Lost In Space: The History of the U.S. Army Space Cadre

Lost In Space: The History of the U.S. Army Space Cadre

“It’s over Anakin! I have the high ground!”

– Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, 19 BBY

By Michael Panfil Jr.

Introduction

Space: the final frontier; the fourth dimension of multi-domain operations and the proverbial “ultimate high ground” upon which the future of warfare will be fought. The United States Army is the largest user of space-based capabilities across the Armed Services of the Department of Defense.^[1] Across all three components of the U.S. Army, over a million soldiers and Army civilians depend on space-based capabilities that serve as force multipliers in the conduct of unified land operations. None delivers such capabilities other than the elusive space operations force structure of the U.S. Army: its Space Cadre. The U.S. Army Space Cadre – military and civilian space professionals, astronauts, and enablers – serves the critical role of operating and delivering space-based capabilities among the six warfighting functions of the U.S. Army. In this history essay, the U.S. Army Space Cadre soldier-civilian force structure will be defined according to U.S. Army doctrine and the Warfighting Functions, the elusive and confusing existence of the U.S. Army Space Cadre will be thoroughly contextualized from pre-formation to formation, and future implications will be made regarding U.S. Army space operations and the future of its Cadre.

Defining Battlespace: Who Are the U.S. Army Space Cadre?

            Founded in 2001, the U.S. Army Space Cadre is an elusive force structure that consists of soldiers and civilians operating within the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT), U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and across the U.S. Army Joint Functional Areas. This force structure is responsible for the daily execution of planning, operation, procurement, and force integration of space-based capabilities to fulfill the four space operations mission areas across all U.S. Combatant Commands: (1) Space Support, (2) Space Enhancement, (3) Space Control, and (4) Space Application.^[2] Additionally, members of the U.S. Army Space Cadre are directly responsible for the operation and maintenance of early-to-late-stage missile warning and operating continental missile defense systems, which is key to the U.S. defense tradition of nuclear deterrence. The force structure consists of three categories of soldier and civilian experts: (1) space professionals, (2) astronauts, and (3) enablers, which are defined below:

1. Space Professionals: Functional Area 40A (FA40A) Space Operations Officers [and their civilian counterparts]. These are career space specialists and the core of U.S. Army space operations, whose principal duties include planning, developing, resourcing, acquiring, integrating, and operating space forces, concepts, applications, and capabilities.^[3]
2. Army Astronauts: Functional Area 40C (FA40C) U.S. Army Astronauts [and their civilian counterparts]. These are career space specialists who are selected and detailed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to crew spacecraft and conduct manned space operations within USSPACECOM (100km < x̄ sea level).
3. Space Enablers: Personnel assigned to positions across the Joint Functional Areas such as air defense, signal, military intelligence, or engineering, whose primary career specialty is not space operations but who perform space-related duties. The majority of U.S. Army Space Cadre fall under this category and are recognized with the “3Y” Army Skill Identifier.^[4]

These categories form a loose space operations force structure of 3,000 soldier and civilian billets across all three components of the U.S. Army:

1. The Active Component: staffs Space Cadre billets in the Army Service Component Commands, in support roles (Space Support Elements, or, SSEs) at and above the brigade level, the 1^st Space Brigade, and across Joint Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM) organizations.^[5]
2. The Army National Guard: staffs Space Cadre billets at and above the brigade level and is represented in the 1^st Space Brigade. Additionally, the Army National Guard staffs the 100^th Missile Defense Brigade, which specializes in ground-based midcourse strategic missile detection and interception capabilities.^[6]
3.  The Army Reserves: staffs Space Cadre billets under U.S. Strategic Command and across Joint Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM) organizations.

The U.S. Army Space Cadre has endured as a highly flexible and unique soldier-civilian force structure that has been highly integrated across the three components of the U.S. Army. Today, the U.S. Army maintains a Space Cadre for three reasons, those being to fulfill a federal mandate by U.S. Congress, satisfy multi-domain operational directives established by the U.S. Department of Defense, and to provide greater modular efficiency between the U.S. Army and the other Armed Services in the conduct of Joint Force Space Operations.^[7] While elusive, the force structure of the U.S. Army Space Cadre is largely decentralized by design, widely distributed across the Joint Functional Areas to employ space capabilities to complement the six Army Warfighting Functions.

Before U.S. Army Space Cadre: The Army and Space

            The U.S. Army is widely considered to be the founding service branch of U.S. space operations, having played a significant role in space even before the formation of its Space Cadre. During WWII in 1942, the U.S. Army established the first U.S. rocket program in response to dramatic innovations to rocket science spearheaded by Germany; the Army Air Corps (AAC) and the Army Ordnance Department (AOD) receiving joint responsibility for guided missile development and air defense research.^[8] By 1944, the AAC-AOD rocket program was under constant backlash, being gravely underfunded and unable to compete with the technological success of the German Army. In 1944, the German Army made dramatic gains in rocket science; German scientists designing the first unguided rocket platform (the V-1 or “Vergeltungswaffen”) which were used to conduct terror bombing operations against distant and unsuspecting civilian populations. The AAC-AOD would face further setbacks as the German Army improved upon the V-1 rocket platform, developing a guided V-2 missile platform that would be unleashed upon London later that same year. At the time, the speed of rocket propulsion and low-altitude trajectories of these weapons platforms rendered most air defense capabilities useless, and although the V-1 and V-2 weapons systems were largely ineffective, they symbolized a daunting future to air warfare.^[9]

