Debrief: The U.S. Army’s Expanding Foothold In Space

On Oct. 1, 1984, the U.S. Army established a five-person Staff Field Element to develop and monitor space-related policy and education, marking the point when the service shifted from thinking about the domain purely from a technology perspective to formulating doctrine and operations. 

Forty-two years later, Army space experts continue to advocate for a unique role and perspective, even as the stand-up of the U.S. Space Force in 2019 pulled many of its mission areas out of soldiers’ purview and into the hands of guardians. 

The latest move to solidify the Army’s stake in space came with the June establishment of a Space Operations Branch, creating a permanent pathway for officers and enlisted soldiers to develop expertise in the space domain as the Defense Department prepares to fight on battlefields with technology that is increasingly reliant on satellite connectivity and space-enabled effects. It also established a permanent enlisted career path for space operators for the first time, while space operations officers have served since 1999, according to service documents. 

As of this month, more than 600 soldiers have moved over to the new 40D Tactical Space Operations Specialist billet, after nearly 3,000 soldiers applied, Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson said. Those soldiers largely moved over from positions in Military Intelligence, Air Defense Artillery and the Signal Corps, but Jackson said the opportunity is open to the entire Army Corps to join the new branch. In the future, the goal is to have “a couple thousand” officer and enlisted billets in total, he said. 

The Space and Missile Defense Center, which trains and educates Army space officers and enlisted soldiers, has seen its own footprint grow and is now five times larger in size than it was a year ago, Commander Lt. Gen. John Rafferty told reporters this week at the Association for the U.S. Army’s annual convention in Washington. 

Standing up the Space Operations Branch is a recognition of both the increased reliance the Army has on space for precision, navigation and timing, communications, intelligence and more, “but also a recognition that that space enables multi-domain operations, and Army space sets those conditions for the joint force to exploit,” he said.

The role of Army space operators is twofold, he explained. The first role is space integration—ensuring that forces on the ground are able to access the growing network of satellite-enabled activities—and the second is space interdiction, or Army parlance for counterspace operations: “What can we do to adversary capabilities to enable multi-domain operations and to enable combined arms movement?” Rafferty said.