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Space Force Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations, Cyber, and Nuclear, talked at length about current plans for space-based air and ground moving-target indicator (AMTI/GMTI) capabilities during an online talk the Air & Space Forces Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies hosted today. Burt said a formal “analysis of alternatives,” or AoA, to help inform the Space Force’s path forward on space-based AMTI capabilities is due to be wrapped up this fall. AMTI coverage in the U.S. military today is primarily provided by an increasingly geriatric fleet of U.S. Air Force Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, as well as various ground-based radars. The latter of these assets are largely tasked to support the strategic homeland defense mission rather than tactical operations. GMTI capacity has also been steadily migrating off aircraft and toward space, notably with the retirement of the Air Force’s E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTAR) aircraft.

“I think the important part here is the [space-based AMTI] alternative analysis of alternatives that will be delivered this fall… are [sic] going to be very telling. As I said earlier, we believe it’s multiple phenomenologies,” Burt explained. “There’s no one silver bullet of a phenomenology that’s going to do this. It’s going to require a variety of phenomenology.” Burt was responding to a question about how some $2.2 billion in additional money for AMTI capabilities in orbit that Congress included in a recent reconciliation funding bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, could help accelerate those developments.

what the fuck is she even talking about, multiple phenomenologies?! I don't even understand what one phenomenology would entail here! I guess maybe this is phenomenology in the sense it's used in physics rather than philosophy, but I'm still confused

“So we’re testing out those. Some of that additional funding was really about how to do the RDT&E [research, development, test, and evaluation] of these various capabilities and how to flesh them out and see how they would operate,” she continued. “And then how would [we] put them together as a constellation, and supporting [them], and the data being provided machine-to-machine to compare different phenomenologies, to be able to say, ‘okay, that is an air moving target.’ And how would I then pass it to a combat controller working with aircraft or directly to the cockpit as needed.”

STOP SAYING PHENOMENOLOGY

Burt declined to say whether or not she believed it would be possible to field an operational space-based AMTI capability, even on a limited level, within two years. Space Force officials have said in the past that they see new satellite constellations capable of persistently providing AMTI and GMTI coverage as coming online in the 2030s. “We’re really focused, right now, from an operator perspective, … on the ground moving target indicators,” Burt stressed. “So, GMTI, working very closely with the NRO [the National Reconnaissance Office] and NGA [the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]. We are working together in the Joint Mission Management Center, the JMMC out at Springfield[, Virginia], working with NGA, and really building off their expertise in looking at moving targets and how do you pull multiple intelligence capabilities together to execute that.” ... “We have designated Delta 7 as the lead Delta to help us deliver ground moving target indicator [capabilities],” she continued. “We have a small detachment of Delta 7 operators that are sitting today at Springfield, working side by side with NGA on how do we get after the tactics, techniques, and procedures, how would we do this.”

I love that when I looked up Delta 7 the first thing popped up was the starfighter from Star Wars (one of the coolest designs from the prequels tbh)

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Burt also said Space Force views artificial intelligence and machine learning as critical to helping process the huge amount of data the new GMTI sensors in orbit are expected to collect. “How do I quickly machine-to-machine go from sensing a moving target to getting it to a shooter on the other end, and the timelines they need to be able to action it before it’s a fleeting target and gone,” she said. “Those are all going to have to be machine-driven. They’re going to have to be automated. That’s going to have to be – we’re talking, in a matter of sub minutes, to make that happen.” Burt noted that work on space-based GMTI capabilities is itself drawing on technology developed for monitoring satellites in space when it comes to automation. ... “With space domain awareness, we have both our own dedicated sensors that do space domain awareness, you have contributing sensors, you have commercial now, a very robust commercial sensing capability for space domain awareness – how do you harness and put all of that together?” she explained. “The machine will, much faster with artificial intelligence, tell me a pattern of life of a satellite, and then very quickly notice, based on the data coming in, ‘hey, it’s doing something different,’ and highlight that to an operator to very quickly address is that nefarious, or is there an anomaly, or what’s going on.”

As TWZ has noted in the past, functional space-based GMTI and/or AMTI sensor networks have the potential to provide game-changing capabilities. Satellites offer advantages in terms of persistence and global reach compared to traditional air and ground-based platforms tasked with these missions. Historically, space-based assets have also been more survivable, though threats to assets in orbit are only growing by the day. The U.S. military is now investigating heavily in distributed constellations made up of larger numbers of smaller satellites to make them more resilient in the face of losses of individual nodes. These constellations are also expected to offer even greater persistence compared to traditional satellites in low Earth orbit, with the potential to monitor huge parts of the planet continuously. At the same time, Burt’s comments today highlight significant technical challenges still to be surmounted, especially when it comes to fielding useful space-based AMTI capabilities. Space Force officials have previously indicated that they continue to see a role for traditional aerial and ground-based assets, at least for some amount of time, even as capabilities in orbit start to become operational.

“The closer I can come to the target, the more resolution I get on the target,” Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, then Vice Chief of Space Operations, said last year. “As I move to space, it becomes harder and harder to get that same level of resolution on a target that may be required.” Guetlein was recently made head of the top office at the Pentagon in charge of the Golden Dome air and missile defense initiative. Golden Dome would benefit heavily from any future AMTI satellite constellation. All of this continues to raise questions about plans to modernize the Air Force’s current airborne early warning and control capabilities. In 2022, the service decided to replace a portion of the aging and increasingly unsupportable E-3s with E-7A Wedgetail aircraft. This June, the Pentagon revealed its intention to cancel the E-7 program and acquire a number of additional E-2D Hawkeyes to help fill the gap in the interim. However, the ultimate plan has been and remains to push more and more of the airborne early warning sensor layer into orbit.

“I have been concerned. We have E-3 capability up north, of course, but we were all counting on the E-7 Wedgetail coming our way. We’re kind of limping along up north right now, which is unfortunate. And the budget proposes terminating the program,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, had warned at a hearing in June where the E-7 cancellation plan was first confirmed. “The E-3 fleet [is] barely operational now, and I understand the intent to shift towards the space-based – you call it the ‘air moving target indicators’ – but my concern is that you’ve got a situation where you’re not going to be able to use more duct tape to hold things together until you put this system in place. And, so, how we maintain that level of operational readiness and coverage, I’m not sure how you make it.”

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Burt’s comments today ... indicate that moving beyond traditional airborne early warning and control aircraft, in general, or even significantly reducing that capability, remains a high-risk proposition at present. ... AMTI and GMTI, in general, are capabilities that are already in high demand now, and gaps will need to be plugged until the planned new satellite constellations prove their worth.