Col. Mark Cobos commands the U.S. Army’s only space brigade. With a global footprint across six locations in six countries and five time zones, the 840 soldiers of the 1st Space Brigade provide close space support to land forces and integrate key space effects to protect warfighters from space-enabled attacks.

Brigade soldiers integrate into exercises and operations, coordinating and planning for joint space effects. The brigade’s multicomponent units provide spectrum awareness and direct space support to ground maneuver forces, enhancing their ability to see, sense, strike and access across the spectrum.

“We’re committed to ensuring that Army conventional and special operations forces have the close space support they need to fight and win,” Cobos said.

That close space support is a key element of the Army’s space vision, formally known as the Army Space Vision Supporting Multidomain Operations. Released in January 2024, the vision focuses on two primary objectives: integration of space capabilities into the Army’s operational framework and interdiction of adversary space capabilities by joint forces at echelon.

Key Role

The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and its subordinate organizations, including the 1st Space Brigade, the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence and the Technical Center, play a considerable role in the Army achieving those objectives.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, Space and Missile Defense Command’s commanding general, said a key focus for the command and its 1st Space Brigade, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is planning how space capabilities can support multidomain operations.

“As we look out into 2030, we know from all the Army warfighting concepts that we have to grow space capability,” he said in July during an Association of the U.S. Army Coffee Series event.

Part of that capability includes the 1st Space Brigade demonstrating its ability to be small, fast and keep pace with forces on the attack. Training events like Joint Readiness Training Center exercises at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, and collaboration with special operations forces have enabled the brigade to evolve new capabilities.

“We’ve made incredible progress with our special operations and cyber partners,” Cobos said. “We continue to pursue opportunities to take advantage of the unique access [special operations] allows us, to conduct close space support with our cyber counterparts in positions of advantage across the battlefield.”

New Formations

In addition to the evolution of the 1st Space Brigade, the Army is progressing its space vision through modernizing its force structure concepts and capabilities with five multidomain task forces and the planned integration of additional space-enabled and space-capable formations, such as the theater strike effects group.

As the Army’s proponent for space and high-altitude domains, Space and Missile Defense Command has the responsibility to staff, train and equip space operations elements within each formation.

Multidomain task forces are purpose-built formations capable of coordinating and integrating cyberspace, electromagnetic activities and space capabilities with long-range surface fires. In conflict, the multidomain task force would help disrupt an enemy commander’s ability to prevent U.S. forces from operating in any domain. Each multidomain effects battalion within a multidomain task force will have a space control company.

Designed to synchronize and task-organize ground-based space and high-altitude forces, theater strike effects groups will deliver precision effects at the theater level, leveraging space and high-altitude systems to disrupt, deny, degrade and destroy enemy capabilities. Each theater strike effects group will be space-centric, with three space control companies, two high-altitude companies, a navigation warfare company and a countersurveillance and reconnaissance company. The first theater strike effects group, planned for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of operations, will reach initial operational capability in 2028.

Space and Missile Defense Command is exploring the possibility of expanding the theater strike effects group concept to other areas of operations, most recently in U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Gainey said.

“We believe that each geographic combatant command should have resident one of those elements inside to be able, from the theater level all the way to the major command level, to leverage space capabilities,” he said.

Seeking Expertise

More space expertise, such as that resident in the multidomain task forces and within divisions and brigades, is needed, Gainey said.

Adding these capabilities to theater armies ensures that combatant commanders have the necessary tools to synchronize ground force capabilities with the joint force to continue dominance and deterrence over growing Chinese and Russian threats, Gainey said.

In September, the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence introduced the theater strike effects group concept to U.S. Army Europe and Africa during Avenger Triad 24. The exercise provided an opportunity to test interoperability and showcase how space capabilities can support a theater army commander’s objectives in large-scale combat operations across the multidomain environment.

Assigned to the 56th Artillery Command, the Army’s only theater fires command, theater strike effects group team members worked through command-and-control support relationships, including permissions and authorities necessary to bring to bear all the group’s capabilities.

According to Col. Donald Brooks, commandant of the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence who served as the exercise theater strike effects group commander, the formation added capacity with space control companies and brought new capabilities to the fight. Working alongside the assigned multidomain task force during Avenger Triad 24, the two organizations were able to generate greater effects together than if they had been working independently, he said.

