NAVSPACECOM / N32 Brief:
NAVAL SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER
I. NAVSPOC MISSIONS
A. Mission Statement:
"Maintain a Constant surveillance of space and provide space control support and space force enhancement support to the Combatant Commanders, their operating forces, and to other authorized DOD, government, and non-government organizations."
B. Two primary mission areas:
1. USCINCSPACE mission: Space Control
2. US Navy Mission: Force Enhancement
II. SPACE CONTROL MISSION
A. Support JTF-CM by manning and operating the Alternate Space Control Center (ASCC) and by backing up certain JTF-CM/JCCD space control staff functions.
1. Perform nearly 100% of SCC missions, as well as many of JCCD's customer support missions.
B. Space Control Mission Statement:
1. "Ensure unimpeded US and Allied access to and use of space while denying the same to an adversary."
2. Analogous to sea control and air control missions, except applied to space.
C. Three space control mission areas:
1. Surveillance
2. Protection
3. Negation (Counter-space)
III. SURVEILLANCE
A. Mission Statement:
"Detect, identify, and track all man-made objects orbiting the earth, and provide that data to authorized users and customers."
B. Command and control the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), world-wide collection of dedicated, collateral, and contributing radar, optical, and passive tracking sites
1. Dedicated sensors: Space track is primary mission
2. Collateral sensors: Space track is secondary mission
3. Contributing sensors: Under contract to perform space track (but often not their entire time).
C. ASCC processes space events:
1. Launches
2. Maneuvers
3. Break-ups
4. TIPs (decaying objects)
5. Re-entries
D. Additionally, ASCC operates the NAVSPACECOM Fence (a dedicated space track sensor).
IV. NAVSPACECOM FENCE
A. Dedicated low-earth orbit (LEO) detection sensor; does not track.
B. Unique multi-static radar interferometer sensor system consisting of three transmitters and six receivers located across the US at 33N.
1. Covers 5000 nm (15% of earth's circumference).
2. Measures frequency, time and angle of detection
3. Transmits on 216.98 MHz:
Kickapoo Lake 767 Kw
Gila River 40 Kw
Jordan Lake 40 Kw
C. Detection capabilities:
1. 0.1 m2 RCS @ 2,000 nm
2. 1.0 m2 RCS @ 10,000 nm
3. 200 m accuracy RMS
D. "Standing radar energy fence" is excellent sensor for break-ups and maneuvers.
E. Performance:
1. Detects 70% of catalog objects (100% of LEO objects with I > 33 deg).
2. Several (approx. 150) Space Surveillance Catalog objects only tracked by Fence.
3. Approx. 60K observations/day => 1.7M/month
12K triangulated obs/day => 360K/month
Provides approx. 21% of all SCC LEO observations.
4. Break-ups: > 48 first detects in last 10 yrs
Piece separations: > 59 first detects in last 6 yrs
Often the first sensor to detect a maneuver.
5. Fence has 99.9% operationally ready rate.
V. PROTECTION
A. Mission Statement:
"Protect US and Allied space systems from the adverse effects of natural and man-made influences."
B. Six general threat groups against the three segments of a space system (ground stations, satellites, and communications links):
1. Ground Attack/Sabotage (GAS): Any form of attack against the ground segment of a space system that degrades, disrupts, or destroys it.
2. Electronic Warfare/Radio Frequency Interference (EW/RFI): Natural, unintentional and intentional man-made interference that degrades or disrupts a space system's communications up-, cross-, and down-links.
3. Directed Energy (DE): Energy-transmission devices, such as lasers, particle beams, and high-powered microwaves, that degrade, disrupt or destroy a space system.
4. Kinetic Energy/Direct Ascent (KE/DA) Anti-satellite Interceptor (ASAT): A sub-orbital interceptor weapon (a ""surface-to-space missile"" intended to degrade or destroy a satellite.
5. Kinetic Energy/Orbital Intercept (KE/OI) ASAT: An interceptor weapon that achieves orbit intended to degrade or destroy a satellite.
6. Space Nuclear Detonation (NUDET): Detonation of a nuclear warhead more than 40 km above the earth's surface that degrades, disrupts, or destroys a satellite and possibly its communications links.
C. Protection takes two forms:
1. ITW/AA of events that could or do affect US and Allied space systems. This involves warning supported space system owners and operators of potential and on-going threats to their systems, assessing the nature of those threats and determining whether or not those threats are intentional attacks against space systems, and where hostility has been confirmed, reporting that fact to the NCA via CINCSPACE and JCS.
2. When directed by JCS, take active defensive measures against an adversary's counter-space systems in order to defend US and Allied space systems. With the exception of attacking the ground segment of an adversary's counter-space system(s), this is a future capability
D. Peacetime protection functions:
1. Laser Clearinghouse
2. Collision Avoidance (sounding rockets)
3. Predictive Avoidance (launch safety)
4. STS COMBO
5. Space Weather Warning distribution
6. Anomalous space system disruption events, including RFI resolution
VI. NEGATION
A. Mission Statement:
"Deny an adversary access to and use of space by disrupting, degrading, and/or destroying his space and counter-space systems and infrastructure."
B. When directed by JCS, take active offensive measures against an adversary's space and counter-space infrastructure to deny him the use of his space and counter-space systems. As with the protection mission, with the exception of attacking the ground segments of a system, this is a future capability.
VII FORCE ENHANCEMENT
A. Mission Statement:
"Provide space-related support to the fleet and other authorized users and customers by manning and operating the Naval Space Operations Center."
B. Mission support includes:
1. General ephemeris/space surveillance catalog data support to authorized users.
2. Special ephemeris data to authorized users (e.g., COMSATS, DMSP, NOAA, etc.).
3. RECSAT/SATVUL: Warning of satellite overflight periods to the fleet and other authorized users.
4. TERS/JTAGS: Early warning and tactical event reporting data from DOD space assets to the fleet and other tactical users.
5. Space intelligence data to the fleet.
6. RFI resolution for UHF satcom owners and operators (FLTSATCOM and UFO).
7. Space environmental forecast/event data to tactical users and space system owners and operators.
8. MSI support to the fleet.
C. NAVSPOC communicates with its customers via:
1. TRAP Broadcast (transmission only)
2. JOTS (two-way)
3. AUTODIN (two-way)
4. Bulletin Boards (two-way)
5. Secure telephone communications (two-way)
VIII. MODERNIZATION AND UPGRADE EFFORTS
A. New ASCC with new missions processing computer and software.
1. Co-locates old Alternate Space Surveillance Center and Alternate Space Defense Operations Center into one space.
2. Improves information flow, time to process events, and breadth of data and customer support.
3. In some cases, may surpass capabilities of existing SCC.
4. IOC 30 Jun 95.
B. Integrate ASCC and NAVSPOC into one combat information center.
1. Larger pool of trained personnel
2. Eliminate data and mission stove-pipes that presently exist.
3. Improve timeliness and quality of support to NAVSPACECOM customers
4. Completion date 30 Sep 95.
C. Provide direct communication s and data connectivity between the ASCC and all SSN sensor sites.
1. Improve timeliness of data transfer
2. Eliminate potential for single point of failure (present system routes more than half of the communications and data lines between the ASCC and SSN sites via Cheyenne Mountain).
3. Completion date unknown.