SSA 101 - What is SSA?

Let’s talk about SSA.  That’s Space Situational Awareness.  It’s a military term meaning full knowledge of what is going on in the space domain.  Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 3-14, Space Operations, often referred to as JP 3-14, is the Department of Defense’s fundamental statement of how the US will use space to support US warfighting commands[1].  Since SSA is primarily a military mission, we’ll go there for the official definition:

SSA is fundamental to conducting space operations. It is a key component for space control because it is the enabler, or foundation, for accomplishing all other space control tasks. SSA involves characterizing, as completely as necessary, the space capabilities operating within the terrestrial environment and the space domain. It includes components of ISR[2]; environmental monitoring, analysis, and reporting; and warning functions. SSA leverages space surveillance, collection, and processing of space intelligence data; synthesis of the status of US and cooperative satellite systems; collection of US, allied, and coalition space readiness; and analysis of the space domain.  It also incorporates the use of intelligence sources to provide insight into adversary use of space capabilities and their threats to our space capabilities while in turn contributing to the JFC’s[3] ability to understand enemy intent.[4]

Before we talk about how all this information is collected, processed, and used, let’s talk a bit about the definition.  Perhaps the most important sentence in the definition is the first one: SSA is fundamental to conducting space operations.  This is a powerful statement.  While one can launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, and use them for ground operations, it’s very difficult if you don’t know where your satellite is and what’s happening to it.  And to do that, you need to surveil space, that is, track all the satellites and debris you can.  You need to know the current and future natural space environment and how it affects your space systems.  You need reconnaissance of satellites to understand what’s happening to them.  And you need to collect health and status information on your satellites.  This information begins to provide comprehensive SSA that is of value to the Joint Force Component Commander of Space (JFCC SPACE) who is the JFC for the entire space domain[5].

Per JP 3-14, SSA supports the following key military objectives:

·      Ensure space operations and spaceflight safety. SSA provides the infrastructure that ensures that US space operators understand the conditions that could adversely impact successful space operations and spaceflight safety (i.e., collision avoidance).

·      Implement international treaties and agreements. SSA is a means by which compliance, via attribution, can be verified and by which violations can be detected.

·      Protect space capabilities. The ability of the US to monitor all space activity enables protection of space capabilities, helps deter others from initiating attacks against space and terrestrial capabilities, and assures allies of continuing US support during times of peace, crisis, and conflict.

·      Protect military operations and national interests. SSA supports and enhances military operations.

Given those uses, let’s pick apart the definition of SSA.  It’s components are often defined as Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Space Environment, and Blue Force Status (ISRE&BF). 

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·      Intelligence is provided by the National intelligence community.  As noted above, it is the ability to understand objects and actions in space.  Due to its sensitive nature, we won’t discuss this in any detail.

·      Surveillance is space surveillance, which is the ability to maintain custody of resident space objects (RSOs) – satellites and debris – in orbit.  This is done by tracking radars and telescopes scattered throughout the US and around the globe.

·      Reconnaissance is the ability to view individual satellites to understand their external characteristics.  For example, if one obtained an image of Satellite A on one pass which showed all its pieces attached and in the right orientation and then obtained an image of the same satellite on another pass which showed a solar panel missing, it would be clear that something was definitely amiss.

·      Space Environment awareness is the knowledge of the natural environment and its affect on space systems.  Today, the focus is on the electromagnetic environment, since it has the most impact on space systems.  Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and the subsequent changes in the Earth’s electromagnetic field can seriously affect a satellite’s functioning. 

·      Blue Force Status is the knowledge of the health and status of US space systems.  This is usually defined as operational capability (OPSCAP) and systems capability (SYSCAP).  The most basic level of awareness is whether the systems is fully, partially, or not mission capable – whether a system is green, yellow, or red.  OPSCAP and SYSCAP are usually reported by the unit or organization which controls and/or flies the asset.  Space systems are satellites, ground facilities such as radars, telescopes, launch pads or satellite control stations, and the radio links between them.

The discussion so far has addressed the military aspect of SSA and rightly so.  SSA as discussed above is a critical part of the Joint forces’ ability to fight – it’s the US’s asymmetrical advantage in today’s competitive world.  However, SSA is also crucial to civil and commercial space operations and for the same reasons.  The key issue here is safety of flight.  The obvious example is manned space flight such as the ISS and its Soyuz taxis.  However, there are also billions of dollars of civil, scientific, and commercial satellites on orbit and their owner/operators all need similar information about their satellites and the environment in which they’re operating.  A key issue is collision avoidance.  The 2007 Chinese antisatellite test and the 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision publicly highlighted the need to know exactly where RSOs are and where they are going.  Communications satellite operators are particularly worried about this.  Their satellites are in geosynchronous orbit[6], the satellites and their transportation to their orbital slot costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and the revenue stream the owner/operators anticipate runs well above that – billions over the satellite’s life span.  They are very interested in where their satellite is and what RSOs nearby could threaten it.  Telstar 401 is a good example of a threatening RSO.  Launched in 1993, it was destroyed by a magnetic storm in 1997.  It is now uncontrollable.  It’s orbit swings back and forth between two highly populated orbital slots.  Clearly, the owner/operators of other active comsats near Telstar 401 want to know what the chances of collision with Telstar 401 are.  Information like this is so important in today’s congested space environment that US Strategic Command, the owner of military space forces, routinely provides orbital positional data and information on potential collisions to commercial and foreign government entities that request it.  But more on that in another post.

This post has given a good initial insight into what SSA is, why it’s important, and some idea of how it’s used.  Future posts will look at some components and uses of SSA in more detail – coming soon in this space!

