The Orion Nebula. (Photo Credits: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto [STScI/ESA], and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team)
WASHINGTON — The national security space arena — from policies, to agency processes, to operational doctrine, to technology, to budgets and acquisition programs — traditionally has been been shrouded in secrecy. Given that the earliest US space missions were largely related to Cold War intelligence gathering, it is easy to see how that culture arose. Changing that cultural bias has proven a tough task despite the desire to do so by many in military leadership roles.
Nonetheless, 2024 saw evidence that a shift toward more openness is coming whether those deep in the “black world” are ready or not — driven in large part by the realities of a space environment now dominated by commercial interests rather than government operators. Below find five stories (plus a bonus one) that provide a peak behind the secrecy veil or are revelatory in some way.
[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2024 and look forward to what 2025 may hold.]
1. Hide and seek: Despite sharper eyes on the heavens, sneaky sats can still find shadows
With technological advances, including artificial intelligence, and a boom in commercial companies keeping metaphorical eyes on the heavens, it is increasingly hard for governments to hide their satellites or obscure their purpose. Of course, those wishing to do just that — including US adversaries — meanwhile have been working to improve their stealth techniques. The fun part has been watching that cat-and-mouse game play out more and more openly in the public domain over the past couple of years.
2. Is Russia’s Cosmos 2553 satellite a test for a future orbital nuclear weapon?
Independent space watchers with personal telescopes long have been tracking and sharing information among themselves (and with interested researchers and reporters) about intriguing space objects such as unacknowledged spy satellites and potentially dangerous space junk. Indeed, some of the most accurate and timely news about Russian and Chinese space activities have come not from the US Space Force, but from independents and, increasingly, commercial firms showing off their space tracking chops. There still has been no official word that Russia’s Cosmos 2553 is the satellite that prompted a nukes-in-space scare in Washington, but if the shoe fits … .
3. GMTI emerges as new front in Space Force-NGA turf battle, and NGA director pushes back at criticisms of agency, touts ‘wetware,’ tradecraft
As yours truly has documented over the past several years, the Space Force and the nation’s primary spy satellite operator, the National Reconnaissance Office, have slowly been working out their relationship woes and are now settled into a (mostly) working partnership for acquiring satellite imagery about targets on Earth and in space. But like in any classic love triangle, the NRO-Space Force rapprochement has left the IC’s other key space organization, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), out in the cold — and, somewhat extraordinarily, was not shy about making its grievances public. This duo of exclusives blew open the doors on the fight between the Space Force and the NGA, over primacy in managing how intelligence intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are tasked and deciding who gets what resulting analytical products. While Breaking Defense has learned that a bilateral “governance” accord has been drafted, under some duress from the White House, and is being reviewed up the chain of command, the ending of the saga is not yet clear. This reporter, for one, will be looking for clues when the fiscal 2026 budget drops — whenever that finally is.
4. Space Force boots RTX from MEO missile warning/tracking program
Under the watchful eye of Air Force Space Acquisition Executive Frank Calvelli, who early in his tenure vowed to kick ass and take names on failing programs, the Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) recently has been a bit more willing to admit to programmatic woes and contractor shortfalls. Still, it was a small surprise to see SSC so readily confirm in June that it terminated RTX’s contract for development of the service’s new missile warning/tracking constellation in medium Earth orbit (MEO) due to cost and schedule overruns, as well as technical issues. The company, which in March announced it was backing out as a space prime, also is the lead contractor on one of the Space Force’s most expensive and long-standing problem children, the ground system for command and control of modern GPS satellites, the Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX). SSC head Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant on Nov. 21 told reporters that one contractor has been put on the Space Force’s Contractor Watch List (the first documented use of that 2018 congressionally granted power) but refused to name the firm.
5. DoD ‘completely rewrites’ classification policy for secret space programs
The Defense Department’s Space Policy office in January announced that it has completed its year-long policy review of how space programs traditionally have used, and many say abused, the tightly restricted Special Access Program (SAP) classification — moving to both downgrade the classification level of a number of programs and put in place rules to curtail future SAP designations. Sadly for us ink-stained scribes, nothing was actually declassified. Indeed, even the new policy itself remains firmly classified.
