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Commercial Space Capabilities Drive Asymmetric Warfare Advantages
In December, Research Associate Professor Dr. Wenschel Lan discussed the utility of commercial space capabilities in the Russia-Ukraine war at a recent NWSI Seapower Conversation. She was joined by two graduate students in the Space Systems Academic Group who shared their ongoing thesis research on the topic.
- Each of the three presentations is summarized below.
The Current Landscape
Dr. Lan demonstrated how advanced satellite technology has become by holding up a tiny 3U CubeSat “about the size of a shoebox—and maybe only a single shoe” equipped with a camera capable of taking high-resolution photos that are detailed enough to show, for instance, the buildup of military buildings and infrastructure in Russia near the Ukraine border.
Why it matters: These commercial space capabilities are leveling the playing field for situational awareness by providing access to images and data at the unclassified level for all countries, even those who have not built or launched their own satellites.
Ukraine now has an asymmetric advantage due to its access to information produced by such capabilities, while Western sanctions against Russia have left that country without the same level of access or comparable resources.
How it works: The secret to ensuring commercial data can create information advantage is open access and intentional sharing with Ukraine and other countries whose national security goals align with the United States.
Challenging false narratives: One of the benefits of such widely available data is that it can readily debunk disinformation and propaganda campaigns.
- Russia, for example, claimed its soldiers were not responsible for civilian deaths in Bucha in 2022 – but satellite images revealed otherwise.
Ship tracking data is also playing a role, with one company using 160 tracking satellites. These commercial satellites give data including country of origin, type of cargo, and class of ship.
The right data analytic tools paint a picture of the larger geopolitical impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war.
- Commercial shipping traffic in the Black Sea has slowed significantly since the war started.
- These tracking satellites also revealed how both oil from Russia and grain from Ukraine were able to move across borders despite blockades and prohibitions.
On the flip side: Commercial capabilities can introduce new risk.
- Commercial companies can choose to simply not make their technologies available, as happened with SpaceX’s Starlink in September of 2022.
- Space assets could be legitimate military targets if used for military purposes, as Russia announced to the United Nations in 2022.
Counterspace effects: Russia has countered some of these space capabilities through cyber and electronic warfare.
- The country hacked ViaSat on February 23, 2022, one day before the invasion of Ukraine, injecting malware that took modems offline and flooded servers to create denial of service.
- Russia also jammed space-based GPS signals in order to counter drone attacks in late 2023.
Commercial agility: Two months into the war, Russian attempts to hack and jam Starlink satellites were speedily thwarted by the company.
- Starlink was able to upload a software update to more than 4,000 satellites within one day of reported Russian jamming attacks.
- Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, went on record saying that DoD needs access to the same kind of capability.
A Future with More Resilient Command and Control
LT Austin Dumas, a Navy officer in the Space Systems Academic Group, was motivated by his Naval experience to research ways to build more resilience into command-and-control systems when so much of future war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum.
- Radio frequency (RF) transmissions can inadvertently reveal location to the adversary.
- Radio signals are constantly jammed.
- Drone operations generally rely on line-of-sight connections, potentially increasing vulnerability to operators.
- These datalinks are unlikely to work in a contested environment.
Capability at the edge: Solutions to these challenges can be found in commercial products that have been able to reduce the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of satellite terminals while still providing extremely resilient pathways.
Dumas shared video of his team’s experiment that integrated a flat Starlink high performance terminal on an unmanned surface vessel at the October 2023 Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event.
- Users were able to use the terminal to both task the system and watch its performance with tracking and a full-motion video.
- These capabilities enable object detection, classification, and even follow-on targeting.
Industry partners: LT Dumas’s team worked with two companies, Saronic and Higher Ground, that have Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with NPS, relationships that allow projects like this to move faster and at operationally relevant speeds.
- As LT Dumas said, “The goal of this research project is to make a direct impact to accelerating operational capabilities with the technology that is being used now in conflicts around the world.”
