The Space Force is strengthening its ties with the Army, Navy and Marine Corps by expanding its embedded workforce, a move aimed at getting space data into the hands of operators faster. But friction points remain – from slow multi-service requirements and costly shipboard terminal upgrades to legacy hardware that complicates efforts to build a more integrated architecture.
Constellations talked to Gregg Burgess, president and general manager of Orion Space Solutions, about the practical challenges of integrating space capabilities across military domains, from shipboard hardware barriers to legacy systems, and what those constraints mean for the Space Force as it adapts to the demands of modern warfare.
Q: How is the U.S. Space Force addressing the need for faster, more integrated space capabilities within the traditional military branches, and has it secured the necessary resources to expand this integration effort?
A: I do see U.S. operations continuing to get more and more integrated. The U.S. Space Force is actively working this challenge and realizing that they need to embed more U.S. Space Force officers into Navy, Army and Marine Corps units to provide more rapid integration of space data into the operations of those units. During Space Symposium week, it was announced that the Space Force has the funding to double the number of officers and enlisted people to do just that, to be able to pull their people out of the other services.
Q: When talking about integrated architectures, what’s one associated capability space defense operators should prioritize?
A: One example of a capability that we really need is very rapidly available space situational awareness data for the operators at the National Space Defense Center, the NSDC. We collect space situational awareness data from many different platforms. There are ground-based telescopes and ground-based radar systems that track objects in space. We have telescopes in space, and integrating that data into updated tracks takes time. So having very fresh space situational awareness data is a bit of a chsalallenge, but there are very large investments going on in the space business right now to make that better. But I think if they could make one priority for better integrated architecture for the Space Force, it would be getting rapid space situational awareness data available right at the consoles of the operators who operate the space systems.
Q: The term “integration tax” has emerged as a significant obstacle to modernizing space defense, but what exactly does it refer to?
A: Right now, in the U.S. military, the process of developing joint requirements is slow, so there is a sense of integration tax in that it delays the development of systems by working those requirements ahead of time. And then when you go to develop a system, you need to involve more organizations in that development than you would if you were just doing it for your own baseball field.
And so that does increase costs because you’ve got more people involved. And then that also takes time. From a cost standpoint, one of the ways to solve the joint interoperability problem is to add additional capabilities to your system.
Perhaps you’ve got a communication system that just works with your, say, spacecraft and ground stations. If you want to go talk to aircraft, you can put another payload on your spacecraft.
You can think about the cost of that additional payload to communicate to fighter planes or aircraft that are attached to your mission. So, it does increase the cost and the development time of the systems. And quite frankly, historically, that’s been a level of resistance. But the very top level of the military has been there with it because it gives us a significant advantage over our adversaries.
Q: What’s the toughest interface or handoff to reconcile between maritime systems and space platforms?
A: When you’re talking about U.S. Navy ships, many years go into designing and building them, and there’s a very strict requirements process. If a new space system is put up in orbit, probably the most significant barrier to using it with ships is developing a new shipboard terminal.
If a new space communication system is put up, probably the most significant barrier is developing a new ship terminal to work with that new satellite constellation. Because ship terminals have to work on a ship that rocks back and forth in a heavy sea, you’ve got to develop an antenna system that will be stable.
You’ve also got to make sure that your equipment is robust to saltwater. Navy ships can be sailing anywhere in the world. They could be down in Antarctica where it’s well below freezing, or they could be in tropical conditions, so you have to design equipment to work under very harsh temperatures. It takes time and money.
If you take a space system originally designed for a more benign environment and then want to use it on a ship, you have to meet Navy environmental and operational requirements; find physical space on the ship, which is limited; and provide power and integrate with ship networks.
There are multiple examples where a new military space communication system was developed and the spacecraft launched and operated, but ship terminals lagged by many years. You might have a $300-million space system that took eight years to build, yet the ship terminals weren’t ready, delaying actual operational use.
Q: Which would you say is the number one bottleneck: platform hardware, data standards, legacy systems or government acquisition cycles?
A: Those are all great bottlenecks. I would say legacy hardware is the biggest challenge because it’s expensive to change. You’ve got a massive existing investment in all the legacy hardware. And to go develop a new system, you’ve either got to retrofit that or develop a new system that works with the new system and the old system.
I sometimes explain it with a consumer analogy: Imagine you’ve used an iPhone for 10 years and now you decide to switch to a Samsung Android phone. Your iPhone is your “legacy system.” You have to move all your data, apps and workflows over — it’s a pain in the neck. That’s similar to moving from legacy military systems to new architectures.
Q: If you could reset one standard or architectural choice to make cross-domain integration easier, what would it be?
A: I think the government has actually done a good job in some areas. They’ve done especially well in specifying communication frequencies for cross-domain integration. One of the things you have to do is to make sure shift-to-shift communications don’t interfere with shift-to-space communications, and government’s done a very good job of regulating that.
The one standard that I would look at is in the area of operational center coordination. When the Air Force conducts combat operations, they set up what’s called the CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center) – the central node that coordinates air operations. The Navy’s operational centers are often in different physical locations, sometimes back in the United States, while the CAOC is in-theater. Space operations centers might be at places like Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado. Driving that integration between how we get the operations centers across air, Navy and space is where I would look to enforce more standardization.
Q: As sensing layers expand across the seabed, surface, air and orbital domains, what’s the one capability you think the U.S. will need but doesn’t have yet?
A: One capability we don’t have global coverage for is tracking low Earth orbit satellites. For satellites in GEO, it’s much easier. They stay over essentially the same point on Earth because they orbit once every 24 hours. We have great systems to track GEO satellites. Our primary means of tracking LEO satellites is a system called Space Fence, deployed in the Pacific. Space Fence is a radar system. Whenever a LEO satellite crosses through its coverage, we get an updated track – but that’s just one point in the orbit. We don’t have good global coverage for LEO, and that’s something we really need to expand.
Our primary means of tracking LEO satellites is a system called Space Fence, deployed in the Pacific. Space Fence is a radar system.
A logical solution would be to use higher-orbit satellites in medium Earth orbit, looking down at the Earth with sensors specifically designed to track satellites from above. As far as I know, there are no existing systems in the current architecture that do that. A great way to implement this would be to put downward-looking sensors on GPS satellites. There are other allied satellite systems, such as the European Galileo system, that provide similar services. There are significant technology developments underway to provide alternative PNT solutions if GPS is denied or degraded. I’m aware of at least one commercial space company planning a commercial constellation to provide a GPS-like function as well.
Q: Based on what you’re observing, how closely is the current modernization pace aligned with today’s current environment?
A: We’re absolutely moving in the right direction, but there are indications that we’re behind where we need to be relative to China. China’s investment in military systems has been extraordinary, and the rate of increase in their spending over the last 10 years is much higher than that of the United States.
…we’re seeing the U.S. Space Force budget nearly doubling in fiscal year 2027 compared to 2026.
In several areas, they’ve caught up – if not surpassed us. However, we’re seeing the U.S. Space Force budget nearly doubling in fiscal year 2027 compared to 2026. Our leaders in Congress are taking this problem seriously and making significant investments.
Explore More:
The Road to Interoperability: Certifiable
Resilience Under Pressure: Design, Deterrence and Future Force Planning in U.S. Military Space
NATO: We’re Ready to Move—Rapidly—with Commercial Space Sector on Multi Orbit, Multi Frequency Options
