“We should move away from procuring a handful of “exquisite” costly satellites that make for “large, big, fat, juicy targets.” Instead of these “fragile, undefendable” devices, he advocates in favor of “more resilient, more distributed capabilities,” such as cheaper, small satellites."
John Hyten, former head of US Strategic Command and now vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
First Strike Resiliency
GEO Satellite and land-based teleport infrastructure are undefendable first-strike targets.
Denial of Satellite Services Effects:
∙ GPS Navigation and Weapons Systems offline
∙ Communications interrupted
∙ Real time target assessment & response impossible
∙ No Viable Backup
MIL-SPACE Distributed Space SmallSat Systems:
∙ Represent more challenging targets
∙ Are easily replenishable
∙ Are less costly that adversary's anti-satellite weapons per copy
∙ Support evolving technology infusion
First Strike Resiliency
GEO Satellite and land-based teleport infrastructure are undefendable first-strike targets.
Denial of Satellite Services Effects:
∙ GPS Navigation and Weapons Systems offline
∙ Communications interrupted
∙ Real time target assessment & response impossible
∙ No Viable Backup
MIL-SPACE Distributed Space SmallSat Systems:
∙ Represent more challenging targets
∙ Are easily replenishable
∙ Are less costly that adversary's anti-satellite weapons per copy
∙ Support evolving technology infusion
Payload Options
Options:
∙ UHF- Ka Band Comms compatible with existing Mobile User Objective Systems (MUOS) terminals
∙ Relatively high Throughput Data
∙ Optics
∙ 3D RO Radar
∙ Other
Applications:
∙ MUOS Augmentation
∙ Electronic intelligence satellites (ELINT)
∙ Constellations of optical and radar imaging satellites for continuous intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
∙ Monitoring UAGSs∙ Hypersonic and Nuclear early warning
Payload Options
Options:
∙ UHF- Ka Band Comms compatible with existing Mobile User Objective Systems (MUOS) terminals
∙ Relatively high Throughput Data
∙ Optics
∙ 3D RO Radar
∙ Other
Applications:
∙ MUOS Augmentation
∙ Electronic intelligence satellites (ELINT)
∙ Constellations of optical and radar imaging satellites for continuous intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
∙ Monitoring UAGSs∙ Hypersonic and Nuclear early warning
Defense and Intelligence Applications
Applications:
∙ MUOS Augmentation
∙ Electronic intelligence satellites (ELINT)
∙ Optical and radar imaging ISR
∙ Monitoring UAGSs
∙ GPS Fallback
∙ Nuclear Early Warning
∙ Next Generation Overhead Persistent IR
∙ Space Situational Awareness
∙ Hypersonic Weapons Early Warning
∙ 3D RO Radar