The U.S. Space Force is responsible for organizing, training, and equipping guardians to conduct global space operations that enhance the way the joint and coalition forces fight, while offering decision-makers military options to achieve national objectives. They do this through various missions, including space superiority, global mission operations, and assured space access.
Key responsibilities and functions of the U.S. Space Force include:
Space Superiority:
Defending against space and counter-space threats, including orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, and space battle management.
Global Mission Operations:
Integrating joint functions across all domains on a global scale, such as missile warning, satellite communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing.
Assured Space Access:
Deploying and sustaining equipment in space, including launch, range control, cyber, and space domain awareness.
Protecting U.S. interests in space:
This includes ensuring the freedom of operation in space, detering aggression in space, and conducting space operations.
Supporting the military:
The Space Force provides essential space capabilities that support the air, land, and sea military branches.
Operating and maintaining critical systems:
This includes GPS, satellite communications, and missile warning systems, among others.
Managing space launch operations:
The Space Force manages launch operations at the East and West Coast Space Launch Deltas, providing services, facilities, and range safety control for DOD, NASA, and commercial space launches.
Tracking space debris and satellites:
The Space Force maintains a global network of space surveillance sensors to track satellites and space debris, providing vital information to the nation and the world.
In essence, the Space Force's mission is to secure national interests in, from, and to space, ensuring a secure, stable, and accessible space domain for military and civilian purposes.
The U.S. Space Force was established on Dec. 20, 2019, creating the first new branch of the armed services since 1947. The establishment of the USSF resulted from widespread recognition that space is a national security imperative. When combined with the growing threat posed by strategic competitors in space, it became clear that there was a need for a military service focused solely on pursuing superiority in the space domain.
While the Space Force is the newest service, the Department of Defense has been working in the space domain since the beginning of space exploration. The Space Force consolidates satellite acquisition, budget and workforce from across more than 60 different organizations into a unified, efficient, effective service for space operations.
Investments in space capabilities have increased the effectiveness of operations in every other domain. The U.S. military is faster, better connected, more informed, more precise and more lethal because of its ability to harness space effectively. The
Key responsibilities and functions of the U.S. Space Force include:
Space Superiority:
Defending against space and counter-space threats, including orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, and space battle management.
Global Mission Operations:
Integrating joint functions across all domains on a global scale, such as missile warning, satellite communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing.
Assured Space Access:
Deploying and sustaining equipment in space, including launch, range control, cyber, and space domain awareness.
Protecting U.S. interests in space:
This includes ensuring the freedom of operation in space, detering aggression in space, and conducting space operations.
Supporting the military:
The Space Force provides essential space capabilities that support the air, land, and sea military branches.
Operating and maintaining critical systems:
This includes GPS, satellite communications, and missile warning systems, among others.
Managing space launch operations:
The Space Force manages launch operations at the East and West Coast Space Launch Deltas, providing services, facilities, and range safety control for DOD, NASA, and commercial space launches.
Tracking space debris and satellites:
The Space Force maintains a global network of space surveillance sensors to track satellites and space debris, providing vital information to the nation and the world.
In essence, the Space Force's mission is to secure national interests in, from, and to space, ensuring a secure, stable, and accessible space domain for military and civilian purposes.
The U.S. Space Force was established on Dec. 20, 2019, creating the first new branch of the armed services since 1947. The establishment of the USSF resulted from widespread recognition that space is a national security imperative. When combined with the growing threat posed by strategic competitors in space, it became clear that there was a need for a military service focused solely on pursuing superiority in the space domain.
While the Space Force is the newest service, the Department of Defense has been working in the space domain since the beginning of space exploration. The Space Force consolidates satellite acquisition, budget and workforce from across more than 60 different organizations into a unified, efficient, effective service for space operations.
Investments in space capabilities have increased the effectiveness of operations in every other domain. The U.S. military is faster, better connected, more informed, more precise and more lethal because of its ability to harness space effectively. The
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TechTranscript
00:00America's future will be determined by your dreams and your visions, and nowhere is this
00:10more true than America's next frontier, the vast frontier of space. The space age is barely a
00:17quarter of a century old, but already we've pushed civilization forward with our advances
00:21in science and technology. Our work on the space shuttle gives us routine access to the
00:28landscape above us, dropping off payloads, performing experiments, and fixing satellites,
00:33and I believe we've only touched the edge of possibilities in space. It's time to
00:38quicken our pace and reach out to new opportunities.
00:42For decades, that next frontier was a benign environment, a place of exploration, of innovation,
01:03and a strategic advantage for the few nations who could afford to access it. But as technology
01:09advanced, the domain became economically lucrative. Participation in space expanded, and national
01:16interest grew. Today, space is like oxygen to us. When it's available to meet our needs,
01:22we take it for granted and barely even notice it.
