Military/National Security Space Activities

Military/National Security Space Activities

INTRODUCTION, INCLUDING U.S. SPACE FORCE AND U.S. SPACE COMMAND

The 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act specified that U.S. military space activities would be conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD), while creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to conduct the nation’s civil space program.

Today, the term “national security space” is used to encompass the space activities of the intelligence community as well as DOD. National security space programs include launch vehicles and satellite systems for reconnaissance, early warning of missile launches and nuclear detonations, navigation, communications, and weather. Many of these systems have counterparts in the civil and commercial sectors. In fact, the line between national security and civil space systems can be quite blurry. For example, the Global Positioning System (GPS) of navigation satellites is a DOD system, but it enables pervasive civil and commercial applications from precision farming to cell phones to automobile navigation systems.

Although NASA conducts a much more visible space program, the national security space program is larger in terms of funding. There is no easy way to track national security space funding since a substantial portion of the activities are classified (“black”) programs at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for which budgetary information is not available to the public, but even funding just for the U.S. Space Force is greater than NASA’s. For FY2024, NASA received $24.875 billion while the Space Force got $28.888 billion. As of February 4, 2025, Congress has not completed action on FY2025 funding, but once again the Space Force alone appears poised to receive more than NASA, not including other national security space funding.

Funding for unclassified (“white”) programs is easier to track now than in the past.  A Major Force Program for national security space, Program 12 (MFP-12), that was created in response to congressional direction in the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act helped track some space spending.  Creation of the U.S. Space Force as part of the Department of the Air Force in December 2019 made it even easier.  For FY2021, the first year funding was requested for the Space Force, it was $15.4 billion out of a total DOD space budget of $18 billion (not including NRO), which Congress approved. The requests and appropriations for subsequent years are discussed below.

For prior years, the annual Aeronautics and Space Report of the President was the only way to track total national security space funding.  Tables in the appendices (“Space Activities of the U.S. Government”) show all federal spending in all agencies both in current and constant dollars. Older copies of the report traditionally showed about $20-25 billion for those programs. Beginning with the 2013 edition, however, the tables show only about half that amount for DOD. At first there was no explanation, but more recent editions have a footnote stating that the change is due to improvements in DOD’s estimating methodology.  A footnote to a different table, “Federal Space Activities Budget,” is more revealing. It states explicitly that funding for intelligence programs in DOD or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is excluded. The pre-2013 reports showed the funding for all national security space activities.  Thus, there is no reliable way to know how much has been spent on national security space throughout the entirety of the space program.

DOD SPACE PROGRAMS

DOD’s unclassified space systems include the following programs, some of which are operational and others still in development or earlier phases:

  • Communications Satellites: Wide-Band Global Satcom (WGS), Milstar, Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), and Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS).
  • Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) satellites: Global Positioning System (GPS)
  • Early Warning: Defense Support Program (DSP), Space Based Infrared Satellite System (satellites in geosynchronous and highly elliptical orbits that replace DSP), Next Generation Overhead Persistent InfraRed  (Next-Gen OPIR, will replace SBIRS)
  • Weather: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), Weather System Follow-on (replacing the Defense Weather Satellite System, which replaced DOD’s portion of the cancelled DOD-NOAA-NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, NPOESS)
  • Ballistic Missile Defense-related: Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS, formerly SBIRS-Low), Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)
  • Launch Vehicles: National Security Space Launch (NSSL, formerly Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles or EELV) including systems in operation or development: United Launch Alliance’s Delta, Atlas, and Vulcan; SpaceX’s Falcon, Falcon Heavy and Starship; and Blue Origin’s New Glenn. DOD also is using or plans to use smaller rockets such as Rocket Lab’s Electron and Neutron.

DOD also has programs that address the needs for space situational awareness (or space domain awareness), space control and counterspace capabilities, and operationally responsive space.

The U.S. Space Force has a list of fact sheets describing some of its systems.

Historically DOD relied on a limited number of large, expensive satellites to fulfill its needs, but they pose high profile targets for adversaries. Gen. John Hyten (Ret.) famously dubbed them “big juicy targets” in 2017 when he was Commander of U.S. Strategic Command.

The notion of using groups of many small satellites — “constellations” — that collectively meet the need, but are more difficult to defeat, started to gain traction in the early 2000s. Once referred to as a “disaggregated” architecture, more recently “proliferated”  is the term used. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Space Force, including the Space Development Agency (SDA), are working on such groups of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) that are called pLEO for “proliferated LEO” constellations.

SDA’s layered network of satellite systems is called the Proliferation Warfighter Space Architecture or PWSA, formerly  the National Defense Space Architecture.

