13 septembre 2022 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR
How the Army is tackling these six goals for future wars
Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth shared areas the Army must improve for its future combat needs.
19 juin 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
Trump orders creation of independent space force - but Congress will still have its say
Valerie Insinna and Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to sign an executive order directing the Pentagon to create a new ”Space Force,” a move that could radically transform the U.S. military by pulling space functions variously owned by the Air Force, Navy and other military branches into a single independent service.
But while the president's support for a new military branch is notable, experts -- and a powerful member of Congress -- believe Trump still needs the support of Congress to make a space force happen.
“I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” Trump said during a meeting of the National Space Council.
“That's a big statement. We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal. It is going to be something. So important,” Trump added. “General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored.”
Dunford responded in the affirmative, telling Trump, “We got you.”
According to a White House pool report, the president signed the executive order establishing the Space Force at about 12:36 p.m. EST.
However, a readout issued from the White House later that day of the executive order contained no language related to the creation of a new military branch, leaving open the question of whether Trump has actually issued formal guidance to the military.
The Air Force referred all questions to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
However, a defense official, speaking on background, said “The Joint Staff will work closely with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, other DoD stakeholders and the Congress to implement the President's guidance."
Trump's support for creating a separate branch for space is a break from his own adminsitration's stance last year, as well as that of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
“At a time when we are trying to integrate the Department's joint warfighting functions, I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations vice an integrated one we're constructing under our current approach,” Mattis wrote in a 2017 letter to members of Congress.
But in recent months, Trump has signaled he was intrigued by the idea of a stand alone space force, saying in a May 1 speech that “We're actually thinking of a sixth” military branch for space.
At the time, that statement confounded Air Force leaders who had publicly opposed the creation of a separate space service, leading them to adopt a softer tone when talking about the potential for Space Force to avoid being seen as out of step with Trump.
This time, however, Trump's announcement tracks with the Pentagon's schedule for an interim report on whether to establish an independent space corps. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in April that it was on track to be wrapped up on June 1. The final report, which would be sent to Congress, is due in August.
Trump's announcement was characteristically vague, but experts say that any new branch would have to come through an act of Congress.
“The Congress alone has the power to establish a new branch of the military and to establish the positions of senior executive officials to lead such a department,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at Georgetown University's law school who has studied constitutional issues relating to the military. “While the Pentagon can informally create study or working groups, it has no such authority.”
The president can have the military lay the groundwork for a future new branch, Turley said, which is close to what Trump seemed to be getting at.
By: Kelsey Atherton
“What the President can do is to order the study and proposal for a new branch, which would ultimately go to Congress of any authorization and appropriations,” he said.
Todd Harrison, an expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed, tweeting Monday that “The president can't just create a new military service on his own. It requires congressional authorization..”
“So the near-term practical effect of all this is that the president can direct DoD to come up with a plan and start preparing to create a Space Force, but he still needs congress to authorize it,” Harrison continued.
And while sources on Capitol Hill said they believe Trump does have the authority to establish the new military branch, and that their attention will now turn to funding and missions for the new Space Force, at least one Republican member of Congress made his stance clear.
“Establishing a service branch requires congressional action,” House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee chair Mike Turner, R-Ohio. “We still don't know what a Space Force would do, who is going to be in it, or how much is it going to cost.
“The congressionally mandated report evaluating a Space Force to answer those questions is due in August,” Turner added. “After we get the report that we required as a legislative body and the President signed off on, then this issue can be appropriately evaluated for what's best for national security.”
Congress reacts
Trump's announcement also left it unclear whether this new space force will rest under the Department of the Air Force — much like the Marine Corps is a component of the Department of the Navy — or whether a new “Department of the Space Force” will also be created.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the head of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, tweeted out his support for Trump's order. Rogers had previously proposed a separate space service as part of Congress' annual defense policy bill.
However, lawmakers and experts also immediately registered their opposition to the announcement.
Sen. Bill Nelson, (D-Fla.), the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees nonmilitary space programs, tweeted that now was not the right time to establish a separate space force.
Harrison noted that the infrastructure may already exist to smooth the creation of a space force.
“Creating a Space Force would not necessarily mean a huge increase in funding. We already have space forces within the military, this would just be reorganizing them under a single chain of command,” he tweeted. “Yes, there would be some extra overhead costs, but it doesn't have to be huge.”
But David Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and currently dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, questioned whether the administration had hammered down the details needed to successfully consolidate the military's space functions into a single service.
