Satellites can be protected by adding a system to destroy an attacking missile, or make it “hardened” against electronic attack, Harrison said. Maintaining communications capability despite attacks can be enhanced by orbiting additional satellites, dispersing the capabilities across several spacecraft, putting military communications capabilities on commercial satellites or having replacement payloads ready for launch, he added.
All of those are expensive and would be “on the wrong side of the cost-imposing strategy” because the offensive weapons are much cheaper, Harrison said.
Satellite capability also could be replaced by using manned or unmanned aircraft or ground facilities as relay stations, but those have much shorter range and must operate in uncontested areas, he said.
Harrison provided six recommendations on ways the military could address the dual challenges of increased threat and reduced resources.
The primary recommendation was to adopt three tiers of protection, with the most critical communications highly protected, less important systems given less protection and routine communications unprotected.
Another recommendation, tied in with the strategic rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, is to invite allies and partners to share the expense of orbiting MILSATCOM and sharing the capabilities.
He also recommended avoiding new starts, which consume time and money, by buying more proven systems and making better use of competition to restrain cost.
And Harrison recommended consolidating all MILSATCOM programs and budgets in one service, which would reduce costly duplication and improve synchronization of capabilities. As an example of the problems that could address, he said the Mobile User Objective System satellite that the Navy recently launched cannot use all of its capabilities because the Navy does not have enough ground terminals to receive the data from the satellite.
Harrison said the Air Force would be the most likely candidate to control all of MILSATCOM because it already manages most of the space assets. The Air Force has advocated that for years, but has been opposed by the Army and the Navy.