LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Every October since 1999, countries around the globe have celebrated World Space Week with educational events dedicated to the contributions of space-based science and technology. For the Space Force’s International Affairs Office, World Space Week marks just another week in a daily sustained global effort to strengthen U.S. national security through international space cooperation.
Why are international space partnerships critical? There are countless reasons, but the most compelling include:
- Our Allies help us access geographies beyond our Nation’s borders to get better views of the space domain. A recent example is our collaboration with the United Kingdom and Australia on the Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC). With ground stations strategically placed on U.S., U.K., and Australian soil, DARC will address coverage challenges for space domain awareness capabilities in GEO orbits, where it is more difficult to monitor space debris and/or adversarial actions that could potentially disrupt or deny space-based capabilities. DARC will ensure the U.S., its Allies, and partners can effectively characterize the movement of objects traveling in, from and to space, allowing us to mitigate the risk of debris-causing events that could hold the world’s space-enabled capabilities at risk.
- Working with Allies allows us to share resources in the development of key space systems, resulting in expanded space-based capabilities delivered with time and cost savings. A key example here is the launch of our Enhanced Polar System-Recapitalization (EPS-R) satellites in tandem with Space Norway’s Arctic Broadband Mission (ASBM). This U.S.-Norway partnership provides critical broadband coverage and secure communications over the Polar Arctic region, benefitting both the U.S. military and Space Norway. In addition to providing critical capability advancement, the launch of EPS-R on ASBM achieved a significant cost avoidance of $900M, allowing the U.S. to utilize valuable funding resources for other high-priority efforts.
- International cooperation increases our overall strength by advancing a unified approach to protecting and advancing mutual space objectives and capabilities. As the Chief of Space Operations, Gen. Chance Saltzman wrote in his forward to the U.S. Space Force International Partnership Strategy released in July, “Space is simply too complex, too vast and too risky for any single power to control. Therefore, if the Service is to achieve its mission to secure our Nation's interests in, from, and to space, then we absolutely must cultivate partnerships with partners upon whom it can depend on to share its pursuit of a stable, secure and sustainable domain.”
Like the Space Force itself, Space Systems Command’s International Affairs Office is a lean organization with a focus on agility and a bias for speed. We serve as a “one-stop-international-shop” for all Department of War International Armaments Cooperation and Security Assistance programs with partner nations to increase the number and variety of international partnerships through greater global engagements. Our mission is to integrate Allies into future space capabilities and architectures with the key end goal of enabling and increasing deterrence by promoting interoperability, resiliency, redundancy, and scale. Our team operates out of Space Systems Command headquarters in El Segundo, Calif.; the Pentagon; CENTCOM and SOUTHCOM headquarters in Tampa, Fla.; INDOPACOM headquarters in Honolulu; EUCOM HQ in Stuttgart, Ger.; and Ramstein Air Force Base.
Learn more about the U.S. Space Force International Partnership strategy here.
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A version of this article originally appeared in Space Power News.