CREATION OF THE U.S. SPACE FORCE AND REESTABLISHMENT OF U.S SPACE COMMAND IN 2019

DOD’s management of its space activities has been criticized for decades and various reorganizations tried. Historically, the Air Force served as DOD’s “Executive Agent” for space. In October 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work created a new position of Principal DOD Space Adviser (PDSA) to be filled by the Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF), but representing the broader national security space community. SecAF Deborah Lee James was the first PDSA.  She was succeeded in the Trump Administration as SecAF and PDSA by Heather Wilson.  Congress abolished the PDSA position in the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), however, as part of a broader effort to reorganize how DOD manages space activities.

Both the House and the Senate see U.S. space assets increasingly vulnerable to attack by adversaries including China and Russia.  In 2017, the House and Senate had very different solutions to reorganization that were considered as part of the debate over the FY2018 NDAA.  Although they agreed to abolish the PDSA position, agreement could not be reached on a broader reorganization. The House wanted to create a Space Corps within the Air Force analogous to the Marine Corps within the Department of the Navy and the House-passed bill included that provision.  By contrast, the Senate wanted to create a Chief Information Warfare Officer (CIWO) who would oversee space, cyberspace and information activities at DOD.  In the end, in section 1601 of the NDAA, they agreed to mandate a study of options by the Deputy Secretary of Defense (DepSecDef) and another by an outside think tank.

Despite initial opposition from the Trump White House to the Space Corps idea that passed the House in 2017, in 2018 President Trump became a strong advocate of a “Space Force“ as a separate department from the Air Force.  He first made his views known in March 2018 to the surprise of DOD and the Air Force officials who had been the strongest opponents of creating any new entity to manage DOD space programs.  However, Trump directed DOD to create a Space Force as a “separate but equal” sixth military department at a June 2018 meeting of the White House National Space Council.

Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the Space Council at the time, released the “section 1601” report overseen by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan in August 2018.  It called for creating a Space Force; a unified combatant command, U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM); and a Space Development Agency (SDA) to develop cutting edge space technologies.

USSPACECOM existed from 1985-2002, but was abolished as part of a reorganization of the unified combatant commands following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The President had authority to reestablish USSPACECOM and create SDA on his own.  USSPACECOM was formally reestablished on August 29, 2019 under the command of Air Force General John “Jay” Raymond, who was also serving as commander of Air Force Space Command.  SDA was formally established in March 2019 in a memo signed by Shanahan at a time when he was Acting Secretary of Defense. (SDA’s status as a separate entity was only temporary. By law it was integrated into the Space Force effective October 1, 2022.)

Creating a U.S. Space Force, however, required congressional authorization.  After several months of internal discussions, DOD and the White House decided to forego the concept of the Space Force as a sixth military department for now and instead proposed that it be a sixth military service under the Air Force.  That is similar to the Marine Corps, which is part of the Department of the Navy, and the same as what the House passed in 2017.  The House called it a Space Corps, but now it is the Space Force.

Trump signed Space Policy Directive-4 in February 2019 directing DOD to submit a proposal to Congress to create the Space Force. Shanahan did so on March 1, 2019.

The final FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law (P.L. 116-92) by President Trump on December 20, 2019, created the Space Force as a sixth military service as part of the Air Force.  It essentially renamed Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) as the Space Force. General Raymond became “Chief of Space Operations” rather than Commander of AFSPC.

On December 17, 2024 as the Space Force was about to celebrate its fifth birthday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held a fascinating day-long symposium featuring many of the top officials from Congress, the Administration, and DOD who shared insider stories of how the Space Force came to be and its future.

U.S. SPACE FORCE AND U.S. SPACE COMMAND LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATION

Gen. Jay Raymond was dual-hatted as the first U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations (CSO) and Commander of U.S. Space Command in 2019 until Army General James Dickinson assumed command of USSPACECOM on August 20, 2020.

Raymond continued to serve as CSO until he was succeeded by Gen. Bradley Chance Saltzman, who goes by B. Chance Saltzman or “Salty,” on November 2, 2022. Gen. Dickinson was succeeded as Commander of USSPACECOM on January 10, 2024 by Gen. Stephen Whiting.

U.S. Space Command and U.S. Space Force are easily confused. Pursuant to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, the six military services (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and now Space Force)  “organize, train and equip” (OTE) personnel. The personnel and equipment are available to 11 geographic and functional unified combatant commands that command and control military forces in peace and war. U.S. Space Command is one of the 11 unified combatant commands.

Some see the creation of Space Force and reestablishment of Space Command as increasing U.S. militarization of space, but it is important to remember that the United States had a Space Command from 1985-2002, so it is not being created anew and it is the entity charged with warfighting.

