U.S. Strategic Command Public Affairs, 901 SAC Blvd, Suite 1A1, Offutt AFB NE 68113-6020
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Fact File U.S. Strategic Command Public Affairs, 901 SAC Blvd, Suite 1A1, Offutt AFB NE 68113-6020 |
The United States relies on space for its security and well being. U.S. Strategic Command is responsible for protecting our nation's space capabilities and our nation's interests and investment in space. The command is responsible for the development, acquisition, and operation of U.S. military space and missile systems. The command oversees a global network of satellite command and control, communications, missile warning, launch facilities, and ensures the command and control of the nation's space systems.
Space mission areas include Space Force Support, Space Force Enhancement, Space Control, and Space Force Application.
Space force support involves launching satellites and other high-value payloads into space using a variety of expendable launch vehicles and operating those satellites once in the medium of space. All military satellites are launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., or Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.. They are carried into orbit on a variety of rockets, or "boosters," depending on their size, weight and the desired orbit. For example, large satellites need the thrust of a large Titan IV booster, while smaller satellites use the smaller Atlas or Delta boosters.
Once satellites reach their final orbits and begin operating, Army, Naval and Air Force operators track and "fly" the spacecraft, and operate their specialized payloads, through a worldwide network of ground stations.
Space assets today are more valuable to American warfighters than ever before. Space force enhancement provides weather, communications, intelligence, missile warning and navigation. Force enhancement is support to the warfighter and contributes to the effectiveness of military air, land, sea and space operations.
To meet the growing space needs of U.S. forces, military satellites provide ballistic missile warning, communications, weather and navigation information to land, sea and air forces around the globe. USSTRATCOM also coordinates the use of commercial communications satellites, civil weather satellites and civil and foreign multispectral (visible, infrared, etc.) imagery satellites to augment military satellites and best serve our forces.
Warning of ballistic missile launches worldwide comes from Defense Support Program satellites that can detect the heat of rocket engines from 22,300 miles above Earth. Voice and data communications are relayed through systems with names like the Fleet Satellite Communications System, Defense Satellite Communications System, Ultra-High Frequency Follow-On and Milstar. Weather data is collected by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program as well as civil weather satellites. The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides navigation and positioning data, while the American LANDSAT and French SPOT satellites represent commercial sources of multi-spectral imagery.
During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, coalition forces relied heavily on space. For example, warnings of SCUD missile attacks came from missile warning satellites. Ground forces used thousands of GPS receivers to meet their demand for navigation and positioning data in featureless desert terrain. Commanders used weather data broadcast by meteorological satellites and maps derived from other space platforms. Satellites carried 90 percent of the long-distance communications in and out of the Persian Gulf region.
Since 1991, growing demand, technological advances and creative new applications have increased the amount, quality and timeliness of support that military space systems provide to forces worldwide. For example, new systems have dramatically improved the timeliness and accuracy of short-range, SCUD-type ballistic missile attack warning provided to our forward-deployed military forces worldwide.
Daily space updates are provided to U.S. commanders around the globe and the command continues to look for new ways to support commanders with space-based systems.
Because a space-literate military is essential to both leveraging today's space capabilities and planning for tomorrow's space forces, USSTRATCOM's Joint Space Support Teams work side-by-side with joint war-fighters worldwide to integrate space applications into their operations. In addition, space is also being integrated in the curricula of all the services' professional military education schools.
Space assets have provided key support to coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the most digitally intensive conflict ever, with virtually every military platform linked by satellite. Military satellites help choose bomb targets, guide precision munitions, provide weather reports, warn of missile launches, let commanders talk to one another, and allow soldiers to pinpoint their position.
Space control involves the ability to ensure our use of space while denying the use to our adversaries, if required. Space control consists of four functions: surveillance of space; protection of space forces from hostile threats and environmental hazards; prevention of unauthorized exploitation of U.S. space capabilities; and -- if required -- negation of space systems hostile to the U.S. and its allies.
Protecting our ability to launch and operate satellites - and denying an enemy the same ability - could be pivotal to the success of future U.S. military operations. The increasing reliance of joint forces on space means we must achieve "space superiority" in times of conflict. Likewise, we must be able to preserve civil and commercial access to space.
The first step in space control is identifying exactly what's in orbit around the Earth, who it belongs to, and its mission. The Space Surveillance Network detects, tracks, identifies and catalogs all space objects larger than about four inches in size. The hub of this worldwide network of radars and optical sensors is the Space Control Center in Cheyenne Mountain.
Our nation may find it necessary to disrupt, degrade, deny or destroy enemy space capabilities in future conflicts. The U.S. currently does not have an operational anti-satellite weapon; however, conventional weapons also are effective at striking an adversary's space launch or ground relay facilities. Research and development into anti-satellite technology is continuing.
Space force application encompasses combat operations in, through, and from space to influence the course and outcome of conflict. In the future, being able to attack terrestrial targets from space may be critical to national defense. USSTRATCOM therefore is actively identifying potential roles, missions, and payloads for this probable new field of battle.
Space represents a fundamentally new and better way to apply military force - by promptly striking adversary centers of gravity, or minimizing or bypassing high-cost, high-risk conflicts.
(Current as of March 2004)