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Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities (2005)

Chapter: 2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs

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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
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2
Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

The role of space in naval planning, training, and operations has been the subject of many previous studies for the Department of the Navy.1 These studies focused on issues such as the development and maintenance of a naval space cadre, the adequacy of space system science and technology (S&T) funding, and the development of a coherent naval space policy. The approach of the Department of Defense (DOD) to space was the subject of a major study by a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld who, named Secretary of Defense shortly after publication of the commission’s report, has now implemented many of its recommendations.2 With the resulting transitional situation regarding DOD space activities, it is particularly noticeable that the Department of the Navy has not acted to update its policy toward its support of space technologies and systems and does not appear to be engaging in sufficient analysis and prioritization of needs to enable its effective participation in space-related efforts across the DOD.

Recent combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has highlighted specific trends in modern warfare that must be addressed and accommodated in ongoing

1  

These studies include the following: (1) National Reconnaissance Office and Department of the Navy. 1998. Report of the Panel to Review Naval Participation in the National Reconnaissance Office, Washington, D.C., February 17; (2) Panel to Review Naval Space. 2002. Report of the Panel to Review Naval Space: Assured Space Capabilities for Critical Mission Support, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va., March 19.

2  

Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization. 2001. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, Washington, D.C., January 11.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
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naval transformational efforts. Some of these trends are the result of external factors—global terrorism and the replacement of the traditional geopolitical adversary with a number of separate threat areas, the increased importance of the littorals versus the deep ocean in naval operations, and the increased importance of sea-based interdiction versus traditional naval combat—while other trends are related to Navy changes in response to the evolving expectations and role of military forces in conflict and post-conflict situations.

In response to these trends, the U.S. approach to military actions has moved toward joint operations, increasing the use of Special Operations Forces, increasing the precision and decreasing the response time of strikes, and using effects-based and agile planning of military operations. In extreme cases, operations seem to emulate the Apollo “Mission Control” model, in which a relatively small number of ground troops are supported, coordinated, and sometimes commanded by a large staff of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) experts. Overlaying these trends is the increasing rate of development of technology, which in many cases outpaces even the fastest defense planning and acquisition efforts. This problem is especially severe in the case of space systems, where planning and acquisition cycles are traditionally very long (10 to 15 years is not uncommon). The recent trends, both operational and programmatic, coupled with the significant cost associated with space systems, led to the designation of a DOD Executive Agent for Space to oversee all National Security Space (NSS) program development.

The recently updated National Security Strategy3 provides part of the strategic framework within which this committee examined the Department of the Navy’s evolving transformational efforts and naval reliance on capabilities provided by NSS systems. The other major part of the framework employed by the committee is the combined Navy and Marine Corps vision as expressed in the Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations.4 The NOC, as it is known, was drafted to expand on the preceding naval vision, Naval Power 21,5 and thus to strengthen Naval Power 21’s integration of the Naval Services’ capstone concepts Sea Power 216 and Marine Corps Strategy 21.7 All of these documents build

3  

President George W. Bush. 2002. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, Washington, D.C., September 17.

4  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations; and Gen Michael W. Hagee, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2003. Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., September 22.

5  

Gordon England, Secretary of the Navy; ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations; and Gen James L. Jones, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2002. Naval Power 21 … A Naval Vision, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., October.

6  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations. 2002. “Sea Power 21,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 128, No. 10, pp. 32-41.

7  

Gen James L. Jones, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 1999. Marine Corps Strategy 21, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., July.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

on an earlier strategic framework, set forth in the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Vision 2020, which states:

Three aspects of the world of 2020 have significant implications for the US Armed Forces. First, the United States will continue to have global interests and be engaged with a variety of regional actors. Transportation, communications, and information technology will continue to evolve and foster expanded economic ties and awareness of international events. Our security and economic interests, as well as our political values, will provide the impetus for engagement with international partners. The joint force of 2020 must be prepared to “win” across the full range of military operations in any part of the world, to operate with multinational forces, and to coordinate military operations, as necessary, with government agencies and international organizations.

Second, potential adversaries will have access to the global commercial industrial base and much of the same technology as the US military. We will not necessarily sustain a wide technological advantage over our adversaries in all areas. Increased availability of commercial satellites, digital communications, and the public internet all give adversaries new capabilities at a relatively low cost. We should not expect opponents in 2020 to fight with strictly “industrial age” tools. Our advantage must, therefore, come from leaders, people, doctrine, organizations, and training that enables us to take advantage of technology to achieve superior warfighting effectiveness.

Third, we should expect potential adversaries to adapt as our capabilities evolve. We have superior conventional warfighting capabilities and effective nuclear deterrence today, but this favorable military balance is not static. In the face of such strong capabilities, the appeal of asymmetric approaches and the focus on the development of niche capabilities will increase. By developing and using approaches that avoid US strengths and exploit potential vulnerabilities using significantly different methods of operation, adversaries will attempt to create conditions that effectively delay, deter, or counter the application of US military capabilities.8

Until the early 1990s, Cold War scenarios formed the basis for U.S. military planning and doctrine. Military planning envisaged that U.S. forces might become engaged in a major war with a nuclear-capable peer competitor. Such a competitor was also assumed to possess competent space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) resources and was assumed to be capable of matching U.S. forces in firepower and technological innovation. For naval forces, the Cold War threat focused on defense against submarine attacks on U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization sea-based lines of supply, massed cruise missile attacks on U.S. surface forces, and ballistic missile (nuclear) attacks on the U.S. homeland and on deployed logistic bases.

8  

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2000. Joint Vision 2020, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., p. 4-5.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

With the end of the Cold War, no single peer or near-peer competitor (with the possible future exception of China) is perceived to exist. However, many examples of dangerous military technology have proliferated worldwide and to some degree will be available to potential adversaries who might be encountered in regional or local conflicts. The most probable types of military interventions in which the United States might be involved during the next 25 to 30 years include these:

  • Combat missions:

    • Intervention for the protection of allies,

    • Preemptive or punitive strikes in response to terrorism, and

    • Preemptive or politically coercive actions;

  • Noncombat missions:

    • Blockade and sanction enforcement operations,

    • Noncombat evacuation operations,

    • Antimigration or migration support operations,

    • Resource protection operations, and

    • Refugee support and disaster recovery operations.

All of these potential missions will be coupled with political pressures and potential antiaccess and asymmetric threats, generating the specific missions that the future naval forces will need to contend with. This diversity of potential missions (and threats) is discussed briefly in the subsections below, with reference to how capabilities derived from the space mission areas can be used to enhance naval operations.

Information

Most of the missions described below rely on space assets to provide information—and more importantly, access to information—to enable those carrying out the missions to act more responsibly and quickly in the face of continually changing threats and conditions. These information needs are broadly characterized as a need for information dominance: that is, U.S. space-based sensors, augmented by both archival information and information derived from sensors on surface ships, submarines, manned aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unattended ground sensors, and ground observers, can allow commanders access to a significant knowledge advantage over the adversary. The dominance will be particularly pronounced if current sensor information is analyzed and assessed with low latency and if a secure, wide-bandwidth network exists that allows rapid dissemination of the derived data to relevant combat commands. Although the capabilities of U.S. space-based and other sensors are indeed impressive, they are inherently incapable of providing total information.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Total information dominance implies that U.S. forces have complete information concerning the capabilities, intent, and plan of action of hostile forces, while adversaries have no reciprocal information. Such a situation is never likely to exist. U.S. forces operate in an open society. Even if precise official statements of U.S. forces capabilities and intent are not broadcast or published, U.S. and foreign media certainly provide reasonably accurate and detailed speculations about such things. In addition, the United States does not have a monopoly on the availability of space-based sensors or long-haul communications networks. When a particular adversary of the United States does not have indigenous space-based sensors, third parties are often available to sell the desired information, or in some cases the hostile nation can seek to steal or otherwise access U.S. information sources and systems. Finally, most military operations today are conducted with other nations as coalition partners. Coordination needs among these partners create their own set of challenges with regard to the control and dissemination of information.9

It must be assumed that information dominance will always be relative and never complete, since adversaries will always be improving their capabilities independent of the improvements by U.S. forces. Thus, the United States will need to continually develop systems with finer granularity, enhanced resolution, and minimum latency between detection and dissemination of analyzed and assessed data. U.S. forces will also need to be capable of increasing their relative information dominance over adversaries by the denial, degradation, deception, and exploitation of the adversary’s access to their information networks and their sensors. Such capabilities are variously called, or subsumed under the titles of, offensive information operations, space control, or electronic countermeasures. It is clear that in the future, U.S. forces will devote significant effort to the development of such capabilities, however designated, that effectively render the adversary both blind and deaf.