Space Force is new. In fact it is the first new U.S. military service since the Air Force was separated from the Army in 1947.  Initially it was simply a renaming of Air Force Space Command. All 16,000 AFSPC personnel were assigned to the Space Force when President Trump signed the FY2020 NDAA into law, doing the same work they were doing in the years, months, weeks, days and hours before the bill was signed — designing, building, launching and operating satellites and performing other space-related functions to support military operations.

Since then, however, Space Force has been creating its own identity. They chose the name “Guardians” to refer to members of the Space Force. To become a Guardian, personnel must transfer into the Space Force, rather than simply being assigned. Gen. Raymond was the only member of the Space Force for months until the top enlisted officer, Chief Master Sergeant Roger Towberman, transferred in. He was followed by 86 cadets graduating from the Air Force Academy and the first major tranche of transferees, 2,410, arrived in the fall of 2020 and more continue to join. The FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act set the end strength of military personnel in the Space Force at 8,400. Civilian personnel are not included in that total. Currently there are about 16,000 Guardians stationed around the world, roughly half military and half civilian.

The Space Force is organized into three field commands: Space Operations Command at Peterson Air Force Base, CO; Space Systems Command at Los Angeles Air Force Base, CA; and Space Training and Readiness (STAR) Command at Patrick Air Force Base, FL.  Within commands are subunits called “Deltas.”

As of February 4, 2025, Space Force is planning to create a “Futures Command” to expand on work currently being conduct by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) to conduct threat analysis and capability planning.

The Space Force itself is headquartered at the Pentagon like all the other services.

By contrast, choosing the location for the headquarters for U.S. Space Command is controversial.  President Biden decided to keep it at Peterson Air Force Base, CO, where it was temporarily headquartered between 2019 and 2023, but Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) is determined to move it to Huntsville, AL, where President Trump wanted to locate it. With Trump now returning to the White House for a second term, Rogers may get his wish.

On August 10, 2020, Space Force released its first Space Doctrine, another step in establishing its own identity.  Raymond built the service from scratch and was determined to keep it small, agile, and digital.

Saltzman is expected to continue that mantra and also developed a “theory of success” he calls “Competitive Endurance”  to guide the Space Force and ensure U.S. space superiority.

At the end of 2024, Saltzman laid out “six Space Force truths” that define the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and the Guardians:

  • 1. USSF capabilities are critical to the Joint Force and the American way of life.
  • 2. The USSF must defend its capabilities, or the Joint Force will be unable to project power.
  • 3. The USSF must protect the Joint / Combined Force from space-enabled targeting.
  • 4. Space is a warfighting domain.
  • 5. The USSF is responsible for organizing, training, equipping, and operating space capabilities.
  • 6. Guardians are uniquely trained for warfighting in, from, and to space.

Although the Space Force was originally intended to remain small and agile, by the time of its fifth birthday some of its supporters began arguing that times have changed and the service must grow.

U.S. SPACE FORCE FUNDING FY2021-FY2025

The NDAA created the Space Force in law, but it also had to be funded by Congress in an appropriations bill. The FY2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act allocated $40 million for Space Force, a little more than half the $72.4 million requested. That did not include funds for military space programs.

The first full budget request for the Space Force was in FY2021. The $15.4 billion request was essentially a reshuffling of funds and Congress approved it. For FY2022, a $2 billion increase was requested to $17.4 billion. Congress approved a bit more, $18.055 billion. The FY2023 request was for an even more substantial increase, to $24.5 billion. Congress added more, appropriating $26.3 billion.

The request for FY2024 was $30 billion, out of a total DOD space request of $33.3 billion. Republicans took control of the House in 2023 when the FY2024 request was considered. House Republicans demanded deep cuts to non-defense discretionary spending and although defense spending was allowed to grow, it was less than the Biden Administration requested. For the first time, the Space Force received less than the request: $28.888 billion.

The request for Space Force in FY2025 is $29.4 billion, out of a total DOD space request of $33.7 billion. Congress did not complete action on the FY2025 budget request by the end of the Biden Administration. The Space Force is funded by a Continuing Resolution through March 14, 2025 at its FY2024 level.

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE POLICY

U.S. national security space policy is set both by presidential directive and in law. Presidential directives remain in force until and unless a future President revises them.  Thus, what is in force today is a mix of directives issued by President George W. Bush (2001-2009), President Barack Obama (2009-2017), and President Donald Trump (2017-2021). Under President Biden (2021-2025), a set of National Priorities was released in December 2021 and several policy guidance documents were issued including a U.S. ban on direct ascent kinetic energy antisatellite (KE-ASAT) as discussed below.

