U.S. Space Command Chief Sees Directed Energy Threats Growing

LONDON—The threats to space systems from directed energy weapons is going to grow, the head of U.S. Space Command warns, while urging greater pace in maturing capabilities to be ready within the coming years to operate in the domain.

While threats to space systems have been growing, particularly from Russia and China, many of those are costly, Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, said at the Defense Space 24 conference here. But directed energy systems, whether high-energy lasers or high-power microwave weapons, can change the cost equation, he said at the Air & Space Power Association event.

“We are going to see an ongoing expansion of directed energy threats,” he said.

The Pentagon, in its latest annual report on China’s military capabilities released last year, said the country “has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites that include a current limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors. By the mid- to late-2020s,  [China] may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of nonoptical satellites.”

Whiting also warned that cyber could be what he called “the soft underbelly” of space, a vulnerability where space systems are easier to attack than on orbit and where attacks are harder to attribute to an adversary.

Whiting argued greater urgency in Western efforts to prepare for conflict involving space systems. “Now is the time for all of us to work together across our nations and organizations to identify solutions that deliver national capability by 2027.”

The Space Command boss said he is focusing on 2027 because China has made it a marker by which time its military is supposed to be ready to take Taiwan by force, even if Beijing has not said it would act.

Key to space operations is having a better sense of threats, he said, adding that “our current capabilities for cataloging and tracking objects are insufficient to maintain our advantage over strategic competitors by 2027 and beyond.”

One goal is to be able to dynamically track spacecraft in nonstandard orbits, he said. The appeal has come after Russian and China have shown the ability to maneuver spacecraft in space in sometimes unexpected ways.

Whiting also called for advanced capabilities to perform space maneuvers to avoid threats or assess suspicious activity. “I’ve seen promising developments in on-orbit refueling and alternative propulsion methods, but we need these systems delivered on accelerated timelines at scale,” he urged.