Asymmetrical Threats and Unconventional Opponents

In future years, naval forces will likely have to contend with many types of asymmetrical threats and/or unconventional opponents. The list might include but is not limited to the following:

  • Terrorists;

  • Drug cartels and organized criminal groups;

9  

Current DOD practice to solve issues related to coalition interoperability has typically involved coalition use of the same commercial satellite communications systems or loaning coalition commanders the use of U.S. ground stations. Issues related to communications standards and the like are being addressed as part of the broader Navy FORCEnet initiative and were not considered during this study.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
  • Hostile populations in urban areas;

  • Suicide bombers;

  • Hackers, communications jammers, and perpetrators of other sophisticated forms of electronic attack;

  • Small, unmanned (remotely controlled) explosive-carrying platforms (UAV, surface, subsurface); and

  • Chemical and biological weapons.

Many variants of asymmetrical threats and unconventional opponents may develop, seemingly limited only by the ingenuity of the attacker. As an example, terrorists, drug cartels, and organized criminal groups might undertake large-scale attacks on the families and dependents of deployed Service personnel. The attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 has been considered a limited example of such a campaign. Kidnapping of Americans overseas has been another technique employed by terrorists (although, to date, only on a relatively minor scale). Attempts might be made to poison water supplies, degrade fuel reserves, or release biological agents in the vicinity of naval vessels in U.S. or foreign ports or in the vicinity of deployed U.S. ground combat forces.

For instance, the Navy has witnessed the sea-based suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, in Somalia, U.S. forces encountered a hostile population that was used as a shield by indigenous armed personnel as they conducted attacks on U.S. forces. The tactics in Somalia were moderately successful in the sense that they limited the use of U.S. firepower against the desired targets. More sophisticated and effective use of hostile civilian personnel to limit U.S. military actions can certainly be imagined. For situations in which defensive actions by U.S. naval forces limit the probability of success by suicide attackers, hostile forces may employ a large variety of small, unmanned platforms (air, surface, or underwater) to deliver explosive, chemical, or biological warheads.

Additional asymmetric threats are based on the worldwide proliferation of modern computer and communications capabilities. These capabilities can lead to use by hackers, communications jammers, and others employing sophisticated forms of electronic attack against naval forces, particularly against deployed ground combat forces. During the British conflict with the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, such electronic techniques were highly developed and highly effective.

In addition to the asymmetric threats to U.S. naval forces discussed above, there is the potential of terrorist threats to the United States involving the introduction of weapons of mass destruction from the sea. The Navy’s homeland defense role in supporting the Coast Guard near shore and conducting defensive operations offshore has not yet been fully defined. Nevertheless, it is clear that space assets will be of growing importance in this new mission, for purposes including the persistent surveillance and identification of surface vessels and the provision of reliable communications.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Space assets can play a role in countering or limiting the effectiveness of many asymmetric threats, but they alone will never eliminate such threats. In particular, NSS sensors can be used to intercept electronic communications among threat groups and can thereby locate the adversaries’ targets and operational objectives, but as effective as they are, such sensors are far from perfect (e.g., adversaries can use encrypted data formats unbreakable by current technologies). Similarly, NSS sensors that track surface vessels need to be backed up by units capable of directly interdicting hostile ships before they reach threatening positions. There is little ongoing programmatic activity oriented to the development of future space sensors that will be specifically focused on asymmetric or unconventional naval threats.

Antiaccess Technologies

Traditionally, naval forces have faced attempts to limit their ability to exert military influence on events ashore. In World War II, such attempts were never successful. However, U.S. forces generally paid a very high price to achieve their objectives.

The antiaccess technologies (or threats of concern) to naval forces today include the following:

  • Precision-guided, low radar cross-section (RCS) cruise missiles;

  • Space-based ISR assets;

  • Information operations;

  • Chemical and biological warheads;

  • Sweep-resistant sea mines;

  • Wireless-detonated land mines;

  • Ballistic missiles; and

  • Nuclear weapons.

All of these technologies are currently available to U.S. military forces and are beginning to become available on the world arms market. As these systems become more widely available, they all represent threats to the naval forces.

Political Pressures

The future use of military force by the United States to accomplish national policy will be subject to a large number of constraints that might be characterized as political pressures. These constraints will arise from concerns of people both within the United States and throughout the rest of the world. The experience of recent conflicts suggests that opposition to military action will grow rapidly whenever a general perception arises that any of the following conditions exists:

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
  • The stated rationale for U.S. military intervention is not justified,

  • U.S. casualties are (or may be) excessive,

  • Civilian casualties and collateral damage are excessive, or

  • Military action is open-ended, with no plan for its conclusion.

These concerns of people worldwide, including the U.S. public, are well recognized by U.S. civil and military leadership. The first of these concerns can only be addressed by extensive public debate within the United States and by the avoidance of military interventions that have questionable rationales. The remaining three concerns can be addressed by the performance of U.S. military forces and through the precision of the U.S. targeting processes and weapons delivery systems. The quicker a military action is terminated, the fewer the U.S. and civilian casualties that will be sustained, and the more politically acceptable a U.S. military action will be to the public, both in the United States and abroad.

As a result of such considerations, the U.S. military has invested heavily in the development of precision weapons and space-based target-location systems. In general, increased weapon precision allows for the use of fewer and smaller warheads than were previously needed to ensure target destruction. The use of small warheads (where feasible) then reduces the likelihood of collateral damage.

Although precision navigation and guidance systems may limit collateral damage, many other factors come into consideration in planning military operations. Space-based sensors may be used to identify and locate targets for military weapons. However, they inherently fail to indicate the significance of the destruction of a target, and they generally do not provide any information on the time required to repair or replace a destroyed target. Target identification and location by space-based sensors must be supplemented by an understanding of the role that an individual target plays in the adversary’s military and civil infrastructure as well as an understanding of the impact of the target’s destruction on the termination of hostilities.

Space-based ISR can provide crucial information during the pre-hostilities stage in any theater. In such situations, space-based ISR can be used not only to provide the knowledge necessary to help develop the U.S. rationale regarding a potential conflict, but it can also provide information on an adversary’s capabilities and plans.

Noncombat Missions

In noncombat operations—for example, blockade and sanction enforcement, noncombat evacuation, antimigration or migration support, resource (shipping) protection, refugee support, and disaster recovery operations—naval forces may be directed to protect the transfer of assets, people, and materials or to secure the land areas and shipping routes necessary to ensure operational success. In many of these cases, materials or people will need protection during transit, demanding

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

a classical convoy capability to provide antisubmarine warfare and/or antiship cruise missile defense when operating near hostile areas. Space support requirements for such at-sea protection operations include all of the necessary components for the execution of combat operations. In particular though, these operations rely more heavily on broad sea control and tracking of potential hostile threats. Such information will be derived from a combination of national and organic ISR data and compiled with reach-back intelligence assets to forecast threats appropriately.

