Defense Secretary Esper releases U.S. Defense Space Strategy

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper released the national Defense Space Strategy this week, which identifies how the Department of Defense will advance the nation’s space power.

Esper’s plan includes three objectives; maintain space superiority; provide space support to national, joint, and combined operations; and ensure space stability.

“The Defense Space Strategy is the next step to ensure space superiority and to secure the Nation’s vital interests in space now and in the future,” Esper said. “We desire a secure, stable, and accessible space domain that underpins our Nation’s security, prosperity, and scientific achievement. However, our adversaries have made space a warfighting domain, and we have to implement enterprise-wide changes to policies, strategies, operations, investments, capabilities, and expertise for this new strategic environment. This strategy identifies a phased approach on how we are going to achieve the desired conditions in space over the next 10 years.”

Further, the DoD will build a comprehensive military advantage in space; integrate military space power into national, joint, and combined operations; shape the strategic environment; and cooperate with allies, partners, industry, and other U.S. Government departments and agencies.

The DoD says unfettered access to and freedom to operate in space is vital to the country’s security, prosperity, and scientific achievement. “The DoD is adapting to a new security environment in which space is now a contested, warfighting domain. This requires comprehensive Department-wide changes to ensure U.S. space superiority and to secure the Nation’s vital interests in space,” the department said in a fact sheet. “This strategy will align the DoD space enterprise by providing strategic direction to leverage historic opportunities for reform due to the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command, and the Space Development Agency, along with enhanced space acquisition efforts.”