Taking the Initiative

The 2001 Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization stated that the United States is an attractive candidate for a "Space Pearl Harbor," and cited several vulnerabilities to include satellite malfunction, ground station equipment failures, hackers, as well as the Chinese threat. In June 2010, President Obama's National Space Policy of the United States of America established several principles, including one which states that the U.S. "will employ a variety of measures to help assure the use of space for all responsible parties, anddeter others from interference and attack." This is a complex and multi-faceted task, and there are several challenges associated with protecting US space systems, to include the assignment of a party responsible for protection and surveillance, vesting that agency with the necessary authority, training personnel in the importance of protecting space assets, and developing a comprehensive operational picture that provides sufficient granularity to not only prevent an attack, but should an attack occur, attribute it to the responsible party. This challenge is further exacerbated by the need to include a wide variety of agencies with numerous goals and cultures in any protection/surveillance schema.