In addition, many noncombatant operations such as sanction enforcement and evacuation operations will require great precision in the identification and location of all hostile parties so that U.S. involvement can be avoided (or lessened) and collateral or unintended damage minimized. The ISR data required for such an operation generally is provided by national space assets and supplemented, as needed, by sea-based surveillance aircraft. In many circumstances, knowledge of detailed local environmental conditions (offshore winds, currents and surf conditions, visibility, land trafficability, and so on) may be the key to success. Naval forces will depend on the products of national meteorology and oceanography (METOC) satellites and ISR satellites for such data.

Combat Missions

In general, combat missions (such as intervention for the protection of allies, preemptive or punitive strikes in response to terrorism, or preemptive or politically coercive actions) rely on a similar set of space-based capabilities—chief among them, space-based, wide-bandwidth, beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications. Without these capabilities, distributed units would no longer have access to information and to decision makers. These communications systems are needed not only to enable U.S. and allied forces to collaborate, but they also allow for the transmission of remote sensing information (electro-optic/infrared (EO/IR), electronic intelligence (ELINT), radar, and so on) collected by space and terrestrial assets. In addition, nearly all military units (and even many satellites) base their positioning information on Global Positioning System (GPS)-derived coordinates. Thus, access to GPS signals is a growing priority for all operations.

In general, strike missions need a synthesis of terrestrial and space assets to enable these capabilities: ground, air, and sea target detection, location, and identification; multisensor synthesis to support the suppression of enemy air defenses; weapons guidance; distributed sensor integration in support of countermine warfare; integration of distributed antisubmarine warfare sensors; synthesis and cueing of airborne moving target indication (AMTI) radar for cruise missile defense; low-latency decision making to support timely ballistic missile defense; environmental support; and bomb damage assessment.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Missions involved with engagement of terrorist groups are particularly challenging. Although naval forces have significant organic capabilities for ELINT collection against terrorists, they are aided substantially by space-based sensors that provide persistent reconnaissance to survey, identify, geolocate, and track terrorist training sites, weapons storage areas, and even individual terrorists. The interception of communications is particularly critical to enable the identification and tracking of specific terrorists and to enable the discovery of the plans of action, targets, and techniques of terrorist groups.

SEA POWER 21 AND ITS RELIANCE ON SPACE

To counter the many and varied threats mentioned here, the Navy and Marine Corps envisage that in the future they must continue to operate effectively as a forward-postured, immediately deployable force in joint and multinational environments. As stated in the NOC: “The Service visions, Sea Power 21 and Marine Corps Strategy 21, recognize the challenges posed by a changing security environment and point the way to the future. The Navy and Marine Corps will leverage and integrate their respective strengths to produce a more effective and efficient Naval Force with improved warfighting capabilities for the Joint Force. The Naval Services will organize, deploy, employ, and sustain forces to conduct operations guided by the interrelated and complementary concepts of Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing,”10 and its foundation FORCEnet.

Through their recently promulgated NOC, the Navy and Marine Corps have declared their commitment to the development of naval visions and concepts. In particular, the NOC clarifies how the Navy’s capstone concept of Sea Power 21 (containing Sea Strike, envisioned to project offensive power; Sea Shield, envisioned to project defensive assurance; Sea Basing, envisioned to project operational independence; and FORCEnet, envisioned as the enabling concept for integrating warriors, sensors, weapons, networks, and platforms from seabed to space) contains and integrates components of the Marine Corps capstone concepts, Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare (EMW), Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS), and Ship-to-Objective Maneuver (STOM). In particular, OMFTS and STOM are described as integral components of Sea Strike. These concepts are further defined in Box 2.1.

In the following subsections, the four Sea Power 21 capabilities are introduced in detail, along with a description of the space mission areas and specific space-derived information and capabilities that are deemed critical to enable Sea Power 21.

10  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations; and Gen Michael W. Hagee, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2003. Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., September 22, p. 3.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

BOX 2.1
Definitions of Naval Operational Concepts for Joint Operations

Described below are key naval operating concepts as presented in the Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations.1

  • Sea Strike is a broadened concept for projecting precise and persistent naval offensive power. It describes how 21st-century naval forces will exert direct, decisive, and sustained influence in joint campaigns through the application of persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), time-sensitive strike, Ship-to Objective Maneuver (STOM), and information operations (IO) to deliver accurate and devastating combat power.

  • Sea Shield is a concept that describes the manner in which naval forces will protect our national interests with layered global defensive power. It is based on our sustained forward presence, and on our abilities to dominate the seas and to provide distributed and networked intelligence to enhance homeland defense, assure access to contested littorals, and project defensive power deep inland.

  • Sea Basing serves as the foundation from which offensive and defensive power are projected, making Sea Strike and Sea Shield realities. It describes the projection, sustainment, and operational maneuver of sovereign, distributed, networked forces operating globally from the sea. Sea Basing will provide Joint Force Commanders with global command and control (C2) capability and extend integrated support to other Services.

  • Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare (EMW) will serve as the Marine Corps capstone concept for the 21st century. It is the union of Marine Corps core competencies, maneuver warfare philosophy, and expeditionary heritage.

  • Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) is a concept for the projection of maritime power ashore. It focuses on the operational objective using the sea as a maneuver space and pitting strength against weakness. It generates overwhelming tempo and momentum; it emphasizes intelligence, deceptions, and flexibility; and it integrates all organic, joint, and multinational assets.

  • Ship-to-Objective Maneuver (STOM) applies the principles and tactics of maneuver warfare to the littoral battle space. It allows for conducting combined arms penetration and exploitation operations from over the horizon directly to objectives ashore without stopping to seize, defend, and build-up beachheads or landing zones.

  • FORCEnet is the enabler of these capabilities, and the operational construct and architectural framework for Naval warfare in the information age. It will allow systems, functions, and missions to be aligned to transform situational awareness, accelerate decision making, and allow Naval Forces to greatly distribute their combat power.

1  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations, and Gen Michael W. Hagee, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2003. Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations, Washington, D.C., September 22, p. 4.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Sea Strike

Sea Strike is the overarching concept describing how “21st-century Naval Forces will exert direct, decisive, and sustained influence in joint campaigns.”11 These forces will engage adversaries through the application of four critical capability areas: strike, naval fire support, ship-to-objective maneuver, and strategic deterrence. “At its heart, Sea Strike is a broad concept for naval power projection that leverages C5ISR (command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), precision, stealth, information, and joint strike together. It amplifies effect-based striking power through enhanced operational tempo and distant reach.”12

Based on the Sea Strike vision, the Navy has identified, in the four critical capability areas, 14 specific capabilities that contribute critical naval needs for enabling future strike operations (see Table 2.1). Note that Sea Strike envisions not only the delivery of ordnance on hostile targets ashore, but also the provision of fire support for allied, coalition, or U.S. combat elements, and counterstrike capability to enable strategic deterrence.

A quick inspection of the Sea Strike capabilities shows that many rely on space-based assets. In particular, most modern strike missions require accurate location information for targets as well as for sensors. These targets must then be identified, classified, and tracked using a combination of assets: NSS, airborne, maritime, and human intelligence. NSS systems and airborne systems are generally used cooperatively to support time-sensitive requirements of strike. The support of time-critical missions also requires low-latency, high-bandwidth, BLOS communications to provide the coordination pathways enabling sensor-analysis-decision maker-shooter-weapon links. Space communications have also had an increasingly important role in recent conflicts in support of forced entry and other rapid, mobile ground force operations, particularly in support of Special Operations Forces and Marine Corps operations both in littorals and deep inland. Table 2.2 summarizes the capabilities derived from the six NSS space mission areas (ISR; METOC); theater and ballistic missile defense (TBMD); communications; position, navigation, and timing (PNT); and space control) that are used to augment and enable the four Sea Strike capability areas.

