U.S. Strengthening Space Domain Awareness.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin
• Position: SPACE

As outer space becomes more congested due to the proliferation of satellites and orbital debris, the Space Force is investing in powerful radars and sensors for better situational awareness.

"Space is a very dynamic domain right now, there's a lot happening," said Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond. Just a couple of years ago, the military was tracking 22,000 objects. That number has now risen to 30,000.

"Of those objects, only about 1,500 were actually satellites and everything else was debris," he said in June during a Council on Foreign Relations event. "If you look now, there are significantly more satellites that are on orbit. In fact, one commercial company has well over 1,600 satellites."

Additionally, barriers to launch have been reduced and increasingly more and more countries, companies and even students are sending items into space, he noted.

Meanwhile, threats are increasing as well, said Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, staff director at Space Force headquarters. She cited China's Shijian 17--an experimental satellite with a robotic arm that Beijing says will be used to repair spacecraft--as a major concern.

"If you're going to repair something it needs to be repairable. If it's going to be refueled it needs to have a fuel port," she said during a July event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. "This is not the case with their satellites."

The Space Force views the Shijian 17 as a weapon, she said. Such a system could collide or tamper with a U.S. satellite.

Meanwhile, Russia is also a concern with its Nudol ground-based missile anti-satellite system, she said. There are also worries about a new platform that many are likening to a Russian nesting doll. It's "a satellite within a satellite within a satellite," Armagno explained.

The Space Force--which will soon celebrate its second birthday--has and is developing a number of domain awareness tools to increase its visibility into space.

The service is currently pursuing a deep-space advanced radar concept program, also known as DARC. According to the service, the platform is a groundbased radar system designed to detect, track and maintain custody of deep space objects 24/7. It will primarily track objects at geosynchronous-Earth orbit, though it could also track objects in low-Earth orbit, according to officials.

President Joe Biden's fiscal year 2022 budget request included $123 million for research, development, testing and evaluation for the program. That's...