Learn more about how LT Dumas and team developed a prototype of this solution using NPS’ Naval Innovation Exchange program in the story linked here and summarized below in our "NPS in the News" section.
Future Alternatives for Position, Navigation, and Timing
LT Forrest Hansen, another naval officer in the Space Systems Academic Group, shared his thesis research on alternative position, navigation, and timing (PNT) using the Starlink constellation.
In addition to the communication capabilities explored by LT Dumas, Starlink has also developed geolocation capabilities for their proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) satellite terminals.
- If a terminal’s onboard GPS receiver is jammed, the terminal can still determine its position based off a geolocation method that comes from the Starlink constellation’s signals.
LT Hansen saw this as an opportunity for alternative PNT for U.S. assets and conducted tests on several features.
Static and mobile tests demonstrated alternative PNT capabilities and identified delays and challenges in maintaining fixes while in motion.
- LT Hansen noted that GPS is still a superior technology for PNT, but pLEO satellite terminals can provide an alternative if GPS is not available.
- Additionally, LT Hansen shared that new commercial constellations are being designed now specifically for PNT. These new constellation providers advertise greater accuracy once their constellations are deployed at scale.
For jamming and detection capabilities, the shorter distance between transmitter and receiver from a pLEO constellation results in a stronger signal strength compared to GPS. This increased signal strength combined with the diverse range of frequencies of pLEO constellations make them more resilient against GPS jamming attempts.
Bottom line: Emerging proliferated low earth orbit constellations, such as Starlink, can provide alternative PNT solutions that increase resiliency against electronic warfare as compared to solutions that rely solely on GPS.
Want more details?
What’s next: On 21 February, NWSI Director Randy Pugh will be discussing the impact of electromagnetic warfare in the Russia-Ukraine war during our next Seapower Conversation.
NWSI on the East Coast!
Members of the NWSI team traveled across the country to connect with Naval leaders, warfighters from the Fleet, and industry partners at the Surface Navy Association Symposium in Crystal City, Virginia, this January.
Randy Pugh, CAPT Jeremy Gray, USN, and Capt Nick Pugh, USMC at the Surface Navy Association Symposium on January 11, 2024
Director Randy Pugh, Naval Research Program Manager Esma Erisen, NPS’ Surface Warfare Chair CAPT Jeremy Gray, other NPS faculty, and officer students reunited with old shipmates, talked about the most pressing issues of the surface Navy.
- They identified new—and strengthened old—collaborative relationships that will help advance NPS research, education, and innovation and drive naval warfare superiority.
- The team also talked wargaming with leaders from the U.S. Naval War College, one of NPS’ closest and most important partners.
Pictured above at the Naval Postgraduate School booth is LT Zachary Vrtis, PE, PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, who is completing a dissertation on additive manufacturing.
- LT Vrtis ran into the Commanding Officer of USS San Diego at the booth and got an invite to come down to the ship, talk to the crew about the topic, get underway with them, or do experiments there.
Tactical shout-out: NWSI’s namesake CAPT Wayne P. Hughes was inducted into the Surface Navy Association Hall of Fame during the symposium.
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Watch the short video recapping his influential legacy.
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Chief of Naval Operations ADM Lisa Franchetti released her guidance to the Fleet at the SNA Symposium.
- It prioritizes warfighting and the warfighter, exactly the goals that define the NWSI mission!
- Read the full text of CNO's priorities: America’s Warfighting Navy.
The team also stopped by Quantico – The Crossroads of the Marine Corps.
- They met with the team of the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University to see how the two organizations might collaborate more closely on supporting the warfighter, wargaming, concept and capability development, and innovation initiatives.
- They also attended an AI Summit hosted by Marine Corps Systems Command and the Deputy Commandant for Information as part of the agenda to align AI efforts across academia, industry, and government organizations and generate actionable solutions.
On the way home, they couldn’t pass up a chance to visit the National Museum of The Marine Corps, to reflect on the honor and sacrifice of those that came before – and to stand in the yellow footprints one more time.
