Military Space Program Faces a Reality Check

When the United States wants to show force during international crises, the President typically dispatches a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Marine Corps or a squadron of heavily armed jet fighters to foreign shores.

But the most crucial military power is often unseen--the multibillion-dollar constellation of U.S. orbiting satellites that provides leaders in Washington with worldwide communications, instantaneous intelligence reports and weather forecasting, among many other things.

Although military spacecraft have revolutionized U.S. power in the last two decades, the cost has been enormous and largely undocumented. The nation spends about $15 billion annually to produce and launch the dozens of military spacecraft circling the Earth every hour and another $5 billion to operate the systems, according to estimates made by industry and government experts.

Since the first successful spy satellite was lofted in August, 1960, the rationale and necessity of this vast military space system has seldom been seriously questioned. Even after the defense budget began a sharp downward slide in 1986, military space spending continued to inch up. As a percentage of weapons outlays, it has doubled during this period, according to some estimates.

But tight federal budgets and the demise of the Cold War have made cutbacks inevitable this year, triggering an intense but largely secret debate within the defense Establishment about the future of America’s military space programs.

Under congressional pressure, the Pentagon has begun a major reorganization of many military space programs and an examination of how it can trim spending. Recent cuts in the 1993 budget will force cancellation of some secret development projects and the decommissioning of some satellites, said Assistant Air Force Secretary Martin Faga, the Pentagon’s senior space official.

The outcome of this restructuring will have enormous ramifications for the nation’s massive spacecraft industry--especially in California--which has remained relatively healthy amid the bust in the aerospace business. In terms of their intellectual content and the high-paying jobs they create, these space programs rank as the most coveted in aerospace.

The potential impact of the approaching changes was signaled by the recent disclosure that the Secretary of the Air Force Special Projects office, which designs and manages procurement of secret spy satellites, will relocate its headquarters from El Segundo to northern Virginia, along with 800 jobs.

As the space budget gets trimmed, the California industry, which produces the majority of the military’s spacecraft, could face other setbacks. TRW Chairman Joseph Gorman, whose Redondo Beach unit is widely regarded as one of the largest and best military satellite makers, said the future at best is “unpredictable.”

Despite the prospects for lower spending, military space programs have broad support in some quarters. On the heels of the Persian Gulf War, the Defense Department and CIA’s long-range secret spending plans are based on the assumption of continued growth in military space through the late 1990s, Faga said.

He argues that many satellite programs cannot be cut much without eliminating critical missions, such as satellite-based navigation or early warning of ballistic missile attacks. In the past three years, U.S. forces have been committed abroad 21 times, and space has been critical in enabling those rapid responses, he said.

“I think we’d be absolutely nuts right now as a nation--in terms of our national security to allow the capability that we have in these critical areas to dissipate,” Gorman said. “You know people talk about the threats having gone away. Nonsense.”

The Gulf War demonstrated for the first time that a battle can be largely orchestrated from space, said Eberhardt Rechtin, an architect of the system who now teaches engineering at USC.

“We could not have done the Gulf War without military satellites,” Rechtin said. “Future wars will be determined by information, what you know that the other side doesn’t. With global weapons, global surveillance and global communications, you have a very powerful capability.”

Military leaders communicated by satellite data networks, targets were identified by satellite photos, weapons were guided by special navigation satellites and troops were protected by early warning satellites. Weather satellites helped leaders plan attacks. And early warning satellites were used to help alert Patriot missile crews defending cities.

That display of high technology left foreign nations in awe. “The Russians were freaked out,” said John Pike, a space expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “Desert Storm was a nightmare come true--this reconnaissance strike complex, as they call it. It’s worldwide capability, death from above. It goes to the Air Force’s new motto: global reach, global power.”

Following the success in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon is embarking on a massive new space program, but one that some in Congress worry will not be affordable.

“We have to be guarded that what we wish for will actually come out,” said Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a major supporter of military space. “I would be a little more cautious.”

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, says space has become a “sacred cow” that needs to be re-examined.

“The trouble with space is that you don’t do anything cheap,” she said. “It is hard to see what the driving need is. Iraq was a unique situation. What did space do in Yugoslavia? What do you learn from space about Soviet republics crumbling?”

Indeed, the justification for many military space programs appears weaker now that the Cold War is over. When the military space program started in the late 1950s, the Soviet Union was so closed that little was known about where to target nuclear weapons or what threat Soviet weapons posed to America.

Early intelligence satellites showed that the most dire estimates about Soviet military power--for example that the United States faced a nuclear missile gap in the early 1960s--were overblown, thus saving the nation from an even more costly Cold War buildup. But today’s more open society in Russia is easier to discern through conventional methods.

“You just go rent an Avis car in Budapest or Moscow and look for yourself,” said Albert Wheelon, former CIA deputy director and now a trustee of the Aerospace Corp. “The question is do you still have to look at that stuff from 200 miles up? Inexorably, military space is going to have to take a hit. It is a fitting time to rethink this.”

Wheelon also worries that lessons from the Gulf War about the uses of military space “are somewhat exaggerated, innocently, because of the enthusiasm of winning.” He said current satellite technology would have done little to change the outcome of the Vietnam War, where it was not clear who the enemy was and jungle vegetation provided cover for troops.

To cut costs, communications satellites may no longer need to be jam-resistant or capable of operating during a nuclear war, Wheelon said.

