The United States Space Command (USSPACECOM) is the command for the US Armed Forces’ space operations and one of the 11 independent operational commands of the Armed Forces. The US Space Force (USSF) was established in 2019 and is tasked with training and equipping the Armed Forces’ Space Forces for global space operations. The Space Force is one of six armed services and consists of 8,600 soldiers. The budget is $30 billion for 2024.

GPS (the Global Positioning System) is a satellite-based positioning system developed and funded by the U.S. Department of Defence, officially called Navstar GPS. The GPS satellite constellation orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 20,200 kilometres. The system provides location and time information for almost the entire world’s banking system’s payment transactions and for most of the world’s smartphones.

Amerikkalaisia GSSAP-satelliitteja. Kuvalähde: U.S. Air Force / Global counterspace capabilities: An open source assessment, April 2020, Secure World Foundation.

The Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) was a U.S. effort announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 (and often dubbed “Star Wars”) to build a space-based missile defence system. Its purpose was to protect the United States from Soviet intercontinental ballistic nuclear weapons. The plan included mainly unmanned space stations that could destroy any ballistic missiles that had taken off into space, and to do it before their terminal phase.

So far, the United States does not have a space-based ASAT (anti-satellite) capability, but it can quickly develop one, if it so wishes. And although the US also lacks a direct-ascent, anti-satellite capability (DA-ASAT), it does have intermediate-range anti-missile missiles with counter-interception capability against low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

The United States is capable of interfering with civilian signals from GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou satellite navigation services locally within its area of operation, in order to prevent the effective use of adversary navigation services. The United States is also likely to have the ability to disrupt military satellite navigation services.

NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is an aeronautics and space administration agency under the U.S. Government. It is responsible for the United States space program and for civil aviation research. The agency employs nearly 18,000 people and works with many U.S. companies, academia and international and commercial partners. Its notable programs include the Artemis lunar program and the Mars program.

Space tourism refers to space travel in which tourists pay for their own travel. The forms of space travel include expeditions to space centres, “vomit comet” flights simulating weightlessness, and “edge of space” flights in an aircraft flying high into the upper atmosphere. Ongoing projects include Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Axiom Space and Polaris programmes. These businesses contribute not only to the development of space technology, but also to the development of military capabilities in space.