APOGEE STAFF
The Battle of Britain occurred more than 80 years ago, but the famous conflict between England’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and the German Luftwaffe offers an apt lesson for today’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), says retired Air Force Lt. Col. Tim Ryan.
RAF combat aircraft were outnumbered seven-to-one at the battle’s outset in the summer of 1940 when Luftwaffe fighters began raiding England. Between August 8 and August 18, the RAF lost 154 pilots, with only 63 rookie airmen available from training squadrons to backfill the casualties.
“Yet, British forces prevailed against these overwhelming odds because their information and decision superiority enabled them to direct their Hurricane and Spitfire fighter aircraft more effectively and efficiently against the more numerous Luftwaffe,” Ryan wrote in his policy paper, “The Indispensable Domain: The Critical Role of Space in JADC2.”
Because the British were able to capitalize on information from a patchwork of coastal radar systems and ground observers inland, “Fighter Command Headquarters knew exactly where incoming raids were located, at what altitude and how many aircraft, and this enabled them to use their fighters precisely and efficiently in the defense of England,” wrote Ryan, a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a Washington, D.C.-area think tank.
The Pentagon’s JADC2, like the coastal watchers of 1940s England, is an intelligence-gathering system that relies on an array of sensors to support a unified network from which decision makers may extract data to plan military actions. While questions continue to revolve around the program — what specific systems and capabilities are needed, how many and at what cost, to name a few — its importance can’t be underestimated when assessing and responding to threats in the future, “especially when a force is stretched thin — exactly the circumstances facing the U.S. military in a fight against China,” Ryan said.
The JADC2 concept relies on a mix of assets — satellites and other sensing devices to field commanders on the ground — to collect actionable intelligence that can be analyzed and transmitted to warfighters. As the Department of Defense’s (DOD) official JADC2 strategy explains, the program aims to “produce the warfighting capability to sense, make sense, and act at all levels and phases of war, across all domains and with partners, to deliver information advantage at the speed of relevance.”
As such, each branch of the military contributes its own program to JADC2: the Army’s Project Convergence, the Navy’s Project Overmatch and the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System, which are all being designed to communicate with each other.
However, in today’s warfighting domain, space now serves as the ultimate high ground, with space assets and other networks gathering information to secure this advantage. That is why, Ryan argues, the Space Force should be given the responsibility to gather actionable intelligence because of the “indispensable role” space capabilities play in linking sensors to shooters.
“Congress should reinforce the authority of the Chief of Space Operations as the Space Force design architect by ensuring the service has the primary responsibility of overseeing the integration of the entire JADC2 system,” he wrote. This authority should include “establishing standards for incorporating machine learning, optical communications, cyber and crypto security, software-defined networks, and distributed computing capabilities for JADC2 across all of DOD.”
In a discussion with service chiefs in 2022, now-retired Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond echoed that assessment: “Our ability to sense from the space domain, transport and make sense of data, and then get that data into the hands of our joint warfighting partners on land, in the air and at sea, is what the Space Force delivers to JADC2. Space capabilities underpin modern warfare.”
To implement the JADC2, the Space Development Agency (SDA), an arm of the Space Force, is planning a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites called the Transport Layer that will integrate the services’ individual tactical networks to support JADC2 operations. “The real power will be achieved by fusing inputs from all of these sources in a dynamic, effects-oriented fashion” to achieve mission results, Ryan said.
The Transport Layer will be developed through groups of satellites launched every two years into LEO. These satellites will relay data to weapons platforms on the ground, at sea and in the air — as well as bounce data from satellite to satellite through hard-to-jam optical links that could also be used to download data to users around the world.
How, when and where those satellites are to be deployed is still being fine-tuned. At a webinar in late 2022, Brad Tousley, vice president of strategy and technology at Raytheon Intelligence and Space, suggested a strategy that would position some Transport Layer satellites into different orbits while also taking advantage of commercial satellite communications networks. “From a physics perspective, you can leverage capabilities across all orbits, and I think that’s the right thing to do,” Tousley said, according to Breaking Defense, which reported on the webinar. “Second, from a backup standpoint, there’s going to be a huge amount of commercial capability that has been launched, is being launched, or is going to be launched.”
Space Force leaders, meanwhile, agree on their central role in creating the JADC2. No matter how much the Pentagon invests in sensors, processing power, C2 centers and front-line assets, none of that will matter without the ability to field a robust, rapid and resilient space-centric communications network, now-retired Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David “DT” Thompson explained to Air & Space Forces Magazine. “JADC2 is an absolute priority for the United States Space Force. Enabling JADC2 by connecting the joint force through space may well be our greatest contribution to joint operations in the next decade.”
In April 2023, the SDA took a step toward creating the Space Force’s ultimate high ground, launching 10 satellites into LEO. The satellites, known as Tranche 0, consisted of two SpaceX-built satellites for tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles and eight York Space Systems satellites with optical links to rapidly transfer data. The satellites lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. A second batch of 18 Tranche 0 satellites by Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, York and SpaceX launched in June 2023. The next launch of satellites, to support Tranche 1, is scheduled for some time in 2024.
