Space

   During the past few years, a succession of Service and joint vision documents have extolled the increasing value of space to our national security strategy. Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010), designed to guide Service force development efforts to support joint warfighting in the early 21st century, includes space as an operating environment on a par with land, sea and air. In turn, space capabilities will strongly contribute to the JV2010 operational concepts of dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full dimensional protection and focused logistics, whose synergies will enable full spectrum dominance - the key characteristic sought for our Armed Forces in the 21st century.

   In parallel, technical vision documents, such as the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board's New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century, directly examine the role of space in future operations and postulate both systems and key enabling technologies to achieve the requisite capabilities. The Air Force, in its recently published Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force, now defines itself as an air and space force (italics added) to signify that space has become a fully fledged operating environment (vice simply an extension of the atmosphere) and that "in the 21st Century, the strategic instrument of choice will be air and space power."

   In 1997, despite generally shrinking defense budgets, space investment and operational accounts are holding their own, even increasing somewhat, in recognition of the growing leverage that space capabilities provide. On the operational side, USSPACECOM's mission structure has long embodied four space mission areas, each with specific operational functions. These missions and functions now contribute to the force operations of other, theater or "warfighting" commanders-in-chief (CINCs), a change from the Cold War days when USCINCSPACE responded primarily to the NCA under strategic nuclear warfare doctrine.

"...the employment
of space
links to broadcast
tactical imagery
...directly to
[multiple users]."

   Similarly, under the area of Force Enhancement, we have been working with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the combined DoD-CIA spaceborne reconnaissance agency, to facilitate the cross-coordination of both classified and unclassified space products — and hence ease one of the "speed bumps" of the Persian Gulf War. We are also working with the NRO to establish processes and procedures to ensure seamless support to the warfighter, to include integrating some space support systems.

   Another Force Enhancement mission, Communications, saw the employment of space links to broadcast tactical imagery in near-real-time from our forces operating over Bosnia directly to more than 15 users' desk-top receiver-display terminals in both Europe and the U.S. This network, known as the Joint Broadcast System (JBS) is a forerunner of our Global Broadcast Service (GBS); both use commercial wideband direct broadcast satellite technology. Their operational benefits are two-fold: by simultaneously networking the information to multiple users, repeat transmissions are not needed; and very high transmission rates to very small user terminals increase both the amount of information sent and the flexibility of its distribution. The GBS will become part of our Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) architecture.