Protecting satellites in orbit and international cooperation appear to be among the key issues under consideration in space policy reviews underway at the Pentagon and White House.

An emphasis on both of these areas is stemming from an increasingly widespread recognition in government that space is essential to all facets of U.S. military, industrial and economic might and that U.S. satellites are threatened by potential adversaries.

China's 2007 shootdown of one of its own aging satellites had a "galvanizing effect" on government officials, says David Ochmanek, a deputy assistant secretary of Defense at the center of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Some had taken for granted that space services such as communications and reconnaissance were safe. The QDR is focusing on resources needed for future conflicts, and will wrap up this fall.

The Pentagon's Space Posture Review (SPR) began this spring and could continue to year's end. It is a sweeping look at strategies for operating in space -- from deterring nations from conducting dangerous or provocative acts there, to appropriate responses for hostile meddling or an attack. The National Security Council is leading the White House review, and it will provide overarching policy for civil and military space.

"What we are carrying into the Space Posture Review as our number one item is: What steps do we need to take to improve our protection posture?" said Gen. Robert Kehler during a recent interview with Aviation Week. Kehler, the overseer of Air Force Space Command, says that several questions arose during the Schriever war game this spring that require attention during the SPR.

Results are not public, but the war game showed that many potential adversaries would be willing to risk interfering with U.S. space capabilities because, if successful, they could cripple military operations, according to one space expert in the Pentagon. "They would be willing to trade their space for our space because they aren't as reliant" on space services, this Pentagon expert said about a hypothetical engagement with China. Questions on just how far a commander can go to either protect space systems or to react to a hostile act must be addressed before an engagement begins, the space defense expert adds, because debilitating effects would be felt immediately and would likely be widespread.

U.S. policy calls for assured access to space and its assets there, and allows for the U.S. to deny access to those that would interfere with its operations. "We've said for a long time we don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the policy," Kehler says. "The question is: How do we implement [it]? That is where we typically engage in the greatest debate."

Sam Black, a research associate at the Harry L. Stimson Center, says three policy areas need attention. Loopholes in diplomatic agreements must be addressed, including laying down specific guidelines for notifications and consultations of space activities among operators, he says. Plans are needed to replace space capabilities in the event of an attack. Finally, "you need some bite to go along with the bark," he says. This should not be in the form of an ASAT (anti-satellite), but in crafting policies that allow for reaction to an attack.

Pentagon officials have said that an attack on U.S. satellites is akin to any other military provocation. A major challenge is pinpointing the source of an attack on space systems, including interference with communication links or a directed-energy ASAT; a kinetic kill could be tracked by satellites. The U.S. space situational awareness (SSA) network -- a combination of ground-based electro-optical and radar stations -- lacks an attribution feature. The Pentagon expert argues that the SPR must direct more funding to this arena. "Everybody thinks we are out there doing something to back it up," he says, noting an uptick in rhetoric about SSA. "You are a bully until someone finds out you can't back it up." Roughly $500 million in funding set aside for in-orbit space situational awareness systems to help with this challenge was shifted from 2011 to as late as 2015 in the Fiscal 2010 budget, the expert adds.

Kehler says he is comfortable with space situational awareness spending.

There is agreement in government circles that more attention needs to be placed on prioritizing specific levels of protection needed for particular space systems. This is a thorny issue, as so-called defensive counterspace capabilities are often akin to the technologies needed for offensive operations. Proliferation of either is frowned upon by allies as provocative. Kehler, however, says protection is not just akin to actions in space. "It is not about the survivability of an individual spacecraft, it is about mission assurance," Kehler says. "We neither need to nor want to protect everything to the same level." An ASAT threat to protected communications and missile warning systems in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 mi. away is unlikely to mature soon. China's test proved that satellites in low Earth orbit only 200 mi. up -- where reconnaissance spacecraft and Iridium orbit -- are under threat.

Planners are forming contingencies in the event of losses in space. These include the use of high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles to augment space services (reconnaissance collection or communications) or, in some cases, reliance on terrestrial communications. Complications with this approach arise in territories that deny access to U.S. aircraft, however. The Pentagon space expert says a focus on contingency planning could be a symptom a government hierarchy ill-equipped to deal with thorny political questions about control of space. Bureaucratic paralysis also appears to play a role; the U.S. has lacked a cohesive space office in the White House to coordinate strategies across civil and military space. "So therefore, we protect nothing," he says. "There's not a whole lot of concrete stuff being done."

These complex questions appear to be driving U.S. officials into a potentially more engaging posture with allies. Increased participation in the Commercial and Foreign Entities program, a voluntary, web-based data-sharing system for satellite operators, is expected. The unanticipated collision of an active Iridium satellite with a defunct Russian spacecraft earlier this year "taught us" that more cooperation with commercial satellite operators was needed to avoid future incidents, Kehler says. Questions remain on what data the U.S. government is willing to share with other operators about its satellites, he adds. International pressure is also key for a policy of deterrence against provocative space actions, the Pentagon expert notes.

Others see hope for a path ahead for military space activities with the Obama administration. Despite budget constraints, several major space policy and strategy studies have begun. They include the SPR, the National Security Council's space policy review and a sweeping re-examination of NASA's future mission.

Finally, officials in industry and government agree that the dramatic increase in space debris -- objects in orbit that can inadvertently collide -- requires the White House to examine what role, if any, the U.S. needs to take in spearheading an agreement on debris mitigation strategies. This could include decreasing the amount of debris created, and could also call for new technologies to address debris already in orbit.

Concept: ESA