U.S. Department of Defense
January 7, 2014
Shelton Discusses Importance of Space Defense
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON: Space is fundamental to the economy, the military and the way of life in the United States and officials must continue to guard against challenges in the domain from adversaries, the commander of Air Force Space Command said today.
Gen. William Shelton shared with students at George Washington University here some of his worries and concerns.
In the past 60 years, space has grown from a domain with a lone satellite beeping across the heavens to a $300 billion economic engine.
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Space has also changed the military. “In all of recorded history, when armies met on the battle field, they fought for the coveted high ground because of the obvious advantage it gave them over the adversary,” Shelton said. “Later, balloons performed that function and even later, airplanes were used as observation platforms.”
Space is the ultimate high ground, he said.
Shelton’s command has a global mission with global responsibilities reaching all corners of the planet and up to 23,000 miles in space and geosynchronous orbit. “We get space-derived information to all sorts of users, including the military operators of our nation’s Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines — those who rely on timely and accurate data,” he said.
Intelligence, logistics and other operationally relevant data flow seamlessly to the front lines in Afghanistan as well as to other parts of the world where U.S. forces are operating.
“I can’t think of a single military operation across the full spectrum from humanitarian relief operations all the way to major combat operations that doesn’t somehow depend on space for mission success,” Shelton said…
Not today. “As I look at the next 20 years in space, we have a difficult, up-hill climb ahead of us,” he said. “I equate this to the difficulty of turning the Queen Mary. You send the rudder command and the delayed response tries your patience.”
To sustain space services, the United States must consider architectural alternatives for future satellite constellations. “These alternatives must balance required capability, affordability and resilience,” he said. “There are many options that we’re actively studying right now. The notion of disaggregation is one. And what we mean by this is moving away from the multiple payload, big satellite construct into a less complex satellite architecture with multiple components.”
Distributing space payloads across multiple satellite platforms, increases U.S. resiliency. “At a minimum, it complicates our adversaries’ targeting calculus,” he said.
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