            As the war began to enter its closing stages, the recovery and acquisition of these weapons systems [and the brains that designed them] increased in priority to the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army, in a combined effort with the U.S. Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, devised a talent acquisition plan called Operation Paperclip in 1945.^[10] The objective of this operation was simple: the U.S. Army offered German rocket scientists safe transport and tribunal immunity if they promised to relocate to and work on behalf of the U.S. rocket program that was to form post-war. Almost instantly, hundreds of rocket scientists [and their missiles] were transported to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the birthplace of modern U.S. rocket science; notable rocket scientists to include Dr. Wernher von Braun [considered by USASMDC to be the Chief Architect of the U.S. Space Program], the inventor of the V-2 weapons system that would serve as the basis for all future missiles and space launch vehicles.

            While necessary for the future of U.S. air power, the National Security Act of 1947 and the subsequent creation of the Department of the Air Force stripped the U.S. Army of its space talent. Even so, and as part of the early stages of the Cold War, the U.S. Army built and launched the nation’s first ballistic missile and earth-orbiting satellite before the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Army successfully tested the Redstone Missile at Cape Canaveral, which justified the operational success of Operation Paperclip. Additionally, the U.S. Army successfully developed and fielded the first U.S. intermediate ballistic missile (IRBM), which wrested strategic control over missile detection and defense. In 1956, the U.S. Army officially established the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), an agency that prophesized the U.S. Army responsibility for Theater Missile Defense (TMD).^[11] In 1958, the ABMA launched the first U.S. satellite – Explorer-1 – into low earth orbit, becoming the first branch of the Armed Services to enter and conduct space operations. Explorer-1 was as scientific as it was a show of force, designed not only to study cosmic rays and orbital radiation but to also “catch up” with the Soviet Union’s Sputnik-1. Later that year, the U.S. under President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. Between 1958 and 1961, the U.S. Army transferred much of its space capabilities to NASA, including its missile programs, development facilities, and technical expertise. From 1961 onward, the U.S. Army [as well as the entirety of the Department of Defense] operated in support of NASA, providing the technical expertise and the crew personnel to conduct manned space operations against the Soviet Union and for all mankind.

The Formation of the U.S. Army Space Cadre

            The most critical historical developments that contributed to the formation of the U.S. Army Space Cadre was the creation of USSPACECOM in 1985 and the subsequent creation of U.S. Army Space Command (ARSPACE) that followed. The creation of ARSPACE was done with the intention of re-integrating emergent U.S. Army space capabilities, which were to be exploited to contribute to the success of strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. Although not explicitly stated, ARSPACE was also specially designed to control the emergent flux of U.S. Army space doctrine, especially regarding the use of space capabilities at the operational and tactical levels in areas such as satellite communications, position location and navigation, fires support, and intelligence acquisition.^[12] This shift in space doctrine represents the U.S. Army’s subtle departure from its original focus of strategic level space capabilities, the scale of future space operations soon becoming far more tactical and precise.

            In 1991, the Gulf War became the operational testing ground for ARSPACE to assess emergent U.S. Army space capabilities. Historians often refer to the Gulf War as the “first space war” to illustrate just how reliant the U.S. Army had become on orbital satellite technology; virtually every aspect of the operation depended on Joint Force Space Operations.^[13] The U.S. Army adopted SATCOM as its primary method of communication and force synchronicity; navigated the desert using satellite constellations; sourced imagery and weather intelligence from satellite-based optical sensors; and even developed tactical-level missile detection and interception systems. Such widespread use of operational and tactical level space capabilities was the careful result of on-site ARSPACE personnel – Proto U.S. Space Cadre – who publicized and demonstrated the force-multiplying effects of space-based technology to U.S. Army Commanders in the preliminary stages of Operation Desert Shield. Aided by the multiplying power of space capabilities, the U.S. and its allies were able to decisively repel Iraqi forces in the defense of Kuwait. The Gulf War demonstrated that space capabilities and space-intelligence products could adequately support unified land operations across the Joint Force, which led to further investment and later proliferation of tactical and operational space capabilities.^[14]

            In 1997, under the administrative directive of General Ronald Griffith, ARSPACE would be joined with the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command to form the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC), which would include the integration of command over Theater Missile Defense.^[15] These consolidation efforts resulted in extensive reforms to U.S. Army space operations and highlighted the new [and heightened] responsibilities of the U.S. Army in space, the primary of which is: “ensuring that the warfighter has access to space assets and the products they provide to win decisively with minimum casualties.”^[16] The USASMDC, earnest on emulating the previous success of ARSPACE demonstrating space capabilities during the Gulf War, developed the Army Space Master Plan (ASMP) as the doctrinal vehicle in which space assets were publicized. Published in 2000, the objective of ASMP was simple: to operationalize, institutionalize, and normalize space as an integral asset of the U.S. Army force structure.^[17] One way that the ASMP achieved the institutionalization of space capabilities was by encouraging the formation of a well-trained and innovative force structure of space-literate personnel who understood the tactical, operational, and strategic benefits of space capabilities and how to provide them to the warfighter. 

