NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—As the Space Force prepares to field new fleets of satellites that can track moving targets in the air and on the ground, it’s working to ensure it has the organizational structures in place to onboard and operate those systems.
The U.S. military has long relied on large aircraft like the E-3 Sentry to track airborne targets, but leaders have become increasingly concerned that those platforms are vulnerable to long-range weapons. In recent years, the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office have been working to leverage satellites for the mission, an approach leaders expect will make the capability more resilient against adversaries’ anti-access/aerial-denial systems.
While the effort is still nascent and there’s much to prove about the ability of a satellite constellation to provide timely, clear tracks of moving targets like drones, missiles, and aircraft, the Pentagon has made some strides to demonstrate viability.
The NRO has launched some ground moving target indicator, or GMTI, satellites as part of its multimission proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation. And the head of Combat Forces Command, Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, told reporters Sept. 16 that the Space Force expects to launch a new GMTI capability called Resilient Radar System-Ground in the next year or two. Those spacecraft are being built by Northrop Grumman, he said during a briefing at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference.
The Space Force is also on the verge of launching its first space-based air moving target indicator, or AMTI, satellites. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Sept. 14 the spacecraft would launch later this month. Acquisition officials have declined to detail how many satellites will launch or provide a date for the mission. The only Space Force launch scheduled for this month, according to Spaceflight Now’s public launch listing, is USSF-259, a classified payload slated to lift off Sept. 16 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The service awarded SpaceX a contract in May worth up to $4.2 billion to begin building out the AMTI constellation. The company is one of 12 vendors selected to compete for space-based AMTI contracts.
Col. Ryan Frazier, the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for space-based sensing and targeting, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in July the service expects to have a “usable” space-based AMTI capability by 2028, noting that those satellites will be a first step toward an on-orbit targeting capability but not a full solution.
“Is it everything the joint force requires? I think that will probably extend beyond ‘28,” Frazier said. “But we are going to have capabilities they don’t have today. … We’ll be able to do things that are high-value or value-added. We won’t be able to do them everywhere all the time.”
Frazier told reporters Sept. 15 that the first space-based AMTI deliveries will provide a baseline for the rest of the architecture, allowing the Space Force to fine-tune and calibrate its satellites and processing algorithms.
“There’s a broader architecture that we need to build out for the joint force to be able to close on its long-range kill chain missions,” he said. “There’s how you battle manage with that data, how you apply the processing algorithms, get that data to the weapons and the shooters that you need, and the time latencies that requires.”
As the acquisition community develops and demonstrates new systems to perform the mission, the Space Force is standing up the operational units that will manage them. On July 31, CFC activated the 77th Surveillance Squadron within Space Delta 7. The role of the 77th is to take the intelligence collected by those AMTI and GMTI satellites and deliver it to decision-makers who will determine whether to attack a particular target.
“They will use information provided from the space layer, fuse that with other sources of information and intelligence, and make decisions about weapons engagement,” Gagnon said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Space Command is working with other combatant commands and the intelligence community to craft a concept of operations for the new mission area—a document that will describe how military operators will put the system to use. SPACECOM Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting told reporters Sept. 16 his team is working with the Space Force and the NRO to solidify a plan to transition those satellites to the command once they’re deemed ready for operations.
“This will be new and different as we elevate AMTI and GMTI to space,” Whiting said. “But we do have decades of lessons learned from AMTI and GMTI in other domains.”
