One of the first rules of antisubmarine warfare (ASW) is, Admit when you have lost contact. This is a valuable rule, because it allows tactical crews to reestablish a datum and begin with new tactics, with a much higher probability of submarine redetection, rather than continue unproductive search patterns. As a Navy, we should admit we have “lost contact” when it comes to space.
Despite being dependent on space for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; position, navigation, and timing; communications; and weather information, the Navy is not organized to ensure its needs are met as the new Space Force takes shape. It must make long-needed changes in space manning, training, organizational alignment, and operational practices.
The Navy in Space: Yesterday and Today
In the 1960s, the Navy influenced both manned and unmanned space development. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed the first electronic signals intelligence satellite, Grab (Galactic Radiation and Background), in 1958, launching Grab 1 in June 1960. In addition:
In 1958 . . . the Navy’s Space Surveillance System was fielded to detect and track all man-made objects in space, and provide data for day-to-day operations of the Fleet, Fleet Marine Forces, and U.S. Space Command, until the system was turned over to the U.S. Air Force in 2004. . . . Throughout the 1960s, the Navy and Marine Corps provided the majority of astronauts for NASA’s manned space flight program, and during this period the Navy also launched Transit, the world’s first satellite navigation system that provided U.S. and Allied navies, and eventually the world’s merchant ships, with primary navigation support until the appearance of the jointly acquired Global Positioning System.1
Recognizing that space was a game-changer, the Navy led the nation in building the satellite systems that now serve as tactical information lifelines to ships at sea. Over the past two decades, however, as the Navy’s dependence on space has grown, its role in space has decreased. In 1992, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) disestablished Program C, the Navy-run program that made operational electronic intelligence from space a reality (the Navy manpower remained and continues today as the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command Space Field Activity). Then, in 2002, Naval Space Command in Dahlgren, Virginia, was shut down. In retrospect, this was the canary in the coal mine. After Naval Space Command closed its doors, the Navy and Marine Corps became the only services without a space command. With no single organization in charge and little to no Navy funding, space became a collateral effort handled by a variety of commands and resource sponsors.
Fast forward to today. Great power competition and distributed maritime operations have led to a greater demand from the fleet for space capabilities, but most of the funding for space has not come from the Navy. Under the stress of declining budgets, the Navy has been willing to let other organizations pay for its requirements. This strategy has worked fairly well—the service has made substantial gains integrating with the nation’s satellite systems with relatively small investment—but these gains are now at risk. Three tectonic shifts are changing the relationship between the U.S. Navy and space:
Space is no longer a sanctuary.
Counterspace technology is improving rapidly, and U.S. adversaries now have the capability and the will to use it. All Navy warfighters need to understand space and how threats to space systems can degrade their combat systems.
Space has its own service and combatant commander.
In 2019, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) was established as a new service, and U.S. Space Command (USSpaceCom) was reestablished as the unified combatant commander for all military space operations. Only one service, the Navy, has maritime requirements. So, to influence space budgets and the cost trade-offs made by space providers (USSpaceCom, USSF, and the NRO), the Navy will need to contribute funding and manpower. In other words, to “bend” future systems toward maritime requirements when competing against other joint priorities, the Navy must have some skin in the game.
This is not a new concept. When the Department of Defense built the joint strike fighter, the Navy did not simply turn over requirements to the Air Force and move on. It dedicated significant manpower and funding to the program to ensure its requirements were satisfied.
Space capabilities are expanding quickly.
Commercial investment, already growing rapidly, will make space more accessible. Proliferating satellite constellations with larger area surveillance and shorter revisit times will substantially improve communications; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); position, navigation, and timing; and weather information. The long-sought ability to “see everything all the time” will be both technically and economically feasible. When this prodigious source of raw data is combined with artificial intelligence, subtle changes in behavior will be detected in real time, profoundly changing ISR. In time, predictive capabilities will be possible. The combined power of these innovations will alter warfare. The Navy, and specifically naval intelligence, must be a leader in the exploitation, adaptation, and internalization of these new capabilities.
What Must Be Done?
There is a way ahead, if the Navy acts quickly and decisively, and it would not require a large investment. The Navy should revise its space strategy and align its internal space organization so it can focus funding and manpower at precise locations—key nodes—with space providers. This will enable it to have a voice in the room and influence requirements and operations to ensure the inclusion of maritime capabilities.
