The Army is expanding its newly established Space Operations Branch as the service looks to grow its space capabilities to support ground operations and counter adversary systems.
The service stood up the space branch in June, formalizing the career paths of the Army’s growing cadre of space professionals. Army officials said the move would ease operational pressure on the air defense artillery, signal and military intelligence branches, which previously provided enlisted personnel for space missions on temporary assignments.
Earlier this month, more than 600 soldiers reclassified to the new 40D Tactical Space Operations Specialist military occupational specialty, establishing the organization’s first permanent enlisted force. The service reviewed over 2,000 applicants.
Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, commander of Space and Missile Defense Command, told reporters Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington that the goal is to have “a couple of thousand dedicated folks within the branch between the enlisted and the officer sides.”
Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson said the service initially did not fill every available position despite having “a marker that we wanted to meet.”
“We didn’t select everyone, and we left room for growth so that we do have that pipeline to be able to grow,” Jackson said.
The Army is working to recruit more junior-ranking soldiers into the new specialty.
“We are focusing across the Army and messaging and campaigning to bring in more of our junior soldiers. That’s where I need to provide a little bit more effort,” Jackson said.
Rafferty said the new branch reflects the Army’s growing reliance on space “for everything from precision, navigation and timing to communications to intelligence,” as well as “recognition that space enables multi-domain operations, and Army space sets those conditions for the joint force to exploit.”
According to Rafferty, leadership describes the role of Army space operations in two ways.
“No. 1 is space integration, and that’s ensuring that our forces have access to all the space-facing capabilities that can enable combined arms maneuvering, combined arms operations, whether that’s…intelligence that’s gathered from space, whether it’s force tracking,” he said. “Also, the space awareness that comes from understanding adversarial capabilities and understanding the space atmospheric conditions and weather conditions that could affect communications or affect our ability to observe the adversary. The other part is space interdiction,” he added.
The Army is now growing its formations to support those missions. The 4th Multi-Domain Task Force, which recently stood up at Fort Carson, Colo., includes a space control company. Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, director of TID-Space Superiority at SMDC, said the unit is expected to receive additional equipment as it works toward full operational capability.
A Theater Strike Effects Group is another space formation the Army is setting up in the Pacific this year.
“By next year at AUSA, we expect that there will be some formation out there in the Theater Strike Effects Group that is supporting U.S. Army Pacific, and growing capabilities for space interdiction to meet the demand,” Mroszczyk said.
The service is also looking to expand Army space into stratospheric operations.
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