Sea Strike first of all relies on ISR information from NSS sensors that can be merged with ground-, sea-, and air-based sensor data to develop fused products. These products assist in the positioning and repositioning of platforms and forces,

11  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations; and Gen Michael W. Hagee, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2003. Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations, Washington, D.C., September 22, p. 4.

12  

VADM Cutler Dawson, USN; and VADM John Nathman, USN. 2002. “Sea Power 21 Part III; Sea Strike: Projecting Persistent, Responsive, and Precise Power,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 128, No. 12, p. 54.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.1 Sea Strike Capabilities and Capability Areas

Strike

Naval Fire Support

Maneuver

Strategic Deterrence

Conduct strike operations. Engage fixed land targets. Engage moving targets.

Conduct special operations. Provide precision targeting.

Conduct direct action.

Conduct offensive information operations. Jam potential threats. Conduct network attack.

Provide aircraft survivability.

Provide preparation fires.

Provide close supporting fires.

Provide precision supporting fires.

Provide volume fires.

Project forces, and reposition forces.

Assault centers of gravity and critical vulnerabilities.

Conduct concurrent/ follow-on missions.

Conduct nuclear strike.

Provide assured survivability.

SOURCE: RADM K.J. Cosgriff, USN, Director, Warfare Integration and Assessment, “Future Force Development,” slide 9, presentation to the Naval Studies Board, Washington, D.C., November 12, 2003.

assist in the identification and assault of critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity of enemy forces, and assess damage from strikes to permit the effective use of strike resources for conducting concurrent and follow-on strikes.

Ordnance delivery may be achieved through the use of long-range, standoff missiles (e.g., Tomahawk), manned or unmanned aircraft, organic ground force firepower, or sea-based gunfire. Targets ashore are identified and geolocated through a combination of the following:

  • Space-based ISR assets (ELINT, EO/IR, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery);

  • Archival imagery and intelligence databases;

  • Unmanned aerial vehicles or unattended ground sensors;

  • Reconnaissance aircraft;

  • Ground moving target indication (GMTI) radar;

  • Ground observers; and

  • Airborne observers and controllers.

The capability of the Navy to support Marine Corps forced entry through the littorals is, and will continue to be, a major component of Sea Strike. Such incursions certainly are and will continue to be dependent on the availability of space-based and other systems and sensors, as presented in Table 2.2.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.2 Space Capabilities, Derived from Space Mission Areas, Needed to Enable Sea Strike Capability Areas

Space Mission Areas

Sea Strike Areas

Strike

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Responsive persistent ISR (imagery and signals) of static and moving targets.

Target identification, location, and tracking.

Electronic intelligence (ELINT)-enabled target identification.

Meteorology and Oceanography

Continuous tactical weather prediction.

Acoustic/thermal modeling of the littorals.

Steaming direction for carrier aircraft launch.

Cue appropriate ISR assets depending upon weather.

Communications

All information must be moved, often at beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) ranges.

Sensor-analysis-decisions-shooter-weapon links.

Air tasking orders.

Precision weapon target coordinates.

Intelligence coordination.

Mission plans.

Theater and Ballistic Missile Defense

Defense-enabled freedom of maneuver.

 

Position, Navigation, and Timing

Global Positioning System (GPS) location information.

GPS-timing enables communications coordination.

Precision target location.

GPS-guided munitions.

Space Control

Ensure access to national space assets and provide protection from detection by hostile assets.

Information operations via space links enabled.

Unique Navy requirements generally focus on supporting persistent operation over the oceans, and Navy input is thus centered on assuring that NSS ISR systems will meet the Navy’s open-ocean needs. New space-based ISR capabilities show promise for meeting Navy needs and are currently under development. These include space-based radar (SBR), the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA), and hyperspectral imaging. Hyperspectral imaging in particular is promising in its potential to assist in separating targets from background and camouflage, especially in the ocean and littoral areas unique to Navy and Marine Corps activity.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Naval Fire Support

Maneuver

Strategic Deterrence

Blue force tracking (BFT) and red force location deconfliction.

BFT integrated into common operating picture and fire support systems.

Mission preparation.

Minefield monitoring.

High-resolution-imagery-derived assault planning.

Monitoring production and storage of strategic threats.

Imagery enabling tracking of potential threats.

Steaming direction for carrier aircraft launch.

Cue appropriate ISR assets depending upon weather.

Mission planning.

Amphibious assault planning requires littoral oceanographic information.

Weather cueing of ISR assets to enable continuous monitoring.

Blue force tracking.

Transmission of fires requests.

Creation and use of a common operating picture enabled.

Mission coordination.

Creation and use of a common operating picture enabled.

BLOS detection and monitoring of threats enabled.

 

 

Augmentation of theater defense to protect against first strike.

GPS-enabled BFT.

Precision target location.

GPS-guided munitions.

GPS-guided assault planning.

GPS-guided vehicles.

Precision target location.

Protection against adversary detection of blue forces.

Freedom of maneuver without detection enabled.

Protection against threat of first strike against space assets.

Time-sensitive strike operations have significant dependency on high-availability, high-assurance, low-probability-of-intercept (LPI), medium-bandwidth, low-latency, all-weather communications between ISR sensors; on distributed analysts, exploitation, and fusion processors and centers; and on the diverse command-and-control systems linking strike weapons, platforms, and infrastructure. In addition, constraints on satellite communications, antenna size, portability, and ease of setup and disassembly are critical for mobile units in the field. As described in recent after-action reports on Operation Iraqi Freedom, the most

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

reliable BLOS communications capabilities were space-based systems.13 Improvements in such a reliable and mobile communications capability, allowing for increased numbers of supported users, were also recently identified by the Commander, Central Command, as his top priority.14

METOC support to Sea Strike generally refers to providing atmospheric weather forecasts to get planes off carrier decks safely and to enable appropriate mission planning and ordnance use (for example, forecasts of regional dust might affect the potential use of optically guided munitions). Weather information is primarily derived through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is based on a combination of national (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES)) and military (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)) environmental satellites. The needed data sets often rely on 1 km resolution data derived from the sources referred to above and augmented by commercial multispectral imagers. For full global coverage, the Navy relies on the European Space Agency’s Meteorological Satellite (Meteosat), India’s Indian National Satellite (INSAT), and Japan’s Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS). Timeliness of the data from commercial and international partners can be a tactical issue, however, since commercial data are typically delivered in days or weeks.

Having collected raw-satellite-derived data as described above, the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) turns out products that respond directly to the needs of commanders and planners. In particular, FNMOC prepares a nowcast or forecast virtually everywhere as a meteorological objective analysis, not just where the meteorological observations are made. FNMOC also collates, interprets, and delivers in a user-friendly form the information that commanders require in order to achieve their mission objectives, offensive or defensive.

METOC products designed to enhance warfighting capabilities in the littoral regions need finer spatial resolution and greater repeat coverage than are required for the forecasting services described above. Examples of such tactical decision aids include acoustic propagation predictions and ocean-surface, front, and eddy thermal analysis to support antisubmarine warfare operations.

Sea Shield

Sea Shield is the overarching concept describing how 21st-century naval forces will project defense over water and over land to protect and enable sus-

13  

Marine Corps Combat Development Command. 2003. Field Report Marine Corps Systems Command Liaison Team, Central Iraq (April 20-25, 2003), Quantico, Va., May.

