Space Protection Program

Abstract

Growing dependence on space and demonstrated vulnerabilities have highlighted the need to actively plan and respond to threats against national security space effects and deliver informed options to national leaders and system acquirers. Public Law 110-181 mandated development of a DoD space protection strategy and the recent "Sense of Congress" has been that "the United States should place greater priority on the protection of national security space systems." In response to these needs, concerns and direction, the Air Force (AF) and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) formed a partnership and leveraged a combination of Department of Defense (DoD) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) resources in March 2008 to establish and execute the Space Protection Program (SPP); a joint, enduring program to develop an integrated protection approach for the nation covering all defense, intelligence, civil, commercial and allied space systems. In the absence of a SPP-specific construct or Program Element Code (PEC), the DoD portion of the SPP was budgeted and executed under existing program/mission areas in FY08-FY10. As the SPP mission matured and specific efforts were defined/directed, the activity evolved into an independent effort requiring implementation of a financial construct consistent with this evolution and emergent mission. SPP is the foundational element of the National Space Protection Strategy; unifying and integrating AF, NRO, DoD and IC activities to deliver strategic recommendations to senior leaders and inform their decisions on how best to protect our space systems and stay ahead of the threat. The SPP mission is to preserve national security space effects through an integrated strategy to articulate vulnerabilities, assess threat impacts, identify options and recommend solutions leading to comprehensive space protection capabilities. A fully-functioning SPP effort allows for the active planning, comprehensive analysis and timely delivery of products/tools to respond to threats against national security space effects and deliver informed options to national leaders and system acquirers. As designed, the SPP is to execute an integrated strategy to articulate vulnerabilities, assess threat impacts, identify options and recommend solutions leading to comprehensive space protection capabilities. Specifically, this involves identifying and initiating protection-focused architectural decisions, generating comprehensive products to identify national capabilities and interdependencies, delivering tailored decision aids to operations centers, instituting key defense initiatives to address vulnerabilities in multiple orbit regimes, integrating cyberspace into the National Infrastructure Protection Framework, and continuing specific tasks to implement the Space Protection Strategy. SPP will identify, prioritize, and develop recommendations for space protection options to preserve national space capabilities and guide future Science and Technology (S&T) research and investment focus areas. As part of this effort, SPP will conduct capability-based vulnerability and susceptibility assessments of blue architectures to identify options to enhance the survivability of the overall architectures. These assessments will deliver comprehensive technically justified set of space protection recommendations. SPP will update and maintain a capabilities and interdependencies (C&I) analysis capability for our nation by operating a C&I analysis team and continuously updating a C&I database. This capability provides senior leaders and our nation's space operational command centers with understanding of space capabilities, interdependencies, and consequence of loss in support of planning and decision making that impact the economic and physical security of the United States. In coordination with USTRATCOM and Joint Functional Component Command-Space, SPP will provide Combatant Commanders a specific C&I product capturing theater space services dependencies, reliance on those services, and the consequence of the loss of those services. This product will be tailored to highlight space service reliance in each phase of the theater OPLANS/CONPLANS and have the capability to export data for use in other tools (e.g. visualization tools). Additionally, SPP will develop and maintain a future space architecture identifying the future on-orbit space architecture for the current year through additional 12 years focusing on DoD, Intelligence Community, Civil, Commercial-leased, and Friends & Allies space systems. This effort also includes participation in wargames and exercises; ensuring that SPP C&I products and analysis are leveraged to improve strategy development at the strategic and operational levels. SPP will provide insight to senior space leaders on how their space activities shape the strategic environment, and will be directly responsible to develop and coordinate Strategic Communication strategies on space protection across DoD and IC agencies. These strategies focus on space mission areas, architectures, programs and significant space and cyber events and how it relates to the overarching space protection strategy. SPP will develop protection policy and strategy recommendations to include the development and implementation of the SECDEF and DNI approved National Space Protection Strategy for the nation. This strategy must be updated every 2 years. This program is in Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P) because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment.

Document Details

• Document Type: R2 Budgetary Justification
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2012
• Source ID: 0603830F_4_3600_PB_2012
• Change Summary Explanation: FY 2011: No significant Program changes. FY 2012: No significant program changes.
• Service Agency Name: Air Force

Entities

Organizations

• United States Air Force

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Advanced Electronics
• C4I
• Cyber

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Air Force
• Combatant Commanders
• Command Centers
• Cost Analysis
• Environment
• Infrastructure
• Intelligence Community
• Intelligence Community (United States)
• Missions
• National Security
• Physical Security
• Security
• Space Systems
• Strategic Communications
• Test And Evaluation
• United States
• Vulnerability

Readers

• Aerospace Engineering.
• Defense Acquisition Program Management
• Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.

Technology Areas

• Cyber
• Space