Christopher E. Kubasik With China and Russia demonstrating dangerous new technologies, the U.S. must invest only in solutions that can outpace the threat..
Christopher E. Kubasik
Christopher E. Kubasik is the vice chair and CEO of L3Harris Technologies.
While the U.S. military strategy over the past 70 years has largely focused on two key threats—the symmetric one of near-peer adversaries and the asymmetric one of global terrorism—China and Russia have plotted to grasp a strategic edge.
Proof of China’s technology prowess was delivered this summer via what some considered something like a “Sputnik moment”: the Chinese hypersonic glider test dubbed “very concerning” by Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unlike traditional ballistic missiles with a predictable flightpath, these low-flying missiles lack predictable flight trajectories, making them difficult to identify and track via traditional ballistic warning systems—potentially neutralizing America’s defensive capabilities.
Not to be outdone, Russia recently demonstrated an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile by turning Cosmos 1408, a Soviet-era satellite, into several thousand pieces of orbital debris that now pose a lethal hazard to manned and unmanned spacecraft. While Russia lags near peers in the sophistication of its weaponry, its ASAT systems are sufficient to deny adversaries the use of certain orbits in space. That poses a significant threat to the U.S., which relies on space as a key part of its critical military and civilian infrastructure.
America has the world’s most advanced military capabilities—that’s a fact. However, our adversaries took advantage of the last two decades to further their capabilities in first-strike weapons, closing the gap with the U.S.
These new initiatives are revisiting Cold War era-type threats from China and Russia, and they include new capabilities from Iran and North Korea. They require a leadership moment akin to our response in the first space race: a fully funded sprint to space capabilities that leaves no doubt the U.S. will use a combination of offense and defense to take the unthinkable off the table.
Defense against hypersonic and ASAT weapons—specifically, the capability to destroy missiles before they hit their targets—must be a critical priority for the United States. Costly legacy architectures are no longer meeting the threat. A new missile-detection and tracking system must be affordable, rapidly acquired and deployed, and it needs to be able to incorporate new technology once in orbit.
To reach this goal, the U.S. is investing in space demonstrations for missile detection, warning, tracking, targeting and engaging capabilities to better respond to spaceborne threats. The Missile Defense Agency is developing tracking and fire-control capabilities through its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program, while the Space Development Agency is developing a tracking layer to warn and track incoming threats.
These capabilities—from launch through successful intercept of a hypersonic threat—are predicated on a layer of high-resolution sensors on satellites to detect, track and relay real-time information to the ground to trigger countermeasures.
The crux here is how quickly we can stage this defense while the threat is building steam.
Proving the utility of a space-based capability against emerging threats via rapid deployment contracts breaks the paradigm of the traditional, antiquated acquisition models that take many years, cost billions of dollars and are often inflexible to evolving threats. These parallel demonstrations will validate the feasibility of multiple, resilient and affordable satellites before committing to an operational system that delivers full warfighting capabilities.
This is a radical, necessary shift to expedite satellite development and deployment. With an emphasis on being nimble and adaptive, the demonstrations take innovative steps such as repurposing proven technology. For example, sensors initially developed for tracking fires or inclement weather are now being used to detect missile launches. Leveraging open-architecture standards can also lower development costs, enabling a faster, more agile response to hypersonic threats.
With this lean-forward, disruptive approach, new satellites will launch in the next few years, in about one-third the time it takes larger, more exquisite satellite systems to launch.
American leadership, in the time of Sputnik or in the time of anti-satellite tests, requires unique resolve: Invest only in solutions that can outpace the threat.
Space exists both as a warfighting domain and a critical resource for America’s economy. Yet we can’t fight a 21st-century battle with 20th-century defenses, technology or a 20th-century test-and-evaluation mindset.
The next space race is already upon us, and America’s next “Moon-landing moment” should include deploying a hypersonic missile defense system capable of stopping adversary spaceborne threats. Let us rapidly invest in, develop and deploy assets as if our leadership in space for the next century depends upon it.