14  

Written response by General John Abizaid, USA, Commander, Central Command, during his congressional confirmation hearing, June 24, 2003. Available at <http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2003/June/Abizaid.pdf>. Accessed May 17, 2004.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

tained influence in joint campaigns. These naval forces will protect against adversaries through the application of four critical capability areas: force protection, surface warfare, undersea warfare, and theater air and missile defense. “Sea Shield will provide a layered defense to protect the homeland, sustain access to contested littorals, and project a defensive umbrella over coalition partners and joint forces ashore in distant theaters.”15

Sea Shield envisions naval forces that will assure their own survival (afloat or ashore) and the survival of their associated air and surface logistic forces. Sea Shield also requires that naval forces establish and maintain air control against hostile aircraft and be capable of mounting a successful defense against cruise and ballistic missile attack, both in naval operating areas and as far inland as practicable. Thus, based on the Sea Shield vision, the Navy has identified, in these four capability areas, 13 specific capabilities that contribute critical naval needs for enabling future defensive operations (see Table 2.3). Most of these capabilities are historic priorities for the naval forces, while newly emerging areas include sea-based national missile defense. Not clearly articulated in these capabilities (but implicitly embedded in the implementation of them) are the needs for denial, degradation, deception, and exploitation of enemy ISR sensors, communications, and databases; and for surveillance of the open seas to identify and track hostile shipping engaged in the transport of missiles and/or weapons of mass destruction that may present a threat to U.S. homeland security. Denial, degradation, deception, and exploitation have historically been considered a theater or national responsibility, while open-sea surveillance, to be performed in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard, is a new naval responsibility that will clearly require extensive space-based assets and operational coverage and analyses.

To maintain littoral superiority for naval and joint force components, communications resources must be able to support protection against unconventional threats (i.e., chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and environmental threats from special operations and terrorist forces) as well as threats that might be mounted by more conventional enemy ground forces. Information from space-, ground-, and sea-based and airborne ISR resources must be communicated to neutralize near-horizon and over-the-horizon threats, as well as to enable deep-ocean and littoral operations. This information is then used to support self-defense against, or neutralization of, undersea threats (including submarines, mines, submerged barriers, and obstacles) and to provide defense over land and over water against theater air and ballistic missile threats. Additional areas in which space systems specifically enable the Sea Shield capability areas are summarized in Table 2.4.

15  

VADM Michael Bucchi, USN; and VADM Michael Mullen, USN. 2002. “Sea Power 21 Part II; Sea Shield: Projecting Global Defensive Assurance,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 128, No. 11, p. 56.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.3 Sea Shield Capabilities and Capability Areas

Force Protection

Surface Warfare

Under Sea Warfare

Theater Air and Missile Defense

Protect against Special Operations Force and terrorist threats.

Mitigate effects of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and environmental threats.

Neutralize near-horizon surface threats.

Neutralize over-the-horizon surface threats.

Provide self-defense against subsurface threats.

Neutralize submarine threats in the littorals.

Neutralize open-ocean submarine threats.

Neutralize mines in shallow to deep water.

Breach surf zone, minefields, obstacles, and barriers.

Provide self-defense against air and missile threats.

Provide maritime air and missile defense.

Provide overland air and missile defense.

Maintain sea-based national missile defense.

SOURCE: RADM K.J. Cosgriff, USN, Director, Warfare Integration and Assessment, “Future Force Development,” slide 8, presentation to the Naval Studies Board, Washington, D.C., November 12, 2003.

Critical support for the effective utilization of all available ISR resources will depend on a combination of terrestrial line-of-sight communications for battle group defensive capability, such as that of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), and space-based communications for general support in detecting, identifying, and neutralizing over-the-horizon (OTH) threats and deep-water mine fields and for linking and communications between theater and national sensor systems and command structures. Expanding the CEC to include OTH links and the introduction of other new capabilities, such as wide-area distributed undersea operations, will require the development of new, high-bandwidth, low-latency, high-assurance communications. Space-based communications will be an essential link in establishing this extended capability.

Today, most operations rely largely on theater assets to provide the necessary ISR information to effectively support Sea Shield operations. In the future, NSS ISR will be able to contribute much more to many of these operations. In particular, SBR represents a major ISR initiative to field both GMTI and SAR imagery capabilities. The scope of this initiative is such that it is very unlikely that any other space-based radar initiatives will be implemented in the next several decades. It is imperative, therefore, that the Navy understand its needs for this extended time period and ensure that these needs are articulated to and met by the SBR initiative. For example, GMTI must contend with Doppler-induced background clutter that has significantly different character for land use and

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

marine use, signifying a potential area in which maritime use could be traded away in favor of land use.

One of the potential applications of SBR and a needed capability for Sea Shield is persistent tracking of ships at sea. Current antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and antimine operations lack persistence in making observations of offensive maritime operations by an enemy. While it is possible to observe enemy submarines at shallow depth from space and to observe from space the laying of mine fields or the navigation by the enemy through fields it has laid, the long revisit time for current NSS systems does not well support the near-continuous observations necessary. SBR is capable of enabling these missions through persistent (nearly continuous) monitoring of maritime traffic, provided the Navy can ensure that these capabilities are protected in the developing SBR program.

Space communications will be vital in linking information from BLOS sensing systems in many theater or strategic missile defense scenarios, especially by enabling geolocation and computation of the vector of inbound ballistic and cruise missile threats.

An area of Sea Shield for which no significant new NSS active ISR is currently contemplated is theater air and missile defense. An NSS capability to provide persistent AMTI radar similar to that provided by current E-2C (Hawkeye aircraft) and the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radars would dramatically expand—to global dimensions—the range for detecting and targeting airborne threats beyond the ranges currently provided by UAVs or piloted aircraft (hundreds of square miles). A specific NSS program to develop and field such an AMTI capability is not now contemplated, and creating such a system would represent a stretch with current NSS sensor technology. However, the Navy would benefit from continued S&T aimed at identifying future NSS ISR potential in this area.

A nearer-term NSS opportunity to address the missile defense mission could involve a persistent, multiple-look-angle NSS IR detection capability. The individual satellite sensors might each be similar in capability to that available with the Space-Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-H) satellites under development. Linking of multiple satellites with a view of the warfare theater could then permit precision geolocation, detection, and tracking of theater ballistic missiles by SBIRS-H or current Defense Satellite Program satellites.

Sea Basing

Sea Basing provides the operational platform capability from which the Navy will participate in the planning and coordination of operations using FORCEnet and from which it will provide offensive strike (i.e., Sea Strike) and defensive protection (i.e., Sea Shield), as well as supporting the Marine Corps and joint forces as appropriate to their missions. The creation of a sea base is accomplished by use of the fleet assets with platform, logistics, and communica-

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.4 Space Capabilities, Derived from Space Mission Areas, to Enable Sea Shield Capability Areas

Space Mission Areas

Sea Shield Areas

Force Protection

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Responsive persistent ISR (imagery and signals) of static and moving targets.

Global ship tracking/maritime moving target indication.

Mine (field) detection and monitoring.

ISR through camouflage needed.

Meteorology and Oceanography

Continuous tactical weather prediction.

Acoustic/thermal modeling of the littorals.

Tactical decision aids.

Weather-prediction-enabled maneuver.

Theater and Ballistic Missile Defense

Defend against missile threats.

Standard Missile (SM)-2 guidance at beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) range.

All-weather, continuous ability to detect missile launches.

Overland cruise missile defense mission needs airborne moving target indication.

Communications

All information must be transferred, often at BLOS ranges.

Sensor-analysis-decisions-shooter-weapon links.

Mission coordination.

Sensor cueing and sensor netting.

BLOS targeting sensor-to-shooter.

Position, Navigation, and Timing

Global Positioning System (GPS) location information.

GPS timing enables communications coordination.

GPS-enabled blue force tracking.

Precision target location.

GPS-guided munitions.

