Space Force chief says commercial satellites may need defending

Just like the US Navy has lengthy protected sea lanes throughout battle, the navy might be known as upon to defend business satellites from assault, significantly because the Pentagon depends extra on business networks for communication and surveillance, the House Power’s high common mentioned final week.

In feedback at a convention in Hawaii on September 20, Gen. Likelihood Saltzman echoed many statements made by navy leaders over the previous few years: US navy area capabilities are below risk from China and Russia, navy leaders want extra details about what different nations are doing in area, and business satellites are enjoying an ever-larger function within the navy’s area applications.

However Saltzman went slightly additional in his feedback when requested in regards to the navy’s function in defending business satellites from an assault. The questioner particularly requested how the US navy would possibly reply if Russia attacked SpaceX’s Starlink broadband community, which Ukraine extensively makes use of for Web connectivity in its warfare with Russia, regardless of Elon Musk’s refusal to permit Ukraine to make use of Starlink companies on sure navy operations.

A legitimate navy goal?

Saltzman did not straight deal with the state of affairs posed within the query, however he clearly urged the US navy has a duty to defend business property in area.

In a contemporary warfare, “there are going to be business entities, business organizations, business capabilities and property that get caught up within the conflicts,” Saltzman mentioned. “House is not any totally different than sea lanes. It’s no totally different than civilian airliner visitors in Europe proper now. The US has a protracted historical past of claiming we’re going to guard the issues that we must be profitable. So it will stand to purpose that that very same philosophy would lengthen into area, and I’ve no purpose to consider that that will likely be totally different.”

A hypothetical navy operation to defend a business satellite tv for pc from an adversary’s assault would possible undergo US House Command, a separate entity from the House Power, which is charged with equipping and outfitting the navy’s combatant instructions with the individuals and expertise to hold out their missions.

House Command is at present led by US Military Gen. James Dickinson. In July, Dickinson principally punted on an identical query about defending business satellites from a overseas assault.

“I do have a mission space defending and defending, and that is extensively recognized, property on orbit,” he replied. “However to be sincere with you, these should be directed to me by, you already know, my boss, and my boss’s boss, finally if that had been to occur.”

Saltzman mentioned final week that it will be as much as Dickinson’s command, and in the end civilian management, to set the priorities on what business capabilities to defend from assault.

“The important thing will likely be how a lot capability do it’s a must to defend, and what are the issues that you just select to defend on the highest prioritization,” Saltzman mentioned.

Final October, a deputy director in Russia’s overseas ministry, Konstantin Vorontsov, mentioned using Western business satellites by Ukraine established “an especially harmful pattern.” Whereas Vorontsov didn’t particularly title any satellites, he nearly definitely was referring to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc constellation, which has been utilized by Ukrainian troopers for communications and for monitoring Russian troop and tank actions.

The usage of civilian satellites for wartime functions, Vorontsov mentioned, basically made them navy targets. This was additionally the conclusion of Tara Brown, an officer within the Royal Air Power and a professor on the US Naval Battle Faculty who focuses on area regulation.