Space protection

Report cites “urgent” need for new national security space policies 

The National Academies said there is an “urgent need” for the U.S. government to write new policies that shape how the Defense Department should respond to threats to American satellites.

The report, which was released Aug. 16, came in response to a request from Congress in the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act to study the protection of national security satellites.

“There is an urgent need to create relevant national policies to guide the creation of responses to these threats; this includes educating the public so that it can understand and participate in potential solutions in whatever capacity makes sense,” the report said. Retired Navy Adm. James Ellis, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command, and Martin Faga, the former president and chief executive of the Mitre Corp., led the committee which wrote the paper.

Pentagon and intelligence community officials have grown increasingly concerned in recent years about other nations’ abilities to attack satellites on-orbit. This includes military and spy satellites as well as commercial satellites working with the Defense Department.