“This is another case of ready, fire, aim,” he said.
David Larter, Joe Gould, Tara Copp and Leo Shane III contributed to this report. This story is developing.
Sur le même sujet
-
-
7 mai 2019 | International, Naval
With billions planned in funding, the US Navy charts its unmanned future
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Navy poised to dive headlong into a future of robotic ships, the surface fleet is preparing to map out how best it can employ new unmanned sidekicks against potential adversaries Russia and China. At the Coronado, California, headquarters of the Navy's top surface warfare officer, the staff is cobbling together a plan stand up a development squadron to experiment with new technology for which the Navy has requested $2.7 billion for the next five years. “That's happening,” Vice Adm. Richard Brown, the head of naval surface forces in the Pacific, said in a recent interview. “We're going to have large [unmanned surface vessels], we're going to have medium-displacement USVs. I've got Sea Hunter running around. I've got no place to put those things. That was the impetus behind the development of the Surface Development Squadron.” The Sea Hunter is an unmanned vessel developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The surface Navy is on the precipice of launching into a very different future than the Aegis fleet of the late 1970s, the 1980s and the post-Cold War era. It's a future that eschews the ballooning costs of packing evermore sophisticated strike, air defense, counter-electronic warfare, counter-surface and counter-submarine technologies into massive manned combatants that cost billions of dollars. The Navy wants to prepare for a future where off-board aerial, surface and subsurface drones with sophisticated sensors search for, detect and engage enemy combatants, submarines and aircraft with humans in the loop who are based on manned combatants that attempt to stay undetected. The problem is the Navy doesn't know how to do that or how it would introduce those technologies into a fleet that has for the most part fought the same way since the Cold War. “We've got to figure out command and control,” Brown said. “We've got to figure out the man, train and equip aspects — there's got to be an administrative commander in charge of them, got to be a guy who equips those things, got to be a guy who oversees the training of the people who interact with and use the USVs.” That is a tall order, and Brown and his staff are relying on the Surface Development Squadron, or SURFDEVRON, to figure it out. “Let's say I have a ship going over the horizon and it has three USVs it's operating with. I've got to have a ship that's manned and trained to operate those USVs, and that ship has to be equipped with the comms architecture, and I've got to make sure the USVs are manned, trained and equipped," Brown said. “Right now I don't even know what that looks like. We are going to experiment the hell out of it in the SURFDEVRON.” The development squadron, which mirrors similar efforts in the submarine and aviation communities, will also be responsible for developing the three new stealth destroyers, which the Navy sees as highly capable platforms that can be used to develop new concepts. Alongside the Zumwalt-class destroyers, the Navy plans to place the Sea Hunter under the auspices of SURFDEVRON, Brown said. Moving fast The development squadron aims to speed up the pace of experimentation in the fleet and empower the squadron's officers to integrate new technologies into naval platforms. This is crucial to the Navy's forthcoming “distributed maritime operations” concept meant to counter rising threats, primarily from China, in the vast expanse of the western Pacific. “The surface force has been key in the [distributed maritime operations] discussion because there is an incredible amount of firepower located on our ships,” Brown said. “But once you buy into a distributed maritime operations concept, you've got to experiment, you've got to work it out. And what better place to do that than the SURFDEVRON? ... You need platforms.” Providing the squadron with ships, such as the Zumwalt, the destroyer Michael Monsoor and the Sea Hunter, will allow ideas to flourish rather than die on the vine. “Someone has an idea for this new laser, it will take you two years to get the approval process,” Brown said. “Look at the laser we are trying to put on [the amphibious transport dock] Portland: We've been talking about that since I've been in this job. It's still not on there. “[With SURFDEVRON], I think we're talking about weeks to months — it's this idea of rapid acceleration of experimentation.” Too fast? The speed at which the Navy moved on efforts for unmanned surface vessels, as reflected in this year's budget proposal, raised questions about whether the technology pursued by the Navy is mature enough to be reliable in a fight. But with prototypes such as Sea Hunter already performing complicated tasks at sea, the state of technology is less a barrier that previous thought, said Bryan Clark, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a retired submarine officer. The Navy's goals for the first large USVs are limited, Clark said, and developing the platforms makes sense. “The state of technology, especially for unmanned surface vessels, I don't think that's the issue,” he said. “The technology is mature enough to support what the Navy wants to do with these vehicles, especially the initial set of missions because they are going to be done in concert with manned platforms. So you'll have the ability to have people manage them as opposed to being independent