The strategy is to “use small, smart, cheap and plentiful platforms”
This is also about cultural changes and changes in technology so we can gain military advantage faster,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said Sept. 6 at the annual DefenseNews conference.
Hicks discussed the Department of Defense’s plan to deploy thousands of autonomous systems across all domains over the next 18 to 24 months. China’s benefit today is “mass,” Hicks said. The Department of Defense will continue to invest in its traditional platforms and respond with more autonomous systems of its own. The Department of Defense will deploy fleets of small drones and satellites that will be inexpensive to replace.
Imagine clusters of autonomous, wear-and-tear systems in space, launched in groups – so many of them that it would be impossible to eliminate or weaken them all.
Smart satellites, which use artificial intelligence to navigate, track, and image objects, are not a new technology. Hicks noted that the Department of Defense has already embraced the idea of expanding constellations with large numbers of low-cost satellites. But the next step will be their mass production. The same applies to autonomous systems in the air, at sea, and on land, she added.
The Pentagon is developing a new strategy to counter China’s military buildup
“For a long time, our space capabilities could be counted on one hand. There were satellites the size of school buses that took decades to build and launch.”
The US space agency is developing a government constellation of satellites. The Department of Defense is also a major client of Starlink, Elon Musk’s vast space network. Hicks said these new commercial systems are helping the United States maintain an edge over China in the space race: “Increasingly, we are using massive constellations of small, resilient, low-cost satellites. New satellites are launched every week, and dozens of payloads are deployed each time.”
Thanks to the growth of commercial space, Hicks said, “Now the race in space has become a chase. And as the Department of Defense invests even more resources, the United States’ advantage will only increase.”
Attacking or disrupting a large network of satellites would be “a futile effort and highly escalatory. It’s not even worth considering, let alone trying,” she said.
