Satzman: The worth of area “has been confirmed out”

WASHINGTON — The warfare in Ukraine has placed on show navy forces’ rising reliance on satellites and has created incentives to disrupt opponents’ entry to area programs, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of area operations of the U.S. Space Force, stated Dec. 3.

“I think this modern war that we’re seeing play out in Ukraine is just indicative of what we can expect in the future,” Saltzman stated throughout a panel session on the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

Saltzman’s two predominant takeaways from the battle in Ukraine: the worth of area “has been proven out,” and area is “clearly a contested domain.”

Whether it’s satellite-based communications, imagery, early warning of missile launches, or positioning navigation and timing, “the capability that space offers has demonstrated its value so much so that both sides are engaged in trying to counter those capabilities and deny those advantages to the opponent,” he stated.

Saltzman, who assumed command of the Space Force Nov. 2, stated a high precedence for the Department of Defense is “to protect our capabilities in space.” 

The Space Force is engaged on that, he stated, however it can take years.

The satellites the United States navy has on orbit at present are high-performing machines and could be tough to interchange if an enemy took one down. Before China in 2007 demonstrated an anti-satellite weapon, the pondering within the Pentagon was to make satellites as succesful as doable to reduce the quantity that wanted to be launched, Saltzman defined. 

After China’s ASAT test, it grew to become clear that counting on a small variety of big-ticket satellites “was not inherently resilient,” he stated. 

“If you can just take out a few satellites and radically degrade the capabilities, you don’t have a resilient architecture,” Saltzman added. This needs to be the “starting point of a discussion that we need to build a new type of space capabilities with resiliency baked in from the beginning.”

With these challenges in thoughts, the Space Force is seeking to deploy newer varieties of satellites but additionally prepare operators for the contested area setting, he stated.

“If we think we can just buy the best arsenal, we are only going to have half of the equation met,” stated Saltzman. The different items are “the tactics, the training, the experience, the ability to work hand in glove with allies and partners. That takes a lot of time and energy and a different set of tools … All of that is critical to turning an arsenal into a military force.”