“We became a maneuver fires effects formation aligned underneath the theater fires command,” Brooks said. “We were able to facilitate deception and disruption of the adversary’s use of space in support of operations and the tactical fight, exercising the concept of close space support. The [theater strike effects group] is the ideal solution to the integration and interdiction aspirations of the Army’s space vision.”

Dedicated MOS

With the growth of space formations within multidomain task forces and theater strike effects groups, the Army has an increased need to build and maintain a stabilized, ready force of officers, NCOs and warrant officers, Gainey said. That growth has driven Space and Missile Defense Command to propose creation of a dedicated space MOS for enlisted soldiers.

“It’s clear to me that our Army is missing a major piece of the puzzle when it comes to space operations: a dedicated military occupational specialty that allows NCOs as well as officers to specialize in space at the earliest stages of their career,” Gainey said.

Currently, only officers have a dedicated career field, or functional area, for space operations. Enlisted soldiers serving in space-related fields come from other career paths including military intelligence, air defense and signal.

“We spend an exorbitant amount of time and resources training and certifying these soldiers,” Brooks said. “They may have one operational deployment before returning to their basic branches.”

The concept is to take authorizations already provided to those branches and change those soldiers to a 40D MOS. At that point, they would become space operations soldiers. “A dedicated space MOS will help the Army push that expertise into formations across the Army,” Brooks said, “and lead to the eventual establishment of a space branch.”

As of October, the proposal was in Department of the Army staffing and awaiting a decision by top Army leaders.

Realistic Training

In addition to capabilities and formations, bringing the Army space vision to reality requires realistic training that represents the conditions units expect to operate in during combat.

“Integrating space capabilities into training, education, and leader development prepares and enables our forces to mitigate adversary attempts to restrict freedom of maneuver and successfully fight and win future conflicts,” Gainey wrote in his forward to the 2024 Army Space Training Strategy.

As part of the Army Space Training Strategy, Space and Missile Defense Command is coordinating with U.S. Army Forces Command and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to integrate space capability and awareness into Initial Entry Training and through the training pipeline, including at combat training centers and home-station training.

 “Everybody has to be prepared to fight in a degraded, denied environment and be able to leverage space all the way down to the tactical level,” Gainey said.

Army training is transforming to meet the challenge. Space-related scenarios, to include denied, degraded and disrupted space operational environments at combat training centers and experimentation designed into exercises, support this transformation. Units are training to protect their use of space to conduct multidomain operations while also confounding adversary efforts. “These innovative approaches allow us to maintain a ‘fight tonight’ readiness while accelerating our transformation and modernization,” Gainey said. “We need to continue leading the charge by giving our soldiers every opportunity to become the experts we’ll turn to during the next conflict.”

Facing the Future

The 2024 Army Space Training Strategy notes that national leadership recognizes the critical nature of space to national security. Space is a top priority and receives increased resources to ensure continued U.S. leadership in the space domain. The National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, National Military Strategy, Defense Space Strategy and National Strategy for Space underscore the nation’s vital interest in unfettered freedom to operate in space.

Army space forces and capabilities are designed to integrate with and protect ground maneuver forces from hostile threats emanating from space, facilitate deep sensing, as well as enable movement and maneuver.

The Army is seeing a year-to-year increase in space, electronic warfare and cyber investments. While not all related to Space and Missile Defense Command efforts, the increases are a significant investment in terms of Army structure as well as capability development.

The Army Space Vision Supporting Multidomain Operations lays out a blueprint for the decisions Army senior leaders are making for the Army space program. Through operations, capability development, new space formations and training, Space and Missile Defense Command has an opportunity to shape that future.

“When you show value, the Army provides two things: structure and money,” Brooks said. “That’s why the Army is dedicating resources to Army space formations, people and capabilities, because we’ve shown value.”

Team members across Space and Missile Defense Command work daily to deliver capabilities and forces for the Army of 2030 to make the Army space vision a reality. “It’s an amazing time to be associated with the Army space community,” Brooks said.

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Lira Frye is the public affairs director for U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Previously, she was the public affairs team lead for U.S. Army Materiel Command. She has held a variety of Army, Air Force and joint public affairs positions in the U.S. and overseas.