WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is providing valuable and rapid electronic warfare capabilities in the tactical sphere, a top Pentagon official said.
Previously, most of the tactical electronic warfare support from the space sensing layer resulted from collaboration between the military and the intelligence community, which created barriers to timely information sharing for war fighters on the ground. Now with organic, so-called Title 10 space sensors deployed by the Space Development Agency, data can be shared more quickly.
The sensors deployed in orbit by the agency create organic military capabilities with real-time access and that provide greater force protection, according to David Tremper, director of electronic warfare within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, who spoke during an April 13 virtual conference hosted by the Association of Old Crows.
The speed becomes especially important as adversaries’ abilities to sense and target friendly systems is becoming more expansive, Tremper said.
Forces also have a much wider area to defend.
“High-altitude sensors become really important. Space Development Agency providing Title 10 sensors in space with tactical data links becomes really important,” Tremper said. “Now SDA capability with proliferated [low Earth orbit] LEO in space allows us then to, on demand, get sensing information 1,000 kilometers above us. That is critically important to wide-field-of-view types of sensing and targeting.”
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