The following summary of presidential space policies covers all space sectors for completeness.

The most recent complete presidential National Space Policy was issued by Trump on December 9, 2020, superseding the Obama policy issued on June 28, 2010. Trump changed two sentences of the Obama policy in 2017 (see below), but the rest remained the same until the last few weeks of his administration.

SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

On January 27, 2025, one week after taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump announced plans to build an “Iron Dome for America” that includes many space-based elements, including space-based interceptors. Iron Dome refers to the ground-based ballistic missile defense system used by Israel.  Trump’s Iron Dome for America has ground-, air-, sea- and space-based components and, of course, the United States is much bigger than Israel.  His  Executive Order requires the Secretary of Defense to submit “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield” within 60 days. The broad outline in the Executive Order is reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) plan in the 1980s.

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION

On December, 1, 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris, as chair of the White House National Space Council, released a United States Space Priorities Framework in conjunction with the first meeting of the Space Council under her leadership. It covers all aspects of space policy, including national security. Biden released an Executive Order the same day expanding the membership and duties of the Council, which supersedes the two issued by Trump in 2017 and 2020.

On April 18, 2022, Harris announced a policy that the United States will not conduct debris-generating direct-ascent antisatellite tests, sometimes called Kinetic Energy (KE) ASAT tests, and urged other countries to join the pledge. The action was in response to a Russian KE-ASAT in November 2021 that created thousands of pieces of debris that imperiled many space objects including the International Space Station.

On November 15, 2023, the Space Council released its long-awaited proposal for “mission authorization” regarding what agency or agencies are responsible for “authorization and continuing supervision” of new types of space activities by non-government entities, like companies, as required by Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The text of the legislative proposal is available along with a section-by-section analysis.  At her third Space Council meeting on December 20, 2023, Harris released a companion “executive action” — U.S. Novel Space Activities Authorization and Supervision Framework, that the White House says will enable the Executive Branch to “prepare for and shape the future space regulatory environment.”  The Space Council’s proposal was very different from what had been discussed earlier and from legislation introduced by Republicans on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. The committee approved the Republican bill on a partisan basis on November 29, 2023. There was no further action in the 118th Congress.

On January 16, 2025, in his final days as President, Biden issued an Executive Order on Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity that includes cybersecurity for space systems and their supporting digital infrastructure.

Also at the White House level, the Biden-Harris Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released:

At the agency level, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a set of Tenets of Responsible Behavior in Space on July 7, 2021. On August 30, 2022, DOD issued a new space policy directive, DOD Directive 3100.10, Space Policy, which was updated on October 14, 2024.  On April 2, 2024, DOD released its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken released the first State Department Strategic Framework for Space Diplomacy on May 30, 2023.

FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 

During his first term in office (2017-2021), Trump signed an updated National Space Policy, seven Space Policy Directives (SPDs), five space-related Executive Orders, two strategies, two reports and one National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM). Not all are directed at civil space policy, but all are listed here in chronological order for completeness.

Trump used the National Space Council as the mechanism to formulate U.S. space policy, with Vice President Mike Pence as chair and Scott Pace as Executive Secretary. It met publicly five times:  October 5, 2017 (at the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport; February 21, 2018 (at Kennedy Space Center, FL); June 18, 2018 (at the White House); March 26, 2019 (at Marshall Space Flight Center, AL); and August 20, 2019 back at Udvar-Hazy.

On June 17, 2020, DOD released its own Defense Space Strategy. As noted above, the U.S. Space Force released its first Space Doctrine on August 10, 2020.

OTHER RELATED PRESIDENTIAL POLICIES AFFECTING MILITARY SPACE

President Obama’s 2010 National Space Policy superseded the policy issued in 2006 by President George W. Bush.  Also during the Obama Administration, in February 2011 DOD and the Director of National Intelligence issued a National Security Space Strategy (NSSS) and a summary to begin the implementation phase of those aspects of the Obama National Space Policy.

When the Obama Administration released its 2010 National Space Policy, it stated it would release additional specific space policies on other topics as previous Presidents had done. President George W. Bush had issued the following:

On November 21, 2013, President Obama released an update of the Space Transportation Policy.

Obama did not, however, release updated versions of the others.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) publishes a number of reports about national security space programs and routinely testifies to congressional committees about related issues. For a list of its most recent reports and testimony, go to our Government Accountability Office page.

Also on our home page is a link to “Other Reports of Interest” that may be helpful.

Updated February 4, 2025.  Didn’t find what you were looking for? Let us know by emailing us at info@spacepolicyonline.com

 

Last Updated: Feb 04, 2025 5:13 pm ET

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