01:26For a lot of people, space is out of sight, out of mind. But in reality, it underpins almost
01:30every aspect of daily life. Satellites are a crucial part of more than half of the 16 sectors
01:35of national infrastructure. A third of crops are grown using weather data. GPS navigation
01:40data keeps supply chains and logistics moving. And the timing signal that comes from GPS is
01:45what stamps digital transactions, which means digital commerce, e-finance, none of that works
01:49without satellites. It literally drives the way we do life right now, and it's only going
01:54to get more and more important. But if it's taken from us, we can do nothing else but desperately
01:59try to get it back. Space is vital to our nation's security and economic prosperity. And we must
02:08increase our ability to harness its power and our will and capabilities to defend it. The
02:13United States Space Force was created to do just that.
02:17And to tame new frontiers.
02:20Simper Supra. As our motto says, always above. Operating 24-7 to provide and protect capabilities
02:29that are critical to the joint force in the American way of life.
02:34In just the last five years, the space domain has gotten incredibly congested. When the surface
02:39stood up, there's about 25,000 objects in space. Now, daily, we track 46,000 and that number
02:44is growing all the time. That's almost double and it's not slowing down.
02:48But space is not just congested. It's also contested.
02:52I think traditionally, it has been viewed as a collection of space activities. And with
02:58the stand-up of Space Force and the additional resources and the changing environment and
03:02global competition, we have seen that evolve to space becoming a warfighting domain itself.
03:07Over the past 20 years, the Russians and the Chinese have heavily invested their resources
03:13to develop a broad portfolio of space weapons designed to negate the U.S. space advantage.
03:19In 2007, China decided to essentially use a kinetic kill vehicle, also known as anti-satellite weapon,
03:26and knock down one of their own weather satellites. The satellite was defunct at the time.
03:31But also, we know that this is an opportunity for them to prove the capability that they can
03:35essentially target satellites in low-Earth orbit. And in LEO, essentially low-Earth orbit,
03:40that's where most of our satellites are operating, especially the ones that the everyday American
03:44and everyday user are actually depending on.
03:47That event generated over 2,700 pieces of debris, much of which still remain on orbit today
03:53and will for decades to come.
03:55So just like that, we went from benign, peaceful domain, space as a sanctuary,
03:59to contested, competitive domain, space as a warfighting domain.
04:04We face a sophisticated array of threats across every orbital regime.
04:09More and more we see China, Russia, eventually other countries, we see them put weapons in space
04:15to try and hold us at risk. And this includes satellites with robotic arms
04:20for dragging potential U.S. assets out of missions, thus destroying our capability.
04:27Of crucial concern, China has developed an on-orbit sensor shooter, KillWeb,
04:33that enables long-range and precise targeting of our forward-deployed forces.
04:38Intelligence suggests Russia may intend to put a nuclear weapon into orbit,
04:45threatening devastating consequences for the world and for the global economy.
04:49A nuclear detonation in space would be catastrophic worldwide for everyone involved.
04:54We're talking allies, partners, commercial adversaries.
04:58The initial radiation bursts would render nearby satellites ineffective and useless.
05:03Electromagnetic pulse would have initial and lasting impacts as well based off of the radiation impacts.
05:11Space technology underpins our society in unseen ways and has become an indispensable engine of economic value.
05:18Space enables things such as communications, transportation, navigation, agriculture, energy distribution.
05:26All these things are enabled by space.
05:28Collectively, these space-enabled activities translate to hundreds of billions of dollars for the U.S. and global economies.
05:36How does Amazon get packages to your house? How do you have delivery meal services?
05:43Actually even enabling financial transaction.
05:46Those same capabilities we enjoy today can be used against us or they could be unavailable.
05:51The modern U.S. military has been designed around assured access to space capabilities.
05:56Space is built in and baked into every plan that the Joint Force has.
06:00We're a critical component offering the ability to enhance the senses.
06:03Whether that's seeing, hearing, talking, we're a big part of all of that.
06:06And so anytime a joint operation goes out, space is relied to be there.
06:11Two, one.
06:13In an age when space is more congested, contested and critical than ever before,
06:18we face new requirements, new expectations, and new threats.
06:24We must adapt or risk ceding our strategic advantage to those who intend us harm.
06:31Longitude east 035.
06:33Recognizing that new things have to continue to change and develop is a critical piece of what we do.
06:38How do we plan for missions? How do we execute missions?
06:40And how do we offer additional capabilities in unique ways that we haven't done in the past?
06:44The Space Force is responsible for organizing, training, and equipping critical space capabilities.
06:50But it's also responsible for conducting warfighting operations as an integrated part of the Joint Force.
