US Space Force unveils SATCOM vision

The United States Space Force has released the United States Space Force Vision for Satellite Communications (SATCOM). Here is an excerpt from the document:

Our ability to deliver global satellite communications (SATCOM) is unprecedented, and the joint warfighter relies on this capability at all levels and across the range of military operations. SATCOM provides survivable communications for Presidential support and nuclear command and control, and affords national and military leaders a means to maintain strategic situational awareness and convey their intent to the Joint Force Commander (JFC).

SATCOM relays the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance that allow the JFC to understand the operating environment, and the command and control to shape the environment and act decisively. At the tactical level, SATCOM provides critical, beyond line-of-sight connectivity for mobile forces, enables control of remote sensors and remote or in-flight weapons, transmits real-time battlefield intelligence, and ties sensors to shooters.

Adversaries understand the advantage SATCOM brings our warfighters and are working to deny, degrade, and destroy these capabilities. Despite the global, instantaneous reach of our SATCOM capabilities, which includes both military (MILSATCOM) and commercial (COMSATCOM) capabilities, the enterprise needs to improve its resiliency, robustness, flexibility, and manageability.

In order for the United States to maintain its asymmetric advantage of global space-based communications, the SATCOM enterprise must evolve quickly. We must prepare now to fight SATCOM as a single enterprise through a contested, degraded and operationally-limited (CDO) environment, prevent or withstand loss, and continue to deliver effects to warfighters. United States Space Force (USSF) refers to this operational vision of the future as “Fighting SATCOM.”

Read the full vision paper.

Source: U.S. Space Force