Abstract. Since dominating the high ground has always been of considerable
interest to warfighters, it follows that future warfare will be
dominated by the ultimate high ground-space. The most significant problem
plaguing terrestrial-based communications, surveillance and weapons systems is that they
are often constrained to line-of-sight, which is limited to very
short ranges, particularly when the land platform is at low
heights. Space-based systems offer enormous potential as platforms for repeating
communications, conducting surveillance and supporting navigation over vast areas compared
to terrestrial-based systems. One of the difficulties with operations in
space is the general lack throughout the world’s defence forces
of an agreed taxonomy. While doctrine (such as US Joint
Publication JP 3-14 Joint Doctrine for Space Operations [1]) and
agreed terms do exist for a number of areas of
space operations, the taxonomies provided tend to be focussed on
particular areas and defined around existing systems and applications. There
is therefore a need for a comprehensive top-level approach to
the description of the constituent elements of space operations. An
important characteristic of this description is that it needs to
take into account the impact of space on the providers
of space services, as well as the users of these
services, and the impact of space on other battlespace entities
that are not direct users of space. This paper therefore
proposes a taxonomy for military space operations.
Related topics:
satellite communications, communications systems, command systems
View first page of "Frater: A Taxonomy for Military Space Operations"
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