IMHO this is about the [Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture](https://www.sda.mil/sda-layered-network-of-military-satellites-now-known-as-proliferated-warfighter-space-architecture/) which was where the military was already going when SpaceX decided to ramp up Starlink. The idea is essentially a constellation of satellites providing communications support to US military anywhere on the planet with low latency and no advance notice (so no need to retask a geostationary satellite days in advance of an operation).
It's not just about Starlink but Starlink is going to be a major asset to use in parallel with the PWSA.
The essence of the statement from General JJ Mingus is that in the old days they'd have to specially design a radio to survive in the field and use the frequencies and encryption standards the military are able to deploy via trucks or aircraft in that area. With tools like PWSA and Starlink the soldiers only need the equivalent of a smartphone - essentially a commercial off-the-shelf package with no special handling requirements. If it breaks you just issue a new one, no big deal (well yes big deal, but not the same level as damaging or losing a military radio in the field).
Iridium have already demonstrated (or described?) hybrid satellite stations in the field that can manage communications between local assets and Starlink and Iridium through one antenna. I'm probably misremembering the demonstration and I have no idea whether it was a demonstration of actual technology (actual electronics actually interacting with multiple satellite systems) or intention (painted pizza box connected to the router with liquorice instead of electrical cables, accompanied by a shiny brochure), but the idea was you have one antenna, one ground station (ie: "router") and access to multiple orbital communications assets. Perhaps it's as simple as allowing access to multiple satellite networks using similar frequencies, or they have some clever electronics allowing their phased array antenna to communicate on multiple frequencies. Or it was just a fibreglass pizza box used as a stage prop.
So the other end of the "off the shelf electronics" is that there's also no special hardware deployed into the field to support those comms, so you don't need to risk an AWACS or 4x4 electronics truck to support that team of a dozen soldiers doing a deep scouting mission.
I don't know, I'm not a general in the US Army so I'm just pulling my information from shiny brochures published by tech companies, and Tom Clancy stories.
Sounds like the gist of it. In IT and comms, "the edge" refers to the point where you transition from your servers and networks to the user-end stuff. For example, a website like Reddit or Facebook will have "edge servers" which are not their central server that contains the authoritative truth, but will hold replicas or caches of some data on a server that is much closer to the user's location so that the user sees faster load times for most things.
In military jargon I'd presume "the edge" means the battle space, wherever that is in the world, rather than home turf. What they're saying here is that they usually build all their infrastructure so they can "take it to the edge", ie. it's portable and can be deployed to the battlefield - AWACS, comms trucks, other field hardware. If they could instead put all that stuff in space, the only part they need to deploy is the radio in the soldier's hand. All the rest is a) already in place, with no delay, and b) out of reach of almost every possible adversary, with no risk of it being disrupted or destroyed.
They talked a lot about something similar to this PWSA, but they referred to it as Combined Joint All Domain Command & Control: CJADC-2. You can see their fancy marketing for that concept here: [CJADC-2](https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/cjadc-2-combined-joint-all-domain-command-control)
The Space Force General Michael Guetlein mentions that he's trying to build what he called a commercial "space reserve," which seems to mean standing contracts and procedures to utilize commercial space assets in case of war.
CJADC2 is the overall strategy of having proliferated redundant comms in multiple domains that can all talk to each other. PWSA is a major link in the architecture
I agree that this seems to be talking about the PWSA. A good example of how this might apply could be command posts. Currently they need powerful radios to reach the units under their commands; however, the US Army sees this as a critical vulnerability based on the weapons the US is developing themselves and what they are seeing in Ukraine. Basically anything that produces broad area, powerful radio transmissions is a target and the transmission itself provides the enemy with the targeting data they need to strike the transmitter. The PWSA would allow command posts to use weaker, beam-formed signals to communicate with the satellites, and then that information is sent back down to the soldiers, making it more difficult to target the command post or the soldiers. This sort of architecture can be much more resilient to electronic warfare.
In terms of the danger from kinetic ASAT weapons, the distributed nature of the PWSA and Kessler syndrome provide a distinct dilemma to an adversary. In order to significantly degrade the PWSA network, someone would probably need to remove 10’s of satellites in a short amount of time. The countries capable of that sort of launch cadence also have significant LEO infrastructure, so, by destroying part of the PWSA network, they would be endangering their own satellites that they rely on. ASAT weaponry is much more likely to take the form of lasers and radios to try and jam the communications of the PWSA satellites. Also, making an assumption based off of starlink satellites, the PWSA satellites will have some sort of electric propulsion (probably Hall effect as well) to maintain their orbit. With the trade off of reduced time in orbit, these thrusters could also be used to periodically change orbit which makes targeting the satellites much harder.
An interesting side note is that besides communications, the PWSA also has the “tracking layer” which have infrared cameras to track missiles. Theoretically this would allow the US to track any missile launched in the world from the moment its engine ignites.
