MARCH 14, 2024 – From the National Training Center and Camp Pendleton, California, to White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, a platoon-size team of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command multi-component Soldiers and civilians experimented with cutting-edge technologies in February and March during Project Convergence–Capstone 4.
PC-C4, a U.S. Army-hosted, joint and multinational experiment saw warfighters, from across the Department of Defense and invited nations, explore the future of warfighting communications, operations and maneuver. Though each participant is able to independently experiment or exercise with emerging technology, PC-C4 sought to test integration and adaptability of emerging technology to achieve a future operating environment of a combined, joint all-domain force set against realistic warfighting scenarios.
“We will be contested in the cyber and space domains, so we must prepare for this eventuality,” said Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, USASMDC’s commanding general. “Integration and convergence in multidomain operations facilitates active campaigning and contributes to strategic deterrence through technology and tactics, techniques and procedures development, experimentation, exercises, engagements and operations from irregular warfare to large-scale combat operations. PC-C4 allows us to determine if and how our emerging space and high-altitude technology can support MDO through 2030 and beyond.”
During PC-C4, USASMDC experimented with, contributed to, and observed several emerging technologies including: a small form factor kit configured for electronic surveillance or attack; a virtual training environment for passive or active space systems; and elements of the Army’s new Theater Strike Effects Group. USASMDC personnel also participated in vignettes including the application of integrated fires for deep sensing, deep kinetic, and non-kinetic fires using high-altitude platforms in the form of medium-sized balloons, in this instance.
Soldiers from the command’s 1st Space Brigade deployed the small form factor in combat-realistic scenarios at the White Sands Missile Range to determine if their kit fulfilled the current demand for a ruggedized, tactical space control system. This miniaturization of tactical space systems directly supports the space, cyber and special operations forces Triad’s ability to conduct space operations at the tactical edge.
At that level, 1st Space Brigade teams provide on-the-move support to special operations forces entities by leveraging smaller, more portable technology to operational detachment alpha(s). In turn, it is the special operations forces that provide Army space assets access to environments they would not normally be able to infiltrate.
Like other equipment experimentation during PC-C4, the small form factor, which includes some commercial-off-the-shelf components, is not an Army program of record. What these systems can do, however, is inform the Army of capabilities and equipment that may be desirable in the future as components to the current program of record.
“Our Soldiers strive to enable real-time space support to ground units of action during events such as Project Convergence,” said Cpt. Noah Siegel, Space Operations Officer, 18th Space Company, 1st Space Brigade. “We will continue to refine operating concepts and capabilities at experiments such as Project Convergence and future exercises including USASOC’s Capability Exercise, Apollo Response, and Avenger Triad.”
In addition to 1st Space Brigade’s activities at White Sands Missile Range, several observers from USASMDC’s Army Capability Manager for Space and High Altitude worked with the notional TSEG at Camp Pendleton. This group included subject matter experts for high altitude, navigation warfare, and counter surveillance and reconnaissance. The collaboration between the teams generated numerous observations largely focusing on authorities, policy and lines of communication to inform how this new Army space formation will fight at the theater Army level.
USASMDC also utilized PC-C4 to enhance its work as the Army’s proponent for high-altitude capabilities. At PC-C4, the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force, in conjunction with Program Manager-Fixed Wing, funded the flight of two medium-size balloons as part of the FY24 HA campaign of learning designed to inform platform development and refine the architecture required to move data from the sensors on the balloon to the warfighters in the field, a first-of-its-kind experiment.
“ACM-SHA team members’ role during this event was to observe and collect information to inform the platform development,” said Mike (George) Nadler, chief, Space and High Altitude Requirements Branch, USASMDC’s Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence. “By observing the balloon launches and discussing concepts for operations at-scale with the subject matter experts on the ground, we were able to gather information on doctrinal, training and logistical learning demands that will support our efforts to deliver a formal program of record to Army high-altitude formations.”
Story by Ronald Bailey
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command