Space Control

Ensure access to national space assets and hostile ISR. provide protection from detection by

Protection of forces against observation by hostile assets.

tions improvements, but without extensive use of existing port facilities or logistics ashore. “Sea Basing is the core of ‘Sea Power 21.’ It is about placing at sea—to a greater extent than ever before—capabilities critical to joint and coalition operational success: offensive and defensive firepower, maneuver forces, command and control, and logistics.”16

16  

VADM Charles W. Moore, Jr., USN; and Lt Gen Edward Hanlon, Jr., USMC. 2003. “Sea Power 21 Part IV; Sea Basing: Operational Independence for a New Century,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 129, No. 1, p. 80.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Surface Warfare

Under Sea Warfare

Theater Air and Missile Defense

Global ship tracking/ maritime moving target indication.

Cruise missile detection/ cueing.

Wake detection.

Adversary port monitoring.

Wake detection.

All-weather, continuous overhead exo- and endo-atmospheric cruise and ballistic missile sensing needed.

Airborne moving target indication desired.

Tactical decision aids.

Weather-prediction-enabled maneuver.

Subsurface acoustic prediction.

Undersea weather.

Bathymetry.

Littoral currents/tides.

Weather-cueing ISR for continuous monitoring.

All-weather, continuous ability to detect missile launches.

All-weather, continuous ability to detect missile launches.

Missions entirely overlap.

Mission coordination.

BLOS communications.

Mission coordination.

BLOS communications.

Read-out of deployed antisubmarine warfare sensor nets.

BLOS sensor cueing and netting to enable BLOS threat missile interception.

Precision target location.

GPS-guided munitions.

Precision target location.

GPS-guided munitions.

Unmanned underwater vehicle navigation enabled by GPS.

Precision target location.

Tactical space sensor launch enabled.

 

Protection against threat of first strike against space assets.

Conceptually, light combat forces would be inserted inland and their logistics requirements would be sustained by versatile air- or sea-lift delivery. Major firepower support would come from sea-launched missiles and sea-based strike aircraft. Logistic support would require the availability of large surface ships with selective off-load capabilities that could respond rapidly to the logistics needs of engaged forces. Although the design of such a new class of logistics ships has not been decided upon, preliminary studies indicate that large (100,000 to 600,000 ton displacement) vessels could be required. These vessels would need to be capable of being off-loaded using both heavy-lift lighterage and heavy-

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

lift aircraft. The concept of sea basing is dependent on an ability to assure the survivability of the logistics base at sea and logistics forces in transit, as well as being dependent on the system response time to the needs of engaged combat elements for both logistical and fire support.

The Sea Basing concept presents a major resource management challenge: complex air and surface logistics must be managed, threats to personnel and supplies in transit between the sea base and the engaged ground combat forces must be countered or avoided, resupply of the sea base from commercial shipping must be provided for, and containerized loads must be identified and located. To structure these needs, the Sea Basing concept is built around 13 specific capabilities in the following areas: deploy and employ, provide integrated joint logistics, and pre-position joint assets afloat (as listed in Table 2.5). Note that Sea Basing implies not only the provision of logistics support at sea and inland, but it also encompasses the support of sea-based joint command and control, thus enabling a truly sea-based Joint Forces Command Center. The resulting space mission area needs and capabilities for enabling Sea Basing are listed in Table 2.6.

Sea Basing’s METOC needs include provision of the weather and oceanographic predictions necessary to enable optimum track ship routing (OTSR) modeling services as well as provision of the environmental information to enable management of the lighterage component of the delivery system. Management of this component requires predictions to enable ship-to-ship cargo transfer and littoral oceanography to enable ship-to-shore cargo transfer without access to developed ports.

Of the Sea Basing concept’s space-dependent needs, the one that places perhaps the most stress on current space technology is the proposed establish-

TABLE 2.5 Sea Basing Capabilities and Capability Areas

Deploy and Employ

Provide Integrated Joint Logistics

Pre-Position Joint Assets Afloat

Close the force and maintain mobility.

Provide at-sea arrival and assembly.

Allow selective offload.

Reconstitute and regenerate at sea.

Provide sustainment for operations at sea.

Provide sustainment for operations ashore.

Provide focused logistics.

Provide shipboard and mobile maintenance.

Provide force medical services.

Provide advanced base support.

Integrate and support joint personnel and equipment.

Provide afloat command and control physical infrastructure.

Provide afloat forward staging base capability for joint operations.

SOURCE: RADM K.J. Cosgriff, USN, Director, Warfare Integration and Assessment, “Future Force Development,” slide 10, presentation to the Naval Studies Board, Washington, D.C., November 12, 2003.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

ment of a forward-deployed, sea-based joint forces command center. The need is to provide the networking connectivity and communications bandwidth necessary to duplicate the capabilities of a land-based joint forces command center. On the sea base, large-scale planning will require access to large, worldwide databases, and (since most data are collected off the sea base) rapid, agile planning on the sea base will require very wide bandwidth communications to collect and assess planning information, to implement high-quality video conferencing, and to access near-real-time sensor information. An additional constraint on bandwidth is due to the DOD’s current information dissemination concept of tasking, posting, processing, and using (TPPU), under which all raw sensor data are made available for all potential users.

All of these requirements bespeak a communications capability similar to that of a major base command. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, estimates of peak communications needed to support operations of the joint forces were over 750 Mb/s.17 Since communications will often be at BLOS ranges, the requirements of bandwidth and connectivity dictate that the backbone of the needed communications links be space-based. Current Navy capabilities for space-derived communications are approximately 8 Mb/s to large-deck ships, with plans to increase this to approximately 25 Mb/s by 2009.18 Owing to the ongoing explosive growth in space communications needs, such bandwidth plans seem at odds with the communications needs to enable Sea Basing.

FORCEnet

FORCEnet is essentially the networked communications and information collection, fusion, and processing capability required to implement the command, control, and communications functions of Sea Power 21. Although the total FORCEnet architecture has not been established, its desirable attributes and capabilities are generally understood and accepted by the Naval Services. FORCEnet focuses on the gathering, processing, transportation, and presentation of information in support of the entire scope of the Sea Power 21 vision, serving as an integrator and enabler for the three pillars Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing. FORCEnet relies on and builds from larger DOD initiatives, especially the Global Information Grid (GIG) and Transformational Communications (TC) concepts that implement information transmission worldwide. The DOD envisions that data from national archival sources, command messages, responses to

17  

Lt Gen T. Michael Moseley, USAF, Commander, Central Air Forces. 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom—By the Numbers, Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., April 30, p. 12.

18  

CAPT John Yurchak, USN, Naval Network Warfare Command. 2003. “C5I [command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, and intelligence] Day—Progress Report Fleet Satellite Network Communications,” presentation to ADM Robert J. Natter, USN, Commander, Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk, Va., March 31.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.6 Space Capabilities, Derived from Space Mission Areas, Needed to Enable Sea Basing Capability Areas

Space Mission Areas

Sea Basing Areas

Deploy and Employ

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Responsive persistent ISR (imagery and signals) of static and moving targets.

Global ship tracking, monitoring, and identification.

Sea base threat determination.

Meteorology and Oceanography

Continuous tactical weather prediction.

Acoustic/thermal modeling of the littorals.

Ocean routing.

Weather prediction to enable at-sea cargo transfer.

Theater and Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD)

Defend against missile threats.

Standard Missile (SM)-2 guidance at beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) range.

Ability to defend sea base against theater and ballistic missile attack.

Overland cruise missile defense mission needs airborne moving target indication.

Communications

All information must be transferred, often at BLOS ranges.

Sensor-analysis-decisions-shooter-weapon links.

Connectivity and coordination.

Position, Navigation, and Timing

Global Positioning System (GPS) location information.

GPS timing enables communications coordination.

GPS-enabled navigation.

Space Control

Ensure access to national space assets and provide protection from detection by hostile assets.

Protection of forces against observation by hostile ISR.

queries, and space-based or unattended ground sensors will all traverse the GIG. FORCEnet will also provide the communications infrastructure, network protection, and information assurance functions internal to the naval network, as well as an integrated common operational and tactical database accessible Navy-wide.