06:57We secure our nation's interest in, from, and to space.
07:05That's our mission.
07:07This simple phrase, in, from, and to, captures the three core functions we were created to provide.
07:18First, space control, the in-space function.
07:22When space became a warfighting domain, we needed to treat it like all the other domains, air, land, sea.
07:28We needed to be able to gain and maintain domain security, which for space means two things.
07:33One, that we're able to preserve freedom of action for our forces.
07:36And two, to deny that freedom of action to our adversaries.
07:39And for the Space Force in particular, that means two things.
07:42First of all, we need to protect the capabilities that we have in space.
07:46The things that provide the enabling services for the Joint Force and for the Combined Force writ large.
07:51But secondly, and this is the really new mission, we need to be able to defeat adversary space power that could target our forces on the ground.
07:58In particular, we're thinking about the Chinese kill web, this interconnected sensing and targeting network that extends their reach and their precision of strike.
08:05If we're not able to defeat that, then we're putting our forces at risk.
08:09That means we must be able to assure continued use of our satellites and deny our adversaries the use of theirs at times and places of our choosing.
08:18We accomplish this through three dedicated mission areas.
08:23Orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, cyberspace warfare.
08:29Preventing our adversaries from using the space and counter space systems that hold us at risk while protecting friendly systems from attack.
08:37Second is global mission operations.
08:40Think of it as the from aspect from space.
08:43I was thinking about this, the terrestrial support.
08:45So from space down to the ground users, what are we providing them?
08:49And that could be a range from SATCOM to GPS, missile warning, battle space awareness.
08:54All those functions that we're actually providing out to everybody on the ground.
08:59Space has never been more critical to the security of our nation.
09:02And the success or failure of the Joint Force depends heavily upon the capabilities we present.
09:09So we have our precision targeting using GPS.
09:12We can use these to accurately pinpoint where we want to strike and then strike within meters, even sometimes feet, of where we want to be.
09:19We also have our military satellite communication that all branches can use to talk to whoever they need to talk to.
09:26So if the Navy needs to talk to maybe a nuclear sub, they can use satellite communication in that case.
09:31Overhead, we have our missile defense as well.
09:33So in satellites, they can detect launches of missiles using their heat signatures, using their infrared.
09:39That can be given to any branch that needs it.
09:41So whoever is on the ground, deployed, downrange can use this information to know when a missile is coming.
09:48Early missile warning is essential for saving American lives and it provides a protection that most Americans probably don't even realize is there.
09:56However, if they were aware of the risk, they would surely be appreciative of the protection the Space Force provides.
10:03Finally, guardians secure our nation's interests to the space domain.
10:10Space access is about launching our assets into space.
10:16Being able to achieve that access in various orbits is highly critical to our success.
10:21Space superiority starts with getting to space.
10:24If we're unable to do that, then we can't provide those critical capabilities to the everyday user or to the warfighter's downrange.
10:30We have three mission areas that support this function.
10:36Satellite control.
10:39Enabling telemetry, tracking, and commanding mission control through the infrastructure, networks, equipment, and connectivity that allows us to communicate with our satellites.
10:49Spacelift.
10:50The delivery of spacecraft and other payloads to and from space.
11:02And range control.
11:03Providing safe and secure ranges for space launch operations.
11:06Underpinning these core functions are cross-cutting activities we refer to as enterprise functions.
11:15Because without them, our enterprise would falter.
11:20The most notable include intelligence and space domain awareness.
11:24The foundation of all we do.
11:27Go space two, go four two.
11:29Four two.
11:30Space domain awareness is the ability to use sensors to look up on orbit and identify objects, track where they're going, track where they came from, predict and avoid potential collisions, and just have a general awareness of what's going on up there.
11:44The men and women who execute these functions every day are known as Guardians.
11:56It's a reference to our Air Force Space Command heritage, whose motto was, Guardians of the High Frontier.
12:03We are the first line of defense when it comes to anything space related, which is where war is going to take place.
12:09And we need Guardians to defend that space.
12:11Of all warfighters, Guardians are uniquely and specifically trained, educated, and experienced in warfighting activities in, from, and to the space domain.
12:22The four core values of the Space Force.
12:28One, we have character.
12:29You have to have the right moral and ethical character to be able to be a good guardian.
12:34Next, we have connection.
12:35We have to make these connections not only within our Space Force or within our unit, but with other branches too, so they know what we can offer.
12:43We have to have the courage to make the right decisions and do things that might be out of the box and unnormal.
12:48Last, we have commitment.
12:49You need to be committed to your mission and your skill set and really hone your skills and ensure that you are developing your mission set the best you can.
12:58By design, the Space Force is lean and agile.
