The State of the Space Force 2024
The young service is focusing on contested space—even as its budgets return to Earth.
AUDREY DECKER | APRIL 8, 2024
SPACE FORCE
Reports that Russia might be developing a nuclear space weapon underscore what Pentagon officials have been saying for a few years now: space is no longer an uncontested domain. That’s why the Space Force is shifting its focus to a “warfighting posture” and spending money on programs to help fend off attacks in space—even in a year when the young service’s rising budgets are being brought down to Earth.
“There is no doubt there are weapons on orbit that are designed to take away U.S. space capabilities. That's why the Space Force is so focused on getting optimized for that kind of contested domain, giving our operators the tactics, the training, the reps and sets, I like to say, to practice their tradecraft, because we know that our adversaries are going to have those kinds of capabilities to deny us space,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told Defense One in March during its annual State of Defense event series.
Saltzman said it’s not surprising that Russia is developing an anti-satellite capability because Moscow, like Beijing, has been investing heavily in recent years to put weapons on orbit. China is also reportedly building out its own “Starlink-like” capability in space, and wants to put thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit to rival U.S. proliferation.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/04/state-space-force-2024/395563/