“The satellites that we have up there, the intent there is to get them in the warfighters’ hands so they can start developing their techniques to be able to use them,” Tranche 0 Program Director Mike Eppolito told reporters during a March 29 pre-launch briefing, as reported by C4ISRNET. “It’s intended to be the demonstration tranche that allows them to sort of get their feet wet and start using the capabilities that we’re putting on orbit.”
The SDA also plans additional launches of advanced data-relay satellites. The Tranche 1 launches are comprised of 160 satellites. The final batch of satellites to support Tranche 2 are set to launch in 2026. During a forum of the Mitchell Institute in April 2023, Derek Tournear, the SDA’s director, announced that the agency will solicit industry bids for the first 72 satellites to make up Tranche 2 over the next year. Eventually, Tranche 2 will consist of 216 Transport Layer satellites, he said.
In all, the agency envisions a constellation of 300 to 500 satellites in its Transport Layer — all connected through laser cross-links to provide high-speed, high-volume data transmission — that will constitute part of the JADC2’s foundational capability, Breaking Defense said.
Funding for the JADC2 has been difficult to pin down as each of the services’ funding requests align with their individual, JADC2-related programs. However, the Pentagon in early 2023 released its spending priorities for research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) for fiscal 2024. The DOD requested $145 billion for RDT&E, including funding for initiatives such as the JADC2, as well as funds for rapid experimentation and advanced technology to help keep ahead of foreign adversaries.
Each service has reported varying degrees of progress in implementing JADC2. The Air Force reported in March 2023 that it was developing a “Department of Air Force (DAF) Battle Network” to complement its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) and better integrate with JADC2.
Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey, who is charged with overseeing the DAF Battle Network’s formation, told Breaking Defense that the JADC2 poses a host of technical and operational challenges, and that Battle Network will represent “the physical architecture, the product architecture, that’s needed” to address them. For fiscal 2024, the service requested $500 million for ABMS, more than twice what was allocated in fiscal 2023 but less than the service’s previous projected request of $556 million, Breaking Defense said. ABMS funding would then increase to $815 million in fiscal 2025 and $951 million in fiscal 2026 but decline to $721 million in fiscal 2027 and $711 million in fiscal 2028.
The Navy, meanwhile, said it was “on track” with efforts to create Project Overmatch. At a news briefing in early April 2023 during the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the service was testing technology related to Project Overmatch using the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group in waters off the California coast. According to the Military Times, Gilday told conference attendees the tests indicated the effort was “on track, in terms of the objectives that we’re seeking and where we want to go with it.”
The Navy was seeking $192 million for the program for fiscal 2024, less than the $226 million allocated in fiscal 2023. Tests involving additional carrier strike groups are expected to follow. “We hope to scale that based on what we hope to see out of that experimentation in the next coming months,” Gilday said.
As for the Army’s Project Convergence, its relatively new Enterprise Cloud Management Agency (ECMA) has tested efforts to communicate with cloud-based systems of the other services. “We are absolutely engaged with them. We meet with Air Force a lot. We’re meeting more and more with Navy and, obviously, our DOD partners,” Gregg Judge, the agency’s acting director, said at an event in early 2023 hosted by C4ISRNET. He said he foresees “pretty tight integration with our Navy and Air Force counterparts and their cloud infrastructures.”
The cloud-based computing effort focuses include cybersecurity, modern software development and improved data fluency. Not only is it central to Project Convergence but to the larger JADC2. The Army expects to spend some $290 million on cloud uptake in 2023, Breaking Defense reported. “The right data at the point of need can actually generate the right type of effects that we want to execute militarily,” Judge said, adding that cloud computing, generally, is “how we’re going to get data to wherever it is needed.”
Additionally, the Army in late 2022 held initial testing of its future Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) system built by Northrop Grumman to relay satellite imagery to commanders and weapon systems. Specifically, it tested a “pre-prototype” of TITAN to assess space links.
The test was conducted “to provide assured access to space-based intelligence to ingest, process, analyze and share collected data to enable targeting processing for joint and combined long range precision fires,” an Army spokesperson told Breaking Defense. “It leveraged available military and commercial satellites and delivered targeting messages to a variety of mission command applications/weapons systems.”
Ultimately, the aim of TITAN is to create a ground station to take in sensor data from platforms operating in all domains, not just from space, the spokesperson said. “By accessing sensor data from multiple sensors simultaneously across the space, high altitude, aerial, and terrestrial layers, TITAN will provide situational awareness and situational understanding across operations.”
Earlier in 2022, the Army’s Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors awarded competing prototype Phase 2 contracts worth $36 million each to RTX, formerly Raytheon, and Palantir Technologies to develop a multifunctional version of TITAN, according to a report by CIS4NET. The winner, which was set to be chosen in early 2024, will deliver all TITAN prototypes and variants, add in new technology and prepare to transition TITAN to production and ultimately fielding.
In his roundtable talk with reporters previewing his paper, Ryan acknowledged that the JADC2, with many disparate components and elaborate space network, poses a wide range of technological and financial challenges, but given that America’s adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China, intend to develop their own space-based command and control system, the JADC2 remains the DOD’s best and last option.
“It sounds very complex. I understand that. And I agree that it is,” he said. But, “it is much, much cheaper to do it right the first time because, quite frankly, I don’t think we’re going to get a second chance on this. The second chance is we lose.”