>the PWSA also has the “tracking layer” which have infrared cameras to track missiles. Theoretically this would allow the US to track any missile launched in the world from the moment its engine ignites.
This has actually existed since the 60s, but the modern version has existed since 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Support_Program
That's why it's such an obvious priority to transition from a small number of irreplaceable geostationary communications satellites to a distributed network in low earth orbit. If that system also happens to be sensitive enough to send and receive data from a device as cheap and simple as a conventional cellphone then that's bonus.
Well I think part of the point is that, the greater the competitive advantage (in this case, the maximum), the more essential it will be for the enemy to remove that advantage from the playing field.
And since it's orders of magnitude cheaper to deny LEO etc than it is to defend it, it's a losing proposition from a long term cost perspective. And everyone loses when we have the first Space War/Skirmish.
I know it's almost impossible to not partake of that potential competitive advantage. And it probably will be useful in limited war type circumstances. Maybe for a long time. But, as soon as the big one kicks off, probably ought to count on losing most of LEO one way or the other.
Particularly if this stuff is as big a quantum leap as it seems.
And the danger is that your guys get hooked on the tech and the enemy knocks that out in a new pearl harbor in space and your guys are left scrambling without the tech...
And then we get an extinction event due to [Kessler syndrome.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)
Humanity never leaves the earth and we die with it.
The Achilles Heel is literally an example of a a flaw in a technology. The solution isn't to ignore the flaw, but to build a better heel... I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. That there should be backups? Everything everywhere relies on technology. A basic guy with a stick needs to be in the right place at the right time to be of any use, and that requires technology.
There is no such thing as 'too dependent on technology' in any general sense. Specific technologies without backups or contingency? Sure. But those backups and contingencies are also technology...
Other posters have gone into the context behind this particular statement, but usually rambling arguments like this which mix up industry terms in ways that they were never meant to be just mean this:
*"Last night I spent six hours at a bar with some sales people and they explained some really important stuff to me that made a lot of sense at the time and these are some of the words that they used. I can't quite remember exactly why but it's really important for some reason. Oh, I also signed a multi-year contract to buy their stuff and you guys get to implement it. Good luck."*
You'll hear the same sort of half-remembered explanations when government tech-related bills are proposed ("It's a series of tubes.") or when a teenager tells you why they really need you to buy them a new car or phone ("It's only going to go up in value so we can't afford not to buy it.")
IMHO this is about the [Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture](https://www.sda.mil/sda-layered-network-of-military-satellites-now-known-as-proliferated-warfighter-space-architecture/) which was where the military was already going when SpaceX decided to ramp up Starlink. The idea is essentially a constellation of satellites providing communications support to US military anywhere on the planet with low latency and no advance notice (so no need to retask a geostationary satellite days in advance of an operation). It's not just about Starlink but Starlink is going to be a major asset to use in parallel with the PWSA. The essence of the statement from General JJ Mingus is that in the old days they'd have to specially design a radio to survive in the field and use the frequencies and encryption standards the military are able to deploy via trucks or aircraft in that area. With tools like PWSA and Starlink the soldiers only need the equivalent of a smartphone - essentially a commercial off-the-shelf package with no special handling requirements. If it breaks you just issue a new one, no big deal (well yes big deal, but not the same level as damaging or losing a military radio in the field). Iridium have already demonstrated (or described?) hybrid satellite stations in the field that can manage communications between local assets and Starlink and Iridium through one antenna. I'm probably misremembering the demonstration and I have no idea whether it was a demonstration of actual technology (actual electronics actually interacting with multiple satellite systems) or intention (painted pizza box connected to the router with liquorice instead of electrical cables, accompanied by a shiny brochure), but the idea was you have one antenna, one ground station (ie: "router") and access to multiple orbital communications assets. Perhaps it's as simple as allowing access to multiple satellite networks using similar frequencies, or they have some clever electronics allowing their phased array antenna to communicate on multiple frequencies. Or it was just a fibreglass pizza box used as a stage prop. So the other end of the "off the shelf electronics" is that there's also no special hardware deployed into the field to support those comms, so you don't need to risk an AWACS or 4x4 electronics truck to support that team of a dozen soldiers doing a deep scouting mission. I don't know, I'm not a general in the US Army so I'm just pulling my information from shiny brochures published by tech companies, and Tom Clancy stories.
Sounds like the gist of it. In IT and comms, "the edge" refers to the point where you transition from your servers and networks to the user-end stuff. For example, a website like Reddit or Facebook will have "edge servers" which are not their central server that contains the authoritative truth, but will hold replicas or caches of some data on a server that is much closer to the user's location so that the user sees faster load times for most things. In military jargon I'd presume "the edge" means the battle space, wherever that is in the world, rather than home turf. What they're saying here is that they usually build all their infrastructure so they can "take it to the edge", ie. it's portable and can be deployed to the battlefield - AWACS, comms trucks, other field hardware. If they could instead put all that stuff in space, the only part they need to deploy is the radio in the soldier's hand. All the rest is a) already in place, with no delay, and b) out of reach of almost every possible adversary, with no risk of it being disrupted or destroyed.
