US Air Force,
Peterson AFB CO: More than 70 senior leaders and experts from across the Services, joint agencies and Intelligence Community came together Aug. 28 at Headquarters Air Force Space Command to discuss the way ahead for Operationally Responsive Space. The objective — a clearly defined joint process for identifying and developing ORS requirements and capabilities; how they are integrated and deconflicted; and ways to create, follow and use common standards.
“We need a new process to get off the ground quickly and deliver effects rapidly,” said Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, AFSPC commander.
“We need everybody pulling together to support the joint force commanders with reliable, sustainable, effective and rapidly fieldable solutions.”
Attendees seemed positive about Tuesday's meeting.
“It was very productive,” said Army Col. Dave Cox, Future Warfare Center deputy director, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. “The right people were in the room to discuss how to apply the right resources to support the joint warfighter, and to identify the best organization to figure out the joint process for requirements.”
As the Army's proponent for space, SMDC wants to make sure the Army has the right people working in the joint ORS office, according to Colonel Cox. “We want to meet the Service's needs for space by ensuring the joint office can link to the Army organizations it needs for support.”
Col. Kevin McLaughlin, Joint ORS Office director, agreed that the meeting was a good start. “ORS is in its infancy, and this was a key meeting,” he said. “For the first time, the ORS community is defining how it will work together to deliver timely and relevant combat effects to our combatant commanders.”
The ORS concept is to provide joint force commanders space and space-related capabilities on orbit, quickly to meet urgent operational needs.
AFSPC sees itself as the “lead integrator” for this effort,” said General Chilton. “We don't have all the answers; (the Department of Defense) needs to leverage the expertise and capabilities of all the ORS stakeholders.
“We certainly will not be the owners of all the ideas,” continued the general. Each of the services will develop payloads, innovations and thought, but “someone has to be leading the integration for standards.”
AFSPC is to ORS what Air Mobility Command is to military airlift.
“If we don't have set standards that we can all sign up to,” General Chilton said, “then we'll wind up with unique satellites that require unique buses that require unique interfaces to unique boosters. It will take months and years to provide space effects to the warfighter as opposed to weeks.
“As a team,” he said, “we need to draw upon our individual strengths in space to better support the joint fight — figure out how to best spend our nation's treasure.”
The atmosphere throughout the meeting was collaborative and cooperative, ending with a common view of the need for the ORS community to establish a requirements and solutions process. The Army will host the next meeting, which is scheduled for mid-to-late September. Key players will try out the proposed ORS process using a U.S. Strategic Command requirement.
“Properly identified and prioritized ORS solutions have the potential to provide additional capabilities for the nation and ensure we meet the dynamic warfighter needs,” said General Chilton. “These solutions just have to be good enough to win.”