TK Roberts

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[1] Joint Publication 3-14, Space Operations, January 6, 2009; Chapter 2, para 15.  Available from the website of the Federation of American Scientists

[2] ISR is Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, the ability to use information from the National intelligence community to understand objects and actions in space.

[3] The JFC is the Joint Force Commander, the US military commander of a large area of operations.  The US Central Command, including Afghanistan, has a JFC responsible for all military operations in his area.

[5] Today JFCC SPACE is Lt Gen Susan Helms.  She is also Commander, 14^th Air Force, part of Air Force Space Command.

[6] Broadly speaking, one in which the satellite’s orbital velocity is exactly the same as the Earth’s rotational velocity.  The result is that the satellite appears to hover over a particular spot on Earth – a 22,500 mile high radio and TV tower.

First Post: The Cost of Doing Business

This blog will be my "Space Blog".  I plan to ruminate on the philosophy of space exploration and travel and to elucidate some of the less well-known aspects of space operations.  My posts will probably start out sporadic but I expect I'll eventually fall into a predictable rhythm that you-all will appreciate.  In the meantime, my first offering.  This was written in 2004 (it actually says so) and speaks of systems such as Falcon V and SpaceShip One as current or future prospects.  However, the tenor, the philosophy, and, ultimately, the conclusion are as relevant now as they were then.  Enjoy!

The Cost of Doing Business

I've read a few essays about how mankind is done sending people into space - how it's too expensive, too dangerous, too hard, too expensive . . .  The people who write these essays are usually very well versed in the literature, have a good understanding of the science and technology involved, and have the best of intentions.  They are also wrong.  The only point they are right about is the timing.  It is highly doubtful that there will be freestanding space, lunar, or martian colonies in the next fifty years.  That means that I certainly won't see the Lunar Republic or the L5 Commune proclaimed.  And why should I expect to?  I certainly would like to see those things happen but my desires, wants, and prejudices have no bearing on what will actually happen. 

The issues have to do, ultimately, with cost.  Today in 2004, it is very expensive to place a pound of anything in Earth orbit - highly crafted electronics or water, it doesn't matter.  The cost still hovers around $10,000 per pound.  Recent developments such as Scaled Composite's SpaceShip One or Falcon's Falcon I and V do provide a glimmer of hope, but the expected decrease in cost is fractional, not an order of magnitude or more.  No doubt by the 2050s, ordinary rich people - multi-millionaires - will be able to take flights to orbiting "hotels" perhaps once or twice in their lives.  Truly rich people - multi-billionaires - might be able to do so several times.  And magnates of truly large corporations might do it even more frequently to check on investments, wow a client, etc etc.  All of these are important but rich people don't build habitats.  Rich people don't mine for water or air.  Rich people don't expose themselves to regular doses of hard radiation.  Rich people don't open space.  What rich people do is drive costs down simply by traveling, by demanding normal living conditions that don't kill them in a few years.  Rich people make space affordable by demanding the best - and then seeing to it that it gets there.

The people who will open space are miners, engineers, farmers, well, you get the idea.  Ordinary people that can't travel first class - indeed can't travel to space at all unless there's steerage in which to do it.  And Robert Heinlein's spaceships to orbit won't show up for another hundred years or so.  Engineering plays a large part in the equation but the deciding factor is, as always, cost.  If it costs too much to get to orbit, no one goes, at least in any quantity.  At $10,000 per pound for my (gulp) 200 pounds, that means I'd have to pay $2,000,000 to go up.  Staying there is another matter, as is coming down.  None of it is free, gravity notwithstanding.  Bill Gates may have that kind of money - I don't and never will.  Even at $100 per pound, I still need to spring for $20,000 - not exactly peanuts.   And no engineer in her right mind would dare to predict when we could reach that performance level - if ever. 

And this is the argument the well-intentioned, apologetic naysayers use.  Since we can't do it now, they argue, we can't do it at all.  All us dreamers should just pack up our dreams and go work for the poor or the environment.  The naysayers, however, miss the entire point.  And that is that we've already been here before.  In every age, there has always been a civilization-changing challenge that was too hard, too expensive, too dangerous.  And now those challenges have been met and historians can say that crossing the Atlantic was inevitable for Europeans, that Romans had to build those exquisite roads (some still in use!), that the Chinese had to invent printing, etc etc.  It was inevitable.  And we will do the same.  And historians on Ganymede will be able to write that "it was inevitable."

What isn't inevitable is that the US, Russia, or Europe will be the nations to open space.  It is entirely possible that we will be as the Portuguese, the Chinese, the Dutch - able to start the process or exploit a specific niche but unable to fully benefit from the broader uses of the new medium.  It is entirely possible that Brazil or Kenya or some entirely new nation or other organizational entity.  After all, the French appeared to have a strong hold on the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries but were pushed out by the British who actually populated it with Europeans in the 18th. 

And so this is what I predict:  The current "masters of space" will gradually lose their dominance - not without much wailing and gnashing of teeth, to be sure - and some other, unrecognized group or state will find ways to drive down that cost, make the innovations needed to open space to the farmers, welders, engineers - the people who open any frontier and found any new civilization.  And I think this process will play out throughout the 21st century.  By 2200, the torch will have passed and by 2300 the true opening of the Solar System will be under way.  It will be a bright, glorious future that those people face with untold opportunities.  And, someday, those selfsame folk, now owning the resources of an entire planetary system, will go to the stars.

None of this means that we shouldn't continue to pursue US - or Russian or European or Chinese - dominance in near-Earth space.  Only governments can afford to make the initial investments, build the initial infrastructure, make the first discoveries that will enable those that follow to reach further than we can.  Just as Newton said, those who follow will have to say, "If can see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants."  Always remember - we are those giants.  It is ours to open the door.  We alone can say that we began it.  We are the first.  Whatever follows, that can never be taken away.