13:02The Space Force is 10% of the size of the next smallest military branch.
13:07We were specifically shaped in this way to be agile and fast.
13:15Our members are laser focused on five professional disciplines.
13:19Three are operational.
13:20There's space operations, controlling satellites.
13:23There's intelligence, which means understanding and making use of data to inform our operations.
13:29There's cyberspace operations, which means command and controlling effects through cyberspace, which is how we generally command our satellites.
13:36And then there's two force modernization disciplines.
13:39There's engineering, which is how we design, develop, and deliver capability.
13:44And program management, which is acquisition of that capability, working hand in hand with engineering to speed those effects to the warfighter.
13:53The Space Force is headquartered with its sister services at the Pentagon.
13:58It has over 50 operating locations in the U.S. and around the globe.
14:05Reporting to the headquarters, our field commands.
14:08So our field comms sit one tier below the Headquarters Space Force.
14:12So they are charged with training, equipping, and resources our guardians to be able to do the missions that are asked upon them by the joint fighter and by the Space Force as a whole.
14:24Deltas, which support our field comms through specialized operations focused on specific mission areas.
14:31Deltas kind of group up a big amount of work.
14:34So maybe we have MIL-SATCOM in one delta or PNT in one delta, things like that.
14:39And squadrons, tasked with specific mission sets and activities.
14:45Space Operations Command is charged with generating and presenting combat-ready intelligence, cyber, and space forces to the combatant commands.
14:56Space Systems Command acquires, develops, delivers, and fields dominant, integrated, and resilient warfighting space capabilities.
15:09SSC also operates two spaceports, ensuring the safe and secure delivery of payloads to orbit for military, commercial, and civil missions alike.
15:19Space Training and Readiness Command prepares combat-ready guardians to fight and win in contested, degraded, and operationally limited environments.
15:32Starcom accomplishes this through development, collection, and execution of training and education programs, threat-informed test and training systems, and realistic threat presentation for advanced training.
15:46Like our sister services, the Space Force must prepare and present forces and personnel to every combatant command.
15:53We'll do this through our service components, the building blocks of the Joint Force.
15:57For space power to be effective, it needs to be integrated into our Joint Force, which means into our combatant commands.
16:03So if we're going to present space forces for combatant commanders to direct, we need to have a touchpoint that connects the combatant commander with the service forces that we provide.
16:12That's what the service component is.
16:14The Space Force has brought a level of clarity and focus to operations in, from, and to space that the Department of Defense didn't have before.
16:24Mission, rendezvous with a flight of strategic bombers.
16:27While Air Force Space Command is the history and the legacy of the Space Force, as a separate military service, it's our job to contest and control the domain, to achieve space superiority.
16:37And that's something the Space Force is doing as we execute warfighter ethos and a warfighter mentality.
16:43How are we bringing our space capability to the fight?
16:46Our establishment isn't yet complete.
16:49We're still maturing into our role as a discreet warfighting service.
16:57Despite all we have accomplished, despite our vast array of capabilities, and despite the dedication of our guardians, the transformation we require is daunting.
17:09As the Space Force mission grows, so does the responsibilities of all of us, and we need to grow with them to meet the challenges today as well as the challenges tomorrow.
17:18We have to, again, continue executing all of those legacy missions, which we can't stop doing because the Joint Force is relying on those.
17:25We've put a lot of the critical foundation in, we've put in the groundwork, but the work is going to be ongoing, and it's on guardians to get us there.
17:33We must transform from an organization that takes advantage of a benign domain into a warfighting organization.
17:41One that has the equipment, training, and doctrine to contest the domain and provide critical effects in the face of a determined adversary.
17:50This critical transformation requires new resourcing levels.
17:55We are asking our young guardians to do incredibly challenging things, and we owe it to them.
18:01We owe it to the service, we owe it to the country, to provide them with the skills that will make them successful.
18:09Without space superiority, we cannot deter conflict.
18:13Without it, we cannot provide vital effects.
18:17Without it, we cannot protect the Joint Force.
18:21Until we have built the infrastructure needed to achieve it, the Space Force is a work in progress.
18:27Understanding that a threat is growing, right, but there's a set of guardians who are willing to meet that threat and try and rise to it,
18:33we need help and support from all those around us to be able to achieve that mission.
18:36There should be no doubt that space is of great importance to our nation's defense.
18:42There are no service or national boundaries in the orbits above.
18:47It's important not just to the Space Force, but to all branches of our armed services and our very way of life.
18:57Standing guard both night and day, the guardians of the United States Space Force secure our nation's interests in, from, and to space.
19:10Not all this.
19:13SIMPRESUPRA
19:15SIMPRESUPRA
19:18SIMPRESUPRA