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The U.S. Army Space Vision

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On 8 January 2024, the U.S. Army released its vision for greatly expanding its emphasis on developing the ways and means associated with exploitation of space to support multidomain operations.

The Cygnus cargo vessel deploys a U.S. Army joint capability technology demonstration satellite after its release from the International Space Station in June 2021. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

This vision statement conveys to Army commanders, staffs, and other Army stakeholders the urgent need to invest more in development of space capabilities and formations to assert dominance in this domain over the capabilities possessed by existing or prospective adversaries of the United States and its allies.
Army space professionals are tasked with leading the effort to increase understanding of space capabilities across the Army to include mentoring more rapid integration of these capabilities into all Army operations and activities. To accomplish this objective, greater training and education about the Army’s space capabilities will be initiated together with greater practical incorporation of such capabilities in Army experiments and exercises to help shape the development of live, virtual, and constructive environments that replicate the complexity and uncertainty of the twenty-first century operational environment. These will focus on facilitating employment of Army-unique capabilities to interdict or disrupt our adversaries’ use of space capabilities to help ensure Army forces gain and maintain the initiative in the event of either any peacetime confrontation or open conflict from positions of relative advantage.

By outlining Army roles and missions in and through the space domain, the vision will give leaders a better understanding of how they can leverage space capabilities to improve their ability to deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars. The full statement follows or can be found online at https://www.smdc.army.mil/Portals/38/Documents/Army_Space_Vision_Supporting_MDO.pdf.

Army Space Vision Supporting Multidomain Operations

The Army will integrate friendly joint and coalition space capabilities and interdict adversary space capabilities in support of ground force commanders.

The Army’s next fight will occur across multiple domains. Successful operations in and through the space domain will be critical to our success. Space has become more important as both enabler and dependency to our Warfighting. Commanders at all echelons have access to, rely on, and can be observed by the space-based assets of allies and competitors alike. Commanders must understand that space capabilities start and end on the ground and be fully aware of their importance in planning and operations. This means that understanding commercial, military, and scientific space platforms directly correlate to our ability to conceal and protect friendly ground forces across the entire battlespace, from home station to assembly areas, and from assembly areas to objectives. Simply put, we will be operating under constant surveillance and must invest in the knowledge and forces to counter threat space systems and enable our own space systems.

Army space professionals, at echelon, will lead the effort to increase understanding and integration of friendly joint and coalition space capabilities into our operations and activities while simultaneously interdicting the adversary’s use of space based, and space enabled capabilities. To do this, highly trained Army Soldiers and Civilians must be organized, have the right resources, kit, authorities, and expertise to:

• Integrate friendly joint, coalition, and commercial space capabilities in support of all Army Warfighting Functions to include positioning, navigation, and timing; deep sensing; beyond line-of-sight communications; force tracking; environmental monitoring; space domain awareness; and geospatial information.
• Interdict adversary space capabilities by delivering necessary fires and effects at echelon to protect friendly forces from observation and targeting by counter-satellite communications, counter-surveillance and reconnaissance, and navigation warfare operations.

To fight at echelon in and through space means employing the next generation of tactical terminals to leverage multi-orbit satellite communications services and access space-enabled tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to meet deep sensing requirements. By fusing the data from multiple space-based sensors, in coordination with the intelligence community, the Army can deliver targetable intelligence to enable long-range precision fires, movement and maneuver, and command and control. These space capabilities, layered with stratospheric, high-altitude balloons and long endurance, semi-autonomous fixed-wing aircraft, can provide redundant and complementary capabilities for the theater to increase resiliency of the U.S. and Allied space architecture in a denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited bandwidth environment. Mobile ground and aerial platforms demonstrate the potential to deliver space interdiction fires to deny adversary access to space capabilities, and disrupt their command and control, navigation, targeting and intelligence collection. Forward-postured Multidomain Task Forces, employing Army space interdiction forces alongside cyber operations and electronic warfare enablers, will disintegrate adversary anti-access and area-denial systems. Simultaneously, Theater Strike Effects Groups can synchronize and deliver Army space interdiction fires in support of theater targeting objectives.

Army space professionals are critical to Army Preparedness—to setting theaters, supporting deterrence, and enabling multidomain operations. Forward-stationed Army space organizations conduct continuous operational preparation of the environment during campaigning to help set conditions to defeat layered defenses and open contested theaters in crisis and conflict. These organizations build partnerships with close, highly capable allies to increase interoperability. Positioning Army space operators in theater with cyber and special operations forces allows for convergence, amplifying lethality and contributing to deterrence. Army space integration also supports and spans across all Army Branches and Warfighting Functions to build and navigate the multidomain common operating picture. For example, Army Signal integrates satellite communication services from the Department of Defense and external agencies to establish the networks vital to multidomain operations. The networked enterprise provides force tracking services to ensure joint and combined situational awareness, contributing to information advantage. Additionally, Army Intelligence leverages space-based assets to provide geospatial, signal, and all-source intelligence, enabling the Army and joint space interdiction fires necessary for multidomain operations.

Expeditionary, scalable, and mobile Army space formations, empowered by flexible command relationships at echelon, should move alongside and keep pace with ground combat formations to protect the force and enable the Army to deploy, fight and win decisively against any adversary.

Developing new space capabilities, organizations, and trained professional Soldiers to deliver effects for Army maneuver forces is critical to multidomain operations. Rapid proliferation and tactical application of competitor space capabilities will erode the advantages that ensure U.S. land dominance. To counter this challenge, current and future Army space integration and interdiction capabilities must enable multidomain operations for the Army.

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