Military officials agree that cuts are at hand. “There is no doubt about it, we have to get space cheaper because there are fewer Defense Department dollars, and because it will enhance our nation’s civil space program,” said Gen. Chuck Horner, commander of the U.S. Space Command.

Horner said the Pentagon will have to be more efficient but inevitably will have to do fewer things in space. He also cited the possibility of depending on commercial satellite programs to a greater extent.

Some critics want to cut even further. Pike says the United States has in orbit far more secret spy satellites, as well as other types, than during the height of the Cold War.

Pike said the United States has nine surveillance satellites of various types, including three Keyhole 11 photo satellites, three advanced Keyhole satellites and three Le Cross radar imaging satellites. By contrast, the United States had just three surveillance satellites during the rule of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, he said.

Each satellite, costing as much as $2 billion to build, launch and operate, flies over any given spot on Earth twice each day, generating thousands of photographs for intelligence analysts. Jeffrey Richelson, a private consultant, said these photographs show details of objects as small as several inches.

Although spy satellites are the most sophisticated part of the military space network, they represent a small minority of the total “constellation,” in Pentagon parlance. In terms of its scale, the entire military space effort stacks up almost like a separate military service. Faga, the Pentagon official, said 100,000 employees in government and industry work on Air Force programs.

Other experts said the total space effort, including the secret National Reconnaissance Office that manages procurement of spy satellites, could involve 200,000 workers, if all the Star Wars and missile launch programs are included.

The office also manages the procurement of electronic eavesdropping satellites, such as the three orbiting Magnum spacecraft, used to gather foreign telephone conversations and foreign transmissions of military radar. It also has an unknown number of relay satellites to help transfer data to ground stations in the United States.

The military now relies heavily on satellites for voice and data communications. The Navy operates two satellite communication systems, with a total of nine spacecraft. The Air Force operates five of its own satellites and three for NATO.

The Air Force will soon have 24 global positioning satellites in orbit to provide instant worldwide navigation services. It also operates two meteorological satellites. And an estimated three Defense Support Program satellites monitor the globe to provide early warning of ballistic missile launches.

Trimming back this massive complex without substantially diminishing its capability will be a tricky job. The CIA, major aerospace contractors, congressional committees and military think tanks are conducting a broad range of classified studies to chart the course of military space.

But relatively little serious public debate has been devoted to the issue in Congress, even though military space spending ranks as one of the biggest of federal procurement.

“We don’t have a national agenda,” said TRW’s Gorman. “We don’t have a set of national priorities. We don’t have a national strategic plan. We don’t have any of that in this country. So is it any wonder that we don’t have it in military space? Of course not.”

Such issues as whether the Air Force develops the National Launch System, the first new rocket booster since the 1960s, is an important matter to the space industry but way off the list of important issues in Congress.

“The strategy of military space is too big for Congress to deal with and the individual programs are too small for Congress to deal with,” Pike said. “We have this very large military space program predicated on the Cold War. . . . So it is only in the last year and a half that the terms of the debate have emerged. People are just now acknowledging that there is even a debate going on.”

Military Spacecraft

* Global Positioning System: A 24-satellite system that provides worldwide navigation to aircraft, ships, missiles and vehicles. Produced by Rockwell International.

* Magnum (top secret): It is believed that three eavesdropping Magnums have been built for the Air Force, which operates the satellites for the National Security Agency. The satellites are used to capture foreign telephone conversations for intelligence analysts. Believed to be produced by TRW.

* Project White Cloud (top secret): A Navy system that is used to determine the location of enemy ships by interdicting their electronic transmissions and triangulating to determine their position. Contractor unknown.

* U.S. Satellite System (top secret): A Central Intelligence Agency relay satellite system used to transfer data from various spy satellites to ground stations in the United States. Producer unknown.

* Defense Satellite Communications System: The Air Force has seven Phase 2 and five Phase 3 DSCS satellites in high Earth orbit to provide basic “trunk service,” the high-volume voice and data transmission between U.S. bases domestically and abroad. Phase 2 was produced by TRW and Phase 3 by General Electric.

* Fleet Satellite Communication System: The six-satellite Navy system that provides communication links between mobile platforms, such as ships, vehicles and aircraft. Produced by TRW.

* Defense Support Program: The Air Force system to provide early warning of ballistic missile launches by tracing the hot exhaust plume of missiles with infrared sensors. Produced by TRW.

* NATO III: The three-satellite Air Force system that provides communication links between NATO members. Produced by Loral Aerospace.

* Defense Meteorological Satellite Program: The Air Force system with two satellites that provides worldwide weather forecasting to support military missions. Produced by General Electric.

* Keyhole 11 (top secret): The CIA system of at least three satellites that has provided surveillance photos of foreign nations from space. It is believed to be able to discern details as small as several inches. The manufacturer is believed to be Lockheed. In addition, the CIA operates an advanced Keyhole system, possibly with another three satellites, which has greater maneuvering capability.

* La Crosse (top secret): The Air Force system of possibly three satellites that provide radar images of foreign territory. Its chief advantage is that it can see through clouds that obscure the Keyhole satellites, but its resolution is not as fine. Producer is Martin Marietta.

* Jumpseat (top secret): An Air Force “ferret” satellite used to capture transmissions of foreign military electronic systems, such as radar, which are then used to design U.S. electronic warfare systems. Manufacturer unknown.

* Leasat: A Navy communication system leased from Hughes Aircraft Co. Three satellites in orbit.