Space arms race a step closer

was the designer and manufacturer.

The new system would, by contrast, provide a monitoring capability for all Pentagon assets and possibly those classified systems operated by other agencies, Butler writes. It will be software-intensive, collating data including space weather; missile-warning alerts that would be triggered by an ASAT launch; satellite position and telemetry from space, and intelligence from various sources. This effort is akin to recent upgrades funded by the Air Force to shift its air operations centers to a more net-centric system, giving operators insight and an integrated look at systems that once operated on disparate software architectures. A key part of identifying whether an attack is imminent is correlating anomalous activity on a spacecraft with seemingly unrelated data, says Col. Shawn Barnes, chief of AFSPC’s space superiority division. “Today, we could ascertain that we were under attack - especially from a direct-ascent Asat, but we do not have the tools to rapidly assemble all the evidence, and disseminate it in a way that enables collaborative decision making [to maneuver around a threat]. RAIDRS Block 20 will enable us to get past collaborating about ‘what happened’ and on to ‘what should we do’ in an operationally relevant time frame.”

Because it will be software-intensive, Barnes says RAIDRS Block 20 will be delivered in increments — about one per year — for use by the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, California. Early capability is scheduled for delivery in 2011, he notes. This delivery will be designed to detect a direct-ascent satellite threat with enough swiftness to allow operators to divert the target. RAIDRS Block 20 will shift satellite operations into a net-centric operating environment, Barnes says. The existing system is work-intensive and too cumbersome to expect operators to maneuver in the event of an Asat launch. The most immediate threat is to satellites in low Earth orbit, including some U.S. intelligence satellite fleets and Pentagon weather systems. A future capability and delivery for Block 20 will be to provide data to counter threats in orbit — not just from the ground. “The plan will be to keep adding threat types, such as from lasers, to the data fusion logic structure, as well as the automated data sources to discriminate those threat types,” Barnes points out, noting that each increment will expand the threat scenarios. “Just how robust this capability eventually becomes and how fast it’s built will depend on funding and emerging threats.”