Space Force chief wants catchy ‘themes’ for naming service kit, including black programs

WASHINGTON — In his latest missive to Guardians, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman says he wants service members to help brainstorm catchy thematic names for a series of Space Force programs.

But a follow-up memo by another senior service official includes some already pretty catchy names, for what appear to be previously unpublicized classified efforts — whose nomenclature may give a clue as to their purpose.

Saltzman’s “C-NOTE #32”, dated Oct. 25 and obtained by Breaking Defense, explains that the naming of equipment and weapon systems is one way a military service substantiates its internal culture.

“Afterall, words are simply thoughts given form, so the way we refer to something says much about the way we conceptualize it. Taken in the aggregate, our collective language provides insight into our shared values, our common desires, our group norms—in other words, our culture,” Saltzman writes in the note, which was sent to all Guardians in the service.

“How do we talk about our equipment in the Space Force? How do we name the systems we operate? Do those names accurately reflect the Guardian spirit—the space warfighting culture that we are working to build? I am not convinced that they do, but we are making strides to rectify that,” he adds.

Providing examples from other services, such as the Air Force’s F-16 “Fighting Falcon” fighter jet, Saltzman asks: “For example, should we name the systems within our Missile Warning and Tracking activities after birds of prey? Or systems within SATCOM activities after canines? Should we leverage mythology? Natural phenomenon?”

The memo provides a list of 10 areas of Space Force activity for which Guardians are asked to recommend themes that would guide system nicknames by Nov. 30 — ranging from satellite communications to missile warning/tracking to “orbital warfare.”

In a follow-up memo Monday, also obtained by Breaking Defense, Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, deputy chief of space operations, strategy, plans, programs and requirements provides instructions for the naming process, noting that winning themes will be announced in December.

The memo also provides Guardians with background memoranda for guidance purposes, including the official Space Force naming convention process that was created last October, and an “abridged list” of current “weapon systems designations” with explanatory notations.

The designations list, dated October 2024, for the most part is structured as might be expected. For example, the category “Navigation Warfare (NAVWAR)” includes all the current versions of the Global Position System (GPS) satellites, which all carry the designation “NM,” standing for “NAVWAR” and “medium Earth orbit.” Likewise, the ground-based Cobra Dane radar falls under the “Surveillance” category and is designated as ST-108, with the “ST” standing for “Surveillance” and “Terrestrial.”

Classified Space Programs

But the list also includes some surprises, including the names of a couple of “Cyberspace Warfare” and “Theater Electro-Magnetic Warfare” systems, called “Red Dragon” and “Red Cloud” respectively, that do not make an appearance in the fiscal 2025 Space Force budget documentation — suggesting classified programs.

Perhaps most interesting is the “Reconnaissance” mission area, listed separately from that of “Surveillance.” In military parlance, reconnaissance usually refers to collecting data to answer a specific military question, or more short-term tactical info-gathering missions, whereas surveillance denotes long-term observation of a target area.

While the surveillance mission area includes current and developing Space Force radars, the reconnaissance” mission area lists only four systems — all with intriguing code names that once again are nowhere referenced in the service FY25 budget documents. The first three seem likely to be related: Stargate, Snowgate, and Lightgate. The fourth is called Shiloh. And for some reason, all four carry the ST designation just like the radars ground under the Surveillance mission area, rather than using a primary R designator for reconnaissance.

The Space Force did not respond by press time to a request for comment about the listed reconnaissance systems. But as Saltzman said, the military likes to group items by name where possible, so while information about these systems is nonexistent in the public sphere, some logical inferences can be made.

One not unreasonable guess might be that the “-gate” named systems are fixed, ground-based lasers to track adversary satellites.

For one thing, since all the known Space Force radars are under the Surveillance basket, it seemingly would be odd for classified radar to be put into a completely different basket. Thus it stands to reason that the systems under the Reconnaissance basket are not radars.

A second hint is that a “light gate” is a kind of sensor that uses an infrared transmitter and receiver to detects objects passing through the beam, for the purposes of monitoring time, speed, velocity, and acceleration.

Air Force Research Laboratory’s Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico long has housed telescopes that can track satellites in low Earth orbit, and specialized in experiments that in the past have been linked [PDF] to the use of optical technologies for anti-satellite weapons. Saltzman visited Kirtland in June, where one of several meetings was with officials at the Directed Energy Directorates.

Kirtland also is the home of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, created by Congress in 2018 to take urgent, and largely classified, requirements directly from operators at US Space Command and find ways to quickly get capabilities into the field.

Further, the previous head of the Space Force, Gen. Jay Raymond, told the Houses Armed Services Committee back in 2021 that the service was developing directed-energy weapons for space dominance, but would not elaborate in the unclassified session.