Randy Pugh and Esma Erisen, Program Manager for the Naval Research Program, outside the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Call for Research Topics: Naval Research Program at NPS
Deadline: March 20, 2024
The Naval Research Program is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. Submissions are open to Topic Advocates from the Navy and Marine Corps, NPS faculty and students working with a Topic Sponsor, or DOD partners working with a Topic Sponsor. Learn more.
NPS Students Accelerate Innovative Over-The-Horizon Technology Solution MC2 James Norket, Naval Postgraduate School
In one of the first research projects under the Naval Innovation Exchange (NIX) Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) team, U.S. Navy Lt. Austin Dumas and Lt. Cmdr. Hans Lauzen and U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Daniel Lim conceived an autonomous over-the-horizon (OTH) maritime solution – a capability that has the potential to be in the hands of warfighters as early as next year.
The NIX construct, used in tandem with the Interdisciplinary Transition Team (ITT) as part of the NPS innovation process, allowed Dumas, Lauzen and Lim to quickly apply their research on a prototype that was successfully demonstrated in field exercises during the summer and fall. The three students were then able to brief the test results to major stakeholders such as the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RD&A) and the Chief of Naval Research, among others. Read more.
NPS POTION Software Helps UAV Break Records During Arctic Test Flight Rosemary Mena-Werth, Naval Postgraduate School
Following years of dedicated work with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), NPS and Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) partners have successfully concluded the ultimate test of a nine-year continuum of research and development in one of the world’s most challenging environments: the Arctic Circle. The collaborative team integrated NPS’ own cutting-edge flight-path planning software known as POTION (Path Optimization) with the Vanilla UAV, developed and operated by Platform Aerospace. Read more.
2024 NPS Foundation/U.S. Naval Institute Annual Essay Contest
Sponsored by the NPS Foundation and Naval Institute
The NPS Foundation/U.S. Naval Institute Annual Essay Contest is jointly sponsored by the NPS Foundation and the U.S. Naval Institute to encourage writing for publication and critical thinking among students, faculty, and staff at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Essays should be based on thesis, research, or operational experience that best advances the military profession. Prize of $5,000 awarded.
Open to U.S. Naval Postgraduate School students, faculty or staff members.
- For NPS students: The essays can be directly related to a thesis or recent operational experience.
- For NPS faculty or staff members: The essays could address an issue of particular relevance to the military profession.
Prize: $5,000. Deadline: 31 March 2024
WEST 2024
February 13-15, 2024
San Diego, CA
NPS and NWSI team members will be at the event and at the NPS booth to connect with the larger Naval community. NWSI is also supporting attendance for three students and two faculty members.
Seapower Conversation: Electronic Warfare in the Russo-Ukraine War
21 February 2024, 1200-1300 Pacific
Glasgow 109 and MS Teams
Part of our Innovation in Combat Series: insights from today's conflicts. NWSI Director Randy Pugh will present on the use of electronic warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War.
National Margarita Day
22 February 2024
No official NWSI connection to this event, but we’re here to keep you informed.
SECNAV Guest Lecture: Peter Zeihan
February 27, 2024 | 3:00pm Pacific
King Hall
Fireside chat and Q&A with Mr. Alan Howard, Associate Chair, Energy Academic Group
Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist, which is a fancy way of saying he helps people understand how the world works. Peter combines an expert understanding of demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security to help clients best prepare for an uncertain future.
GO/FO/SES Executive Data and AI Course
February 27-29, 2024
Glasgow 109
In collaboration with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, the accomplished faculty and staff at NPS have created a foundational executive-level course specifically for DOD leadership examining the potential of AI and the necessary considerations for its successful adoption.
Sea Air Space 2024
Navy League of the United States April 8-10, 2024
National Harbor, MD
The NPS and NWSI team members will return to the East Coast for more engagements with the naval warfare community. Join us!
21st Annual Acquisition Research Symposium
Naval Postgraduate School
May 8-9, 2024
Monterey, CA
NWSI is a co-host to this prestigious hybrid event bringing together senior leaders, acquisition experts, and NPS faculty and students.
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