National Security
Space Defense
and Protection

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Public Report

Committee on National Security Space Defense and Protection

Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences

A Report of

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Washington, DC

www.nap.edu

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001

This activity was supported by Contract 2014-14041100003-0004 between the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the view of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-44748-5
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-44748-8
Digital Object Identifier: 10.17226/23594

Copyright 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. National Security Space Defense and Protection: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/23594.

COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE DEFENSE AND PROTECTION

JAMES O. ELLIS, JR., U.S. Navy (retired), Stanford University, Co-Chair

MARTIN C. FAGA, MITRE Corporation (retired), Co-Chair

ALLISON ASTORINO-COURTOIS, National Security Innovations, Inc.

OWEN C. BROWN, SAIC

VINCENT W.S. CHAN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MICHAEL D. GRIFFIN, Schafer Corporation

RAYMOND JEANLOZ, University of California at Berkeley

DAVID A. KOPLOW, Georgetown University

L. ROGER MASON, JR., Noblis

JOHN A. MONTGOMERY, Naval Research Laboratory

SCOTT PACE, George Washington University

THOMAS E. ROMESSER, Independent Consultant

WILLIAM L. SHELTON, U.S. Air Force (retired)

BOB THOMSON, Independent Consultant

DAVID M. VAN WIE, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

DEBORAH L. WESTPHAL, Toffler Associates

Staff

JOAN FULLER, Board Director

ALAN H. SHAW, Deputy Board Director

CARTER W. FORD, Study Director

DIXIE GORDON, Information Officer

MARGUERITE E. SCHNEIDER, Administrative Coordinator

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Preface

As part of the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to contract with the National Research Council (NRC) to undertake a study on U.S. national security space defense and protection.¹ Somewhat at the same time, ODNI and OSD undertook a series of related initiatives, including the Space Strategic Portfolio Review (SPR), the congressionally directed Space Protection Strategy (SPS), and the Space Security and Defense Program (SSDP). In January 2015, the NRC approved the study terms of reference (TOR) and appointed a committee of experts to do the following:²

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¹ For more information, see P.L. 113-66, December 26, 2013. Available at https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/pub166/PLAW-113pub166.pdf. Accessed June 8, 2015.

²Appendix A provides biographies of the committee members. The committee includes experts with experience in academia, government, and industry, combined with many years in U.S. combatant commands and major commands, intelligence community, space law, spacecraft survivability, systems engineering, system architecting, space operations, space acquisition, cyberdefense, strategic deterrence, and high-altitude electromagnetic pulse.

³ “System” is defined for purposes of this report as “a functionality, physically, and/or behaviorally related group of regularly interacting or interdependent elements; that group of elements forming a unified whole.” “Space systems,” in turn, are defined as “all of the devices and organizations forming the space network.”

2. Assess potential strategies and plans to counter such threats, including resilience, reconstitution, disaggregation, and other appropriate concepts.
3. Assess existing and planned architectures, warfighter requirements, technology development, systems, workforce, or other factors related to addressing such threats.
4. Recommend architectures, capabilities, and courses of action to address such threats and actions to address affordability, technology risk, and other potential barriers or limiting factors in implementing such courses of action.

STUDY METHODOLOGY AND CAVEATS

The committee held eight meetings, beginning in February 2015 and ending in October 2015, to collect information and draft findings and recommendations.⁴ With the understanding of Congress, OSD, and ODNI, the authoring committee produced two stand-alone classified reports to address the TOR and delivered them to the sponsors in August 2015 and December 2015, respectively. Collectively, the committee provided 30 findings and 18 recommendations to the sponsors. The requirement to report initial findings and recommendations to key stakeholders no later than August 15, 2015, essentially divided this study into two overlapping phases: phase one, February-August 2015, which addressed TOR items 1 and 2; and phase two, July-December 2015, which addresses TOR items 3 and 4. Report 2 contained analysis, findings, and recommendations that complemented those found in Report 1. The committee was granted rich access to documents and officials involved with intelligence collection, policy and planning, strategy, budgetary processes, and organizational realignments and assignments. In addition, the committee invited industry and federally funded research and development centers to participate at a 1-day session in April 2015, in conjunction with its third full committee meeting.

Importantly, no independent modeling or analysis was completed by the committee; rather, the information gathered from interviews, documents, and briefings, together with the expertise and experience of committee members, served as the bases for the committee’s work. This unclassified summary, while admittedly brief due to government classification requirements, reflects the unclassified content of both classified reports. This unclassified summary is primarily a policy discussion. The reasons behind this focus are twofold. First, the system technologies themselves, the overall system architectures, and the operational aspects to their employment are predominantly classified at very high levels. Second, the committee observes that, as the summary states, there are major national policy issues that need to be addressed in order for the nation to formulate a wise and coherent approach to space defense and protection. On a macro level, two primary themes emerged from

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⁴Appendix B provides a listing of invited speakers for both phases of the study.

this study regarding potential solutions to the threats facing U.S. space assets. First, the state of organization and coordination among various government activities is evolving and necessarily so. Second, there is an urgent need to create relevant national policies to guide the creation of responses to these threats; this includes educating the public so that it can understand and participate in potential solutions in whatever capacity makes sense.

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

Chapter 1 provides an overall context for the report and explains how space is no longer a domain exclusively for national security. It discusses commercial trends at a high level that will help shape the future in space. Chapter 2 then describes measures for preserving national security space-enabled capabilities, including system protection measures, deterrence, and potential international avenues, such as regimes.

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Acknowledgment of Reviewers

This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Rita R. Colwell, Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland,

Gurudas Ganguli, Naval Research Laboratory,

Anita K. Jones, University of Virginia,

Paul G. Kaminski, Technovation, Inc.,

Donald A. Lewis, The Aerospace Corporation,

Lester L. Lyles, U.S. Air Force (retired),

Grant Stokes, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and

Peter J. Weinberger, Google, Inc.

Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by John Stenbit, U.S. Department of Defense

(retired), who was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

Contents

SUMMARY

1 CONTEXT FOR STUDY

Introduction

Space-Enabled Capabilities Are Increasingly Shared

The Accessibility of Space

Domestic and International Consumer Markets

Government and Commercial Sectors

Consumer Demands Help Drive Innovation in Space

The Vitality of Space

National Security Uses of Space

Low Earth Orbits and Functions

Medium Earth Orbits and Functions

Geosynchronous Earth Orbits and Functions

Highly Elliptical Orbits and Functions

Final Thoughts

2 SELECTED ISSUES RELATED TO NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE DEFENSE AND PROTECTION

Introduction

The Characterization of Space in National Discourse

The Role of Space in National Security

Space Services: Classifying What Is at Stake

Threats to Space Systems and Services

Defending and Protecting National Security Space Assets: Space Defense Triad

System Protection Measures

Deterrence Measures

Credibility of a Deterrent Threat

Capability of Responding

Communicating Deterrence Messages

Coalition Formation and International Regimes

Final Thoughts

APPENDIXES

A Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

B Meetings and Speakers

Acronyms