steamers.” The way the Navy pursues USVs makes sense as well, Clark said. The service wants to buy eight large USVs, each about 2,000 tons with the ability to autonomously navigate waters. The drones would be equipped with enough space, power and cooling to host a variety of different systems. The service also plans to develop a smaller, medium-sized USV. “Is this 2,000-ton large surface vessel the right vessel?” Clark asked. “And I think given the fact that it's more or less a hull or a truck — that's how the Navy is looking at it — there's less risk of buyer's remorse to say: ‘Well, I wish I'd designed it very differently.' Because if it's a truck and it's got at least the space and weight [and] cooling you need, you can pretty much cover any [concept of operations] you might envision for it.” Another question is whether the Navy can develop a reliable communications network as a way to link to distant unmanned vessels. One benefit of distributing sensors is that detectable electronic signals are a considerable distance from the manned platform, meaning that platform has the advantage of active radars but without exposing itself to adversaries armed with signal-sniffing equipment. In a distributed construct, the drones spread out across an area while the manned ship passively receives the data at a distance. But it's a challenge to accomplish that in environments where an adversary such as China or Russia actively jams communications signals. However, it's a challenge the Navy must address, said Bob Work, the former deputy secretary of defense who championed unmanned technologies under the Obama administration. “This is like carrier aviation in the interwar period,” Work said. “This is an integration problem with systems that ultimately are going to change the way the Navy fights and considers combat power. The first thing is to get things into the fleet to test them and say: ‘How do these things work together?' ” Work said the Navy's concept of operations currently under development doesn't need to be the final word, but he added it's imperative the Navy begin experimenting. “It's very rudimentary right now — the medium-displacement surface vessels are the sensor guys, and the large surface vessels are more missile magazines. Hell, I can see all kinds of permutations, but for the first time we actually have platforms that are in the program that are being procured and will form the basis for fleet problems on human-machine surface action groups, human-machine undersea combat groups. I'm very excited about the way this is going," he said. “Are these the final ones? No, they'll change. But first the Navy had to commit to unmanned surface vehicles. People say, ‘Well, they'll never be able to talk to each other,' or that ‘under admiralty law, unmanned vessels are considered hazards to navigation.' And I'm just thinking: ‘Will you just stop?' Start thinking about how you work through those problems.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league/2019/05/06/with-billions-planned-in-funding-the-us-navy-charts-its-unmanned-future/
-
23 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Defense Innovation Unit issues contract for unmanned orbital outpost
Nathan Strout The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded Sierra Nevada Corporation a contract to build an orbital laboratory that would serve as a kind of unmanned space station, the company announced July 14. The unmanned orbital outpost will be placed in low Earth orbit to be used for experiments and demonstrations. The autonomous, free flying vehicle will be able to host payloads and support space assembly and manufacturing, microgravity experimentation, logistics, training, testing and evaluations. Under the contract, Sierra Nevada Corporation will repurpose their Shooting Star transport vehicle into a scalable, autonomous space station that can be used for experiments and demonstrations. The Shooting Star vehicle is a 16-foot attachment to the company's Dream Chaser space plane that was developed for NASA Commercial Resupply Services 2 missions. The vehicle was initially designed to provide extra payload storage and cargo disposal upon re-entry. “We're excited by the multi-mission nature of Shooting Star,” Fatih Ozmen, SNC's chief executive, said in a statement. “It was originally developed for NASA resupply missions to the International Space Station, and since then we keep identifying new capabilities and solutions it offers to a wide variety of customers.” The company's press release notes that while the initial orbital outpost will operate in LEO, future orbits could be placed in other orbits, including cislunar. “The current Shooting Star is already designed with significant capabilities for an orbital outpost and by adding only a few components we are able to meet Department of Defense needs.” added Steve Lindsey, senior vice president of strategy for SNC's space systems. “We are proud to offer our transport vehicle to DoD as a free-flying destination for experimentation and testing, expanding beyond its current payload service capabilities for Dream Chaser cargo missions.” According to the original DIU solicitation released June 2019, orbital outposts will need to be established in low Earth orbit within 24 months of the award. A DIU spokesperson told C4ISRNET at the time that the “the prototype will explore the military utility of exclusive DoD access to an unmanned orbital platform in order to perform experiments with no risk to human crew or other non-DOD payloads.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/16/defense-innovation-unit-issues-contract-for-unmanned-orbital-outpost/