Spacelift: The Achilles' Heel of American Spacepower
Abstract
During Desert Storm, U.S. forces relied heavily on space-based assets to defeat an enemy. For the first time, space assets played a key role, and America has since grown even more dependent on these capabilities. Warfighting Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) now routinely plan exercises and employ forces under the assumption that they will have unimpeded access to navigation and communications satellites as well as meteorological and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. But if one or more of these fragile capabilities are diminished as the result of enemy action, or simply because of natural phenomenon, how quickly can we replace the neutralized satellites? The answer is not comforting, and revolves around the limited capability of the U.S. spacelift program. Attention has been especially focused on this program during periods following major failures. In addition to the loss of life, launch failures have cost our nation billions of dollars, significantly reduced our access to space for lengthy periods, and resulted in delayed deployment of next-generation national ISR assets. While many measures taken after these disasters were effective in getting America back in space, much work remains. Our launch programs must become more responsive to the warfighting CINC. It simply takes too long to get a working satellite ready for operations. Secondly, the government needs to work more efficiently with industry. National security depends on the ability of American launch service providers to compete well with thriving foreign counterparts. Finally, U.S. launch programs must become robust and less reliant on single-points of failure.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 04, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA401126
Entities
Organizations
- Naval War College