The FORCEnet concept demands far more than the construction of a modern communications system. FORCEnet is intended to be a network that allows the following:

  • Reach-back by forward-deployed or engaged forces to archival information relative to targeting and adversarial capabilities;

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Provide Integrated Joint Logistics

Pre-position Joint Assets Afloat

Global ship tracking, monitoring, and identification.

ISR needs for the sea-based joint command-and-control headquarters.

Ocean routing/logistics scheduling.

Weather prediction to enable at-sea cargo transfer.

Meteorology and oceanography needs for the sea-based joint command-and-control headquarters.

 

TBMD needs for the sea-based joint command-and-control headquarters.

Connectivity and coordination.

Logistics tasking, scheduling, and coordination.

Full communications capabilities of a joint command-and-control center afloat.

GPS-enabled navigation.

GPS-enabled navigation.

 

Protection of forces against observation by hostile ISR.

  • Seamless and timely dissemination of newly derived ISR information to engaged forces;

  • Support of a common operational picture that provides both forward and rear command echelons with common, accurate situational awareness;

  • Blue force tracking (the ability to continually identify, locate, and track friendly forces); and

  • Self-synchronized logistic support of engaged units in response to the automatic tracking of weapons, food and fuel, platforms, and personnel.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Force projection and defense from forward-deployed naval platforms depend on the efficient networking of naval, national, and force nodes involved in all aspects of information production, command responsibility, and control authority through communications and computing power to meet Navy objectives. Accordingly, FORCEnet is built on 19 specific capabilities in three critical areas: communications and data networks; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and common operational and tactical picture (COTP). These capabilities are listed in Table 2.7.

As discussed in the preceding subsections on Sea Strike and Sea Shield, most strike and defensive actions will use information from multiple ISR sources to engage targets and threats, with a goal of having the actual source of any individual information element transparent to the warfighter. As the mission of the Navy grows in the 21st century and as the theater of importance expands to global dimensions, the importance of ISR information derived from NSS assets will necessarily grow. In particular, the timeliness, relevance, quality, and quantity of information will continue to determine the outcomes of naval missions. This means that the need for technology associated with space will grow, and the technology associated with the processing, exploitation, and fusion of NSS-derived data to produce intelligence will continue to increase in importance. Table 2.8 lists the general space capabilities that will be needed to enable the FORCEnet capability areas.

TABLE 2.7 FORCEnet Capabilities and Capability Areas

Communications and Data Networks

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

Common Operational and Tactical Picture

Provide communications infrastructure.

Provide network protection.

Provide network synchronization.

Provide information transfer.

Conduct sensor management and information processing.

Detect and identify targets: Fixed land targets, Moving land targets, Air and missile targets, Surface targets, Submarine targets, Mines.

Provide cueing and targeting information.

Assess engagement results.

Provide mission planning.

Provide battle management synchronization.

Provide common position, navigation, and timing and environmental information.

Integrate and distribute sensor information.

Track and facilitate engagement of time-sensitive targets.

Track and facilitate engagement of non-time-sensitive targets.

SOURCE: RADM K.J. Cosgriff, USN, Director, Warfare Integration and Assessment, “Future Force Development,” slide 11, presentation to the Naval Studies Board, Washington, D.C., November 12, 2003.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

The dependence of FORCEnet on space-based communications is implicit in the FORCEnet capabilities discussed here. FORCEnet has not developed, as far as the committee can discern, a systems-engineered view of the connectivity and capability required from space-based communications systems. This is a major shortcoming that needs to be addressed so that the Navy can define and defend its requirements to the executive agents, plan and allocate resources, and articulate S&T needs.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) recently established the TPPU information dissemination concept referred to above—that is, prior to its processing and analysis by the DOD or intelligence communities, all information is to be posted and available for all potential users.19 This concept has an unintended potential to greatly increase communications bandwidth demands. Under the TPPU concept, it is envisioned that large numbers of users will be accessing relatively large, unprocessed data sets directly collected from sensors, rather than relying on reach-back analysis capabilities that would prepare, digest, and forward relevant condensed information. For example, the large amounts of data that the F-18 E/F mounted tactical airborne reconnaissance pod system collects under TPPU will be posted for all potential users to access. The many possible ways to handle these vast amounts of data (e.g., shipboard server storage, terrestrial data warehousing, and so on) all involve very high bandwidth space-based communications between maritime warfighting platforms and storage locations. So, worldwide wide-bandwidth, high-availability space-based communications are essential for implementation of the TPPU concept.

Unfortunately, many moving naval platforms do not have the full communications capability to receive and transmit all of the data required for an implementation of the FORCEnet concept. Considerable effort has been and will continue to be invested in the development of systems that ultimately will allow all naval mobile platforms to be full participants in the naval force network. Additionally, future naval platforms are being designed to be ever more critically dependent on network connectivity and off-board sensors. In fact, recently the concepts of operations underlying the Navy’s planned littoral combat ship (LCS)—a small striking and support ship to enable operations in the world’s littorals—was described as “the first ship built from the keel up to operate as an element of the highly networked naval force envisioned under FORCEnet. This will allow the design of a core LCS vessel carrying only the most essential onboard sensors for self-protection and mission accomplishment.”20

While the backbone communications system that will support FORCEnet has not been defined, there is a high probability that ultimately the laser-linked

19  

For more information on TPPU, see <http://ges.dod.mil/about/tppu.htm>. Accessed May 13, 2004.

20  

RADM H.G. Ulrich III, USN; and RADM Mark J. Edwards, USN. 2003. “The Next Revolution at Sea,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 129, No. 10, p. 67.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

TABLE 2.8 Space Capabilities, Derived from Space Mission Areas, Needed to Enable FORCEnet Capability Areas

Space Mission Areas

FORCEnet Areas

Communications and Data Networks

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Responsive persistent ISR (imagery and signals) of static and moving targets.

 

Meteorology and Oceanography

Continuous tactical weather prediction.

Acoustic/thermal modeling of the littorals.

Local weather determines communications availability and potential bandwidth.

Theater and Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD)

Defend against missile threats.

Standard Missile (SM)-2 guidance at beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) range.

 

Communications

All information must be transferred, often at BLOS ranges.

Sensor-analysis-decisions-shooter-weapon links.

Space-based communications provide most current BLOS links.

Position, Navigation, and Timing

Global Positioning System (GPS) information.

GPS timing enables communications coordination.

Timing enables communications and network location coordination.

Space Control

Ensure access to national space assets and provide protection from detection by hostile assets.

Space control protects forces against loss of communications capabilities.

Tactical communications satellite launch to fill immediate needs.

GIG envisaged in the proposed Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA) will be employed. In brief, the GIG will employ a number of geosynchronous satellites that are capable of satellite-to-satellite and satellite-to-ground communications over wide-bandwidth laser links. Such links, however, have been found difficult to connect directly to naval vessels owing to rapid, unpredictable ship motions and the general maritime environment. One proposed solution is for each battlegroup to be linked by high-bandwidth, line-of-sight radio frequency communications to a high-altitude UAV that is then laser-linked to the TC satel-

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Common Operational and Tactical Picture (COTP)

Space-based ISR is a major component of total ISR.

ISR provides imagery and intelligence for generation of COTP.

Weather cueing needed to schedule ISR assets.

METOC data are a component of total ISR.

Weather prediction must be part of COTP.

Common environmental information.

TBMD sensor data are a component of total ISR.

Provision of missile threats to the COTP.

Overland cruise missile defense mission needs airborne moving target indication.

ISR information must be communicated.

BLOS communications enable reach-back analysis and support.

COTP is built from coordinated data sets and must be distributed to be useful.

Many ISR resources derive location data from GPS.

GPS-derived location of all blue and red forces must insert into COTP.

