[Infowarrior] - US space commander predicts satellite attacks

[Richard Forno]

US space commander predicts satellite attacks

Aug 15, 8:05 PM (ET)
 
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060816/2006-08-16T000528Z_01_N15436217_RT
RIDST_0_NEWS-ARMS-SPACE-USA-DC.html
By Jim Wolf

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - The Air Force's new top commander for space
predicted on Tuesday future attacks on U.S. satellites and called for
greatly expanded tracking and identification of payloads launched by other
countries.

Currently, U.S. efforts are focused on determining if an overseas launch is
a ballistic missile or designed to put an object in orbit, then cataloging
it over a period that can take weeks, said Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who
heads the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

"I say those days are over," he told an annual conference here on the
fledgling, multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield. "If it's a space
launch, we can't afford to relax."

"We need to know what the intent of that launch is," he said, including
whether an object could jam or otherwise harm satellites or spread
micro-satellites that could do so.

Chilton said his goal was to learn all this in the object's first orbit of
the Earth so the United States could take unspecified actions "before an
adversary can cripple us."

The increased "situational awareness" he had in mind could be achieved
largely through improved computer work that would present information in
easy-to-understand displays, he said.

Foes would be foolish not to be thinking of how to deny the United States
the advantages of space, on which it relies heavily for military and
commercial purposes, said Chilton, who took over the space command a month
and a half ago.

"And in the future, I'm convinced they'll strike at these capabilities, if
nothing else to attempt to level the playing field," he said.

Chilton said the United States had a duty to secure "the entire space domain
not just for our own military but for our allies and for the benefit of the
free world."

In other remarks to the missile-defense conference, Gil Nolte of the
code-making Information Assurance Directorate at the Pentagon's National
Security Agency said his agency believed unspecified foreign intelligence
agencies had been behind attacks on U.S. computer networks.

He said there had been insufficient investment in cyber security at all
levels of the U.S. government while attackers were very well financed and
used "a wide range of tradecraft."