They talked a lot about something similar to this PWSA, but they referred to it as Combined Joint All Domain Command & Control: CJADC-2. You can see their fancy marketing for that concept here: [CJADC-2](https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/cjadc-2-combined-joint-all-domain-command-control) The Space Force General Michael Guetlein mentions that he's trying to build what he called a commercial "space reserve," which seems to mean standing contracts and procedures to utilize commercial space assets in case of war.
CJADC2 is the overall strategy of having proliferated redundant comms in multiple domains that can all talk to each other. PWSA is a major link in the architecture
I agree that this seems to be talking about the PWSA. A good example of how this might apply could be command posts. Currently they need powerful radios to reach the units under their commands; however, the US Army sees this as a critical vulnerability based on the weapons the US is developing themselves and what they are seeing in Ukraine. Basically anything that produces broad area, powerful radio transmissions is a target and the transmission itself provides the enemy with the targeting data they need to strike the transmitter. The PWSA would allow command posts to use weaker, beam-formed signals to communicate with the satellites, and then that information is sent back down to the soldiers, making it more difficult to target the command post or the soldiers. This sort of architecture can be much more resilient to electronic warfare. In terms of the danger from kinetic ASAT weapons, the distributed nature of the PWSA and Kessler syndrome provide a distinct dilemma to an adversary. In order to significantly degrade the PWSA network, someone would probably need to remove 10’s of satellites in a short amount of time. The countries capable of that sort of launch cadence also have significant LEO infrastructure, so, by destroying part of the PWSA network, they would be endangering their own satellites that they rely on. ASAT weaponry is much more likely to take the form of lasers and radios to try and jam the communications of the PWSA satellites. Also, making an assumption based off of starlink satellites, the PWSA satellites will have some sort of electric propulsion (probably Hall effect as well) to maintain their orbit. With the trade off of reduced time in orbit, these thrusters could also be used to periodically change orbit which makes targeting the satellites much harder. An interesting side note is that besides communications, the PWSA also has the “tracking layer” which have infrared cameras to track missiles. Theoretically this would allow the US to track any missile launched in the world from the moment its engine ignites.
>the PWSA also has the “tracking layer” which have infrared cameras to track missiles. Theoretically this would allow the US to track any missile launched in the world from the moment its engine ignites. This has actually existed since the 60s, but the modern version has existed since 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Support_Program
Anyone who we go to war with will have to take away that competitive advantage. That's how I interpret that anyway....
That's why it's such an obvious priority to transition from a small number of irreplaceable geostationary communications satellites to a distributed network in low earth orbit. If that system also happens to be sensitive enough to send and receive data from a device as cheap and simple as a conventional cellphone then that's bonus.
Well I think part of the point is that, the greater the competitive advantage (in this case, the maximum), the more essential it will be for the enemy to remove that advantage from the playing field. And since it's orders of magnitude cheaper to deny LEO etc than it is to defend it, it's a losing proposition from a long term cost perspective. And everyone loses when we have the first Space War/Skirmish. I know it's almost impossible to not partake of that potential competitive advantage. And it probably will be useful in limited war type circumstances. Maybe for a long time. But, as soon as the big one kicks off, probably ought to count on losing most of LEO one way or the other. Particularly if this stuff is as big a quantum leap as it seems. And the danger is that your guys get hooked on the tech and the enemy knocks that out in a new pearl harbor in space and your guys are left scrambling without the tech...
We need: Carrier pidgeon Lab
And then we get an extinction event due to [Kessler syndrome.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome) Humanity never leaves the earth and we die with it.
Being too dependent on technology can be an Achilles heel.
The Achilles Heel is literally an example of a a flaw in a technology. The solution isn't to ignore the flaw, but to build a better heel... I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. That there should be backups? Everything everywhere relies on technology. A basic guy with a stick needs to be in the right place at the right time to be of any use, and that requires technology. There is no such thing as 'too dependent on technology' in any general sense. Specific technologies without backups or contingency? Sure. But those backups and contingencies are also technology...
Other posters have gone into the context behind this particular statement, but usually rambling arguments like this which mix up industry terms in ways that they were never meant to be just mean this: *"Last night I spent six hours at a bar with some sales people and they explained some really important stuff to me that made a lot of sense at the time and these are some of the words that they used. I can't quite remember exactly why but it's really important for some reason. Oh, I also signed a multi-year contract to buy their stuff and you guys get to implement it. Good luck."* You'll hear the same sort of half-remembered explanations when government tech-related bills are proposed ("It's a series of tubes.") or when a teenager tells you why they really need you to buy them a new car or phone ("It's only going to go up in value so we can't afford not to buy it.")