. military first demonstrated how it relied on and made full advantage of its space assets in support of its military operations’ precision strikes. Since then, China’s military leadership has increasingly focused on the importance of high-tech warfare and the ability of sophisticated command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) systems to link land, sea, air, and space forces [13]. Military use of space has become a key component of information warfare and is focused on two key considerations: How to use space to enhance one’s own offensive capabilities, and how to use space to deny one’s potential adversaries those similar capabilities.

Looking down and out (as from a mountain) to survey the battlefield for information useful to military leaders goes back to ancient times. In Napoleonic times, the French used observation balloons to scan their foes before and during battles. This technique was often a factor in the U.S. Civil War. By the First World War, airplanes and dirigibles were employed over enemy lines and their staging areas and cities as platforms from which aerial photography provided reconnaissance and intelligence pertinent to the content of battle. This approach was much expanded during the Second World War, as for example the follow-ups to a bombing raid to assess damage to the target. With the advent of rockets and then satellites, observations of both military and political activities on the ground became possible, ushering in the so-called Age of Spy Satellites. Besides surveillance of a wide variety of targets of interest to military intelligence units (in the United States, these include the Department of Defense, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and Homeland Defense), satellites can now assist in areas other than simply observing features on the ground - this includes communications, meteorology, oceanography, location (Global Position Systems [GPS]), and Early Warning Systems (none of these latter applications will be discussed on this page). In addition to satellites, manned aircraft continue to be platforms and in recent years UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) such as drones have assumed some of the intelligence-gathering tasks.

CAPE CANAVERAL: A new military satellite has been launched into space. An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket lifted off into a cloudless sky on Saturday afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It carried the Space-Based Infrared System geosynchronous satellite. The spacecraft will provide missile warning, missile defence, battlefield reconnaissance and technical intelligence for the United States and its allies. The space infrared network includes four satellites that orbit the Earth at the same speed as the planet rotates 35,400 kilometres above the ground. More satellites will be added.

President Obama approved a new classified defense remote sensing strategy this week that calls for the construction of at least one electro-optical/infrared imaging satellite and the purchase of more commercial imagery from GeoEye and Digital Globe. A statement yesterday from National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair outlined a plan for government-owned satellites that will push the capabilities currently being deployed by commercial vendors. The commercial satellites are called “less-complex” in the release, pointing toward a research and development effort to give the military an information advantage. The release also mentions the role of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as the integrator to bring together the imagery from all sources and serve it to military, intelligence, foreign policy and civilian users.