Space control protects forces against loss of ISR capabilities.

Tactical ISR satellite launch to fill immediate needs.

Space control enables limitation of adversary space-derived ISR information.

lites. During the ongoing development of the GIG, TCA, and FORCEnet, all such proposals need to be clearly articulated and addressed.

One of the key parameters of any tactical-information communications system architecture is latency. ISR systems in general lump together three products of space-based sensors (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and do not include requirements needed to support time-sensitive target tracking. The desired latency of deriving ISR data may vary from milliseconds for theater ballistic missile warnings to months for the identification of potential hostile

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

weapons production facilities. Thus, FORCEnet and its associated space links will need to enable the most stressing latencies that can be accommodated.

As discussed in the subsection above on Sea Basing, FORCEnet will also need to enable the provision of the communications, ISR, METOC, and TBMD capabilities necessary for a sea-based joint forces command center. This need presents a major shortfall in the scale of the bandwidth that the Navy can support, and the gap between ability and bandwidth needs will tend to increase as new systems, products, and capabilities become deployed.

Sea Power 21: Capability Dependence on Space Mission Areas

As with other components of the DOD, naval forces are now highly dependent on support from space for a broad range of military functions. In fact, one of the most significant findings of this committee is that the Navy’s broad vision of future naval warfare operations, as expressed in Sea Power 21, cannot be executed without extensive and continuous support from space-based systems.

Many broad areas of commonality exist among the Services’ increasing reliance on support from space. However, naval forces also have some very unique requirements. These are generally driven by the mobility of naval forces across broad ocean areas, their need for accurate marine environmental data, the nature of littoral military operations, and the limited antenna configurations suitable for installation on naval ships and craft. The unique requirements of naval forces are discussed throughout Chapter 4 of this report, but they can be usefully summarized as follows:

  • Broad ocean and littoral surveillance of potentially hostile aircraft, missiles, and ships;

  • Secure, reliable data and voice communications to and from rolling, pitching, heaving, and turning ships;

  • Detailed temporal and real-time measurements of maritime environmental conditions, including littoral land areas; and

  • Maritime navigation aids.

Based on the threats described above and on the ensuing Navy organization around the four Sea Power 21 components, the committee provides, in Figure 2.1, a summary assessment of Sea Power 21 capabilities mapped against the NSS space mission areas. While every one of the Sea Power 21 pillars has multiple critical dependencies on space assets, the overwhelming reliance of FORCEnet on space-based capabilities reinforces the need for sustained and effective Department of the Navy participation in the NSS community. Each of these space mission areas is currently undergoing transformation in the form of new systems or major block upgrades. The Department of the Navy does not appear to recognize or take advantage of the opportunities presented by this transformation or by

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

FIGURE 2.1 Dependency of Sea Power 21 on National Security Space mission areas. (A list of acronyms is provided in Appendix G.) NOTE: A “critical” dependency reflects a space mission area that is considered absolutely necessary for accomplishment of the particular Sea Power 21 capability. For example, without access to space-based ISR information the Navy could not generate the Common Operational and Tactical Picture needed to support FORCEnet; thus the block linking these two areas is denoted critical. A “contributory” dependency reflects a space mission area that will provide support for accomplishing the particular Sea Power 21 capability.

the establishment of the DOD Executive Agent for Space. Thus, the Navy does not appear to be defining and integrating the unique and pervasive capabilities of NSS architectures and systems to generate the critical components of Sea Power 21.

SPACE POLICY

Since the current Department of the Navy space policy was established in 1993,21 significant changes have occurred in both the national security environ-

21  

John H. Dalton, Secretary of the Navy. 1993. SECNAV Instruction 5400.39B, “Department of the Navy Space Policy,” Washington, D.C., August 26.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

ment and the DOD’s posture toward the development, support, and operation of space-reliant technologies. In particular, the recently established homeland defense mission tasks the Navy (in concert with the U.S. Northern Command, the Coast Guard, and other federal agencies) with protecting the maritime approaches to the United States.22 The Navy’s specific roles and responsibilities in support of this mission remain undefined, warranting clarification, but they will likely entail reliance on the development of new space capabilities, such as near-continuous, open-ocean surveillance of all surface craft. In addition, the Department of the Navy need only review the lessons learned from the Desert Storm experience in comparison with those arising from Operation Iraqi Freedom to be reminded of the ever more critical role that space systems are assuming in the successful prosecution of U.S. combat operations. Space is also unique for its ability to enhance everyday lives with services such as communications, GPS, and weather support. Given this growing importance of and dependence on space—for military and civil, peacetime and wartime purposes—the lack of an updated Department of the Navy space policy leads to a potential dilution of effort, resulting from a lack of naval focus on space as a needed participant in future warfighting.

The DOD, on the other hand, has made several recent changes in its approach to the support and development of space mission areas. One such change was the promulgation in 1999 of a DOD space policy, which states, “The primary DOD goal for space and space-related activities is to provide operational space force capabilities to ensure that the United States has the space power to achieve its national security objectives.”23 More importantly, in 2003 the Secretary of Defense promulgated DOD Directive 5101.2,24 reorganizing the oversight of NSS mission areas through the creation of a single oversight director—the DOD Executive Agent for Space, who is also the Under Secretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office. This allocation of NSS activities to the DOD Executive Agent for Space (and thus to the Air Force) has led many in the Navy to indicate to this committee their concern that the Air Force will not adequately protect and support the development of critical naval space needs and requirements.

In addition, through DOD Directive 5101.2, the Secretary of Defense has directed the Department of the Navy to fulfill a series of specific policy, resource, and support activities to assist the DOD Executive Agent for Space in developing naval space capabilities. The duty to draft recommendations for the Navy in

22  

ADM Vern Clark, USN, Chief of Naval Operations. 2004. “CNO Guidance for 2004,” Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., February.

23  

Department of Defense. 1999. DOD Directive 3100.10, “Space Policy,” William Cohen, Secretary of Defense, July 9, p. 6.

24  

Department of Defense. 2003. DOD Directive 5101.2, “DOD Executive Agent for Space,” Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, June 3. The complete text of this directive is presented in Appendix B of this report.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×

support of this directive has been assigned to the Under Secretary of the Navy, a position that was vacant before the promulgation of the directive.25 In the intervening time, the Navy has forwarded no documents or policy statements to the DOD Executive Agent for Space detailing how the Department of the Navy will act to support the DOD Executive Agent for Space.


Recommendation 2.1. The Secretary of the Navy should task the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to formulate and take steps to establish a new Department of the Navy space policy.

This space policy should provide a framework for Department of the Navy participation in the planning, programming, and acquisition activities of the Department of Defense Executive Agent for Space, to include definition of the Navy Department’s relationship to National Security Space activities. A primary objective of the Department of the Navy space policy should be to focus attention on space mission areas critical to the successful implementation of Naval Power 21 as well as on other national maritime responsibilities such as homeland defense.

25  

A new Under Secretary of the Navy was nominated on February 6, 2004, and confirmed on October 8, 2004, while this report was undergoing classification review.

Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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×
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×
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×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
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×
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×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Strategic Framework: Future Operational Concepts and Space Needs." National Research Council. 2005. Navy's Needs in Space for Providing Future Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11299.
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The United States must operate successfully in space to help assure its security and economic well being. The Department of the Navy is a major user of space capabilities, although those capabilities are now primarily provided by DOD, the Air Force, and NOAA. Following a DOD assessment of national space security management in 2001, the Navy commissioned a Panel to Review Space to assess Navy space policy and strategy. As an extension of that review, the NRC was requested by the Navy to examine its needs in space for providing future operational and technical capabilities. This report presents a discussion of the strategic framework of future space needs, the roles and responsibilities for meeting those needs, an assessment of Navy support to space mission areas, and a proposed vision for fulfilling Naval forces space needs.

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