            In 2001, the Space Commission Report was published by the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization in Washington D.C., which not only mandated the creation of the U.S. Army Space Cadre, but a space community across the Joint Force that would make space integral to the U.S. Department of Defense.^[18] Under Lieutenant General John P. Costello, the USASMDC started to raise the soldier-civilian force structure seen today, joining civilian aerospace professionals with the then-infant Functional Area 40 community to create the U.S. Army Space Cadre. Later that same year, the September 11 terrorist attacks and the consequent Global War on Terror (2001 – 2021) posed major institutional setbacks to space operations as the U.S. shifted from conventional military strategy to counterterrorist operations (COIN).^[19] While many space advocates feared that U.S. Army space operations were going to be eclipsed by the COIN, the USASMDC wished to emulate previous successes in CENTCOM [primarily the space-based successes of Operation Desert Storm]. Under Lieutenant General Joseph M. Cosumano Jr., the USASMDC began to advocate for the increase in tactical and operational space-based training requirements within TRADOC, primarily in the fields of intelligence gathering and signal operations. The USASMDC, recognizing the need to educate space-based intelligence gatherers and communicators, started to develop a school-house space curriculum that could educate personnel across the Joint Functional Areas on space capabilities; this action expanded the formation of the U.S. Army Space Cadre to include its third category: Space Enablers.

            This development led to the creation of the Army Space Cadre Basic Course (ASCBC): a two-week dual-phase space course dedicated to the education of aspiring members of the U.S. Army Space Cadre. Soldiers that complete both phases are awarded the “3Y” Space Enabler Army Skill Identifier, which educates soldiers and civilians on their role within the U.S. space community and covers the fundamentals of U.S. Army space capabilities, space systems, and space organizations. Originally, ASCBC was designed to bolster the ranks of the soldier-civilian force structure by educating members from across the Joint Functional Areas to complement space professionals and astronauts. Although 3Y programs have been at the United States Military Academy since 2012, in 2014, the USASMDC authorized the first cohort of ASCBC classes to a joint faculty-cadet class. In 2020, the USASMDC added ASCBC to the USMA’s elective course offerings which augmented the existing 3Y, Space Science, and GIS programs for USMA cadets. Shortly after in 2021, at the request of U.S. Army Cadet Command, ROTC cadets were offered slots to attend the ASCBC MTT. Today, these opportunities serve as a bridge by commissioning sources to select future commissioned officers for the Military Intelligence Corps, Signal Corps, and Air Defense Artillery Corps, as well as Assured Functional Area Transfers (AFAT), a pilot program that guarantees slots for cadets interested in becoming FA40A Space Operations Officers later in their career.

Future Implications of U.S. Army Space Operations

While a war among the stars [or… “Star Wars”] is highly unlikely, space and counter-space operations may proliferate within the many orbital regions of Earth. Electronic, cyber, kinetic, non-kinetic, and laser counter-space technologies conveniently exploit loopholes in weapons stationing prohibitions found among international laws like the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 [which explicitly prohibits weapons of mass destruction, not conventional weapons systems].^[20] To be more specific, the proliferation of kinetic anti-satellite weapons systems by the U.S., the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of India, has increased the stakes for space-based conflict; many scholars theorize that anti-satellite systems will generate sentiments of non-use like nuclear deterrence, primarily due the existential risks posed by space pollution.^[21] As of 2024, there are signs of normative decay of prohibitions against the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in space. The Russian Federation, a U.S. near-peer threat, has been reported to be developing a space-based nuclear [or radiological] weapons system, although this weapons system is not currently operational.^[22] Even so, normative decay and the potential for nuclear-radiological weapons in space will present unique and high-stakes challenges to future U.S. Army Space Cadre.

            The elusive U.S. Army Space Cadre is a critical force structure within the U.S. Army. As the largest user of space-based capabilities among the Armed Services of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army relies on this soldier-civilian force structure to effectively conduct unified land operations. While the history of this force structure is equally as elusive [and confusing to many], ever since its formation in 2001, the U.S. Army Space Cadre has played a pivotal war in delivering space capabilities to the warfighter across all three components of the U.S. Army and its Joint Functional Areas. Understanding the history of the U.S. Army Space Cadre will further provide force integration, as military leaders will become more familiar with the task and purpose of their Space Cadre and more familiar with their space capabilities. Over a million soldiers and Army civilians depend on the technical space expertise of a soldier-civilian force structure of less than 3,000 Space Cadre; soldiers, civilians, and cadets who serve in critical functions and deliver key space capabilities to the warfighter. As the U.S. Army continues to explore and occupy space, the role of its Space Cadre will undoubtedly become even more critical in maintaining the U.S. military advantage at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.

The contents of this article are that of the author and do not represent those of Loyola University of Chicago, the United States Army, or the Department of Defense.