WASHINGTON: The US lacks both the technology and the organizational coherence to ensure enough intelligence — and the right kind of intelligence — on space threats is being provided to military commanders, Intelligence Community officials say.

“I have to be able to see and metaphorically hear everything that’s going on between 100 kilometers off the face of the planet to wherever we are, and right now we can’t do that,” said Sean Kirkpatrick, who represents the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) at Space Command’s Joint Task Force-Space Defense (JTF-SD).

Reiterating the long list of counter-space capabilities being pursued by Russia and China, Kirkpatrick told the AFCEA Intelligence Partnering for Space Power in 2021 virtual conference yesterday that he is “worried about anything I can’t see, hear, touch or attribute.:

For example, he said, rather than ground-based anti-satellite missiles — which are easily detected and tracked — cyber and directed energy threats are the most concerning because they are difficult to detect in advance and attribute.

“While our adversaries have rapidly advanced a great spectrum of threats … that are intended to defeat US space capabilities, we’re only beginning to get our act together,” said Jeff Gossel, senior intelligence engineer at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). NASIC provides DoD with intel about potentially threatening adversary scientific and technical advances. The “good news,” he said, is “at least we understand that the complex issue of space requires more dedicated attention and action.”

But, policy and intelligence wonks say, no one should hit the panic button.

“I don’t think this is an acute cry for help,” said one long-time intelligence professional. Rather, as usual for the IC, the space intel community is saying that they “wish they had one more bit of resources, one more bit of access, to provide the people who have to take action more refined intelligence.”

Not having enough intel, or enough fidelity in that intel, “is different than not having any intelligence at all,” agreed Dean Cheng, the Heritage Foundation’s expert on the Chinese military. “For example, we have some pretty good sense from the Chinese of what they want to do in space, militarily. Establish space dominance, attack foreign space networks,” he told me today in an email.

Further, several sources noted, it is simply a truism that the intelligence community will always want more resources.

“Of course the intel guys say we need more money and capability in intelligence programs,” one long-time government insider said.

That said, there are new challenges “because the creation of the USSF signaled a change from space being a strategic area of operations to an area of strategic AND tactical operations,” the official explained. “Space is a unique challenge for tactical (aka “operational”) intelligence because space is a difficult and expensive domain to operate in.”

Space Domain Awareness

A recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) highlighted that improved space domain awareness capabilities are a necessary pre-condition to DoD’s ability to protect US space assets.

The US currently operates a network of ground-based sensors (both radar and optical telescopes) and satellites to watch on-orbit activities, known as the Space Surveillance Network. However, that network largely is based on old technology, with many of the sensors originally optimized to look for Soviet nuclear missile launches. For example, there is a dearth of sensors in the Southern Hemisphere.

The US for several years has been seeking ways to augment the network — via hosted payloads on allied and commercial satellites, as well as building new radar (such as the Space Fence) and telescopes — including basing them abroad, such as in Australia.

The Space Force also is trying to expand the tool set of sensors keeping metaphorical eyeballs on space. For example, one of the first tasks for Space Force’s fledgling Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) will be to flesh out a plan for improved intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors to keep tabs on space-based threats, Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, head of Space Force’s ISR Directorate, said.

Beyond Domain Awareness

Intelligence gathering about adversary threats goes beyond just seeing what they are doing in space, of course. It also involves understanding their scientific and technical investments — as well as talent base — being put toward counterspace technologies, for example. Operational intelligence further requires an understanding of what adversaries might intend to do with those capabilities — thus the importance of figuring out adversary military doctrine and force structures.

And in that arena, the administration official explained, there is a need for a pivot from the past focus on strategic intelligence (i.e. for the president and national security decision-makers) to more attention on the kinds of tactical information needed for commanders to run a war.

“[T]he intelligence apparatus needs to make this functional shift as well to meet: 1) the demands of their customer; and 2) the changing capabilities of the threats,” the former administration official said.

For example, Cheng said, one the biggest black holes in op-intel is China.

Operational intelligence “tells us how the Chinese would employ the DN-1 as a force,” he explained. “What is the target, in what order? What is the doctrine? For example: Look-shoot-look? Look-shoot-shoot-look? Operational intelligence tells us how many brigades of ASATs they will field. One per war zone? One per group army? Each has very different implications for the threat posed to US space assets (if these are national, war zone/theater, or group army assets).

“This is very hard to obtain,” he stressed.

Organizational Roles

Further, Gossel said, there also are organizational obstacles to getting to a comfort zone with operational space intelligence. For one thing, the IC isn’t quite clear yet about what military commanders really want.

“The Intelligence Community continues to await defined intelligence priorities from the service and, especially, from the command,” he maintained. “Without these, and in the run up to true cooperation between space operators in the intelligence community — both fully resourced to succeed, of course — we will not achieve our goals.

“The answer,” he went on, “is most assuredly not to give foundational intelligence functions to warfighting (emphasis his) organizations, nor is the opposite true.”

Gossel’s comment seems to be a subtle warning to SPACECOM and Space Force not to mix up their internal intelligence roles with those of the IC and specifically NASIC itself.

The JTF-SD, headed by Army Brig. Gen. Tom James, was stood up back in 2019 as one of the first SPACECOM subordinate commands. As part of its space superiority mission, it is in charge of coordination with the IC and of space situational awareness activities.

Specifically, the JTF-SD oversees the National Space Defense Center (NSDC) at Schriever where the Intelligence Community’s space operations are integrated with the military. The NSDC is at the heart of the new “unified defense concept of operations.”

Recently, the Space Force announced the stand up of the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC), following Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond’s announcement in December that the Space Force had become the newest, and 18th, member of the IC. The NSIC is expected to reach initial operating capability in January 2022, and is planning to move two new squadrons from NASIC to help staff up that center.

The Air Force and Space Force “are just beginning to fully address operational intelligence for space — as well, from a service perspective, dedicated resources constituting op-intel for space are only now being officially considered,” Gossel said.

“And op-intel is, of course, a distinctly different concept than  foundational scientific and technical intelligence for space — which is predominantly accomplished by NASIC,” he added. “The latter is virtually important to the former, and while there is necessary interplay between the individuals working in both fields, the two roles are absolutely different beasts.”