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OpNav) should establish a single space office that handles policy, funding, and all space mission areas, including ISR. Absent a single Navy lead, space providers do not know who speaks for the Navy when it comes to maritime requirements. As a result, systems are built that do not meet specific Navy requirements.
Although space should be consolidated in a single office—most likely the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare (N2N6)—funding should be a combination of N2N6 and the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities (N9), because all Navy platforms will benefit from space capabilities.
Type Commander. Naval Information Forces (NavIFor), as fleet type commander for space and the advocate for fleet space capabilities and funding, should expand its space division. The Navy cannot expect to influence other organizations if it has not properly manned its own internal space billets. This may require moving some other information warfare billets to support space. Limiting NavIFor’s resources sends a message both inside and outside the Navy that space is not important.
Navy Space Command. The Navy Space Command (NavSpace) must be significantly larger than currently planned. As a component of U.S. Space Command, NavSpace should be the center of all things operational for the fleet, and it requires manpower and funding equal with the other services. Ultimately, NavSpace should be the breeding ground for the space experts that are needed in the fleet, both on board ships and ashore at maritime operation centers, and should be located near USSpaceCom, to ensure distance does not diminish Navy influence.
Naval Space Acquisition and Integration. The Navy, with the Marine Corps, should establish a Naval Space Integration Office (NSIO) as part of Program Executive Office Space, combining Navy and Marine Corps acquisition efforts. The NSIO would not acquire hardware or software; rather it would be a one-stop shop for program offices and systems commands to coordinate system interfaces with space upgrades and future systems developed by space providers, to ensure interoperability. This would avoid any surprise effectivity changes (technical changes made by space providers) that could have unintended consequences for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Naval Space Technology. The key to naval relevancy in space is a robust science and technology program that initiates new maritime capabilities for transition to government and commercial space providers. NRL, the Navy Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities (TENCAP) program, and the Office of Naval Research will require adequate funding to develop space capabilities to support naval missions. A new TENCAP-like organization should be established to coordinate Navy science and technology efforts with USSF. All efforts must be monitored by NavIFor and OpNav to avoid duplication and maintain focus on warfighting priorities.
Navy Space Manpower. Manpower must be optimized to build space expertise to support the fleet. Three commands—NavSpace, USSpaceCom, and NRO—are ideal proving grounds. The Navy should increase its footprint at NavSpace and USSpaceCom and at least maintain its footprint with the Naval NRO Coordination Group and Naval Information Warfare Systems Command Space Field Activity. The Space Field Activity is a successful, well-established model that leverages Navy people, in targeted acquisition, training, and operations programs, to influence space providers.
Navy reservists are active in space and should remain so. The Navy space reserves should be reorganized to provide a surge capacity for a fully manned active force and not as a substitute for an active force.
The Navy should consider allowing a small number of captains to interservice transfer to the USSF. It would pay dividends for Navy and should be done now, while USSF is still forming its culture, to inject Navy influence early. At minimum, liaison tours will be essential.
Currently, the Navy is exploring establishing a space designator. This could be advantageous, to establish a core level of expertise; however, to avoid creating a smaller community that could easily become overshadowed, space expertise needs also to be prevalent in the unrestricted line communities.
Reversing Negative Trends
The Navy must adopt a space strategy that capitalizes on the explosion in space-based ISR and other space capabilities and maximizes war-fighting benefits—not by building satellites, but by reorganizing and investing the manpower and funding to influence space providers to meet the Navy’s needs.
Navy space pioneers of the 1960s recognized that orbiting satellites could “raise the masthead into space,” extending the horizon to unimaginable distances. To regain influence in space, which is vital to winning future wars at sea, the service must reorganize and resource for success, making space an integral part of naval strategy, tactics, and combat systems. In 1959, Admiral Arleigh Burke foresaw the need for the Navy to invest in space, and it remains true today:
I think it is time for each of the Fleet Commanders . . . to have a Space Section in their Staffs whose main function would be to ensure that the commands are fully cognizant of all Space activities and their influence upon war planning, readiness, et cetera.2
1. From the Sea to the Stars: A Chronicle of the U.S. Navy’s Space and Space-Related Activities, 1944–2009 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 2010).
2. From the Sea to the Stars, 66.
