The Defense Intelligence Agency is worried that terrorists will be able to launch crude missile attacks (similar to China's test last year) against U.S. satellites by 2020. However, the article offers a few good reasons to doubt the intelligence communities track record on assessing military space threats.
The author explores ways to secure valuable space resources against 'assymetric attack' and suggests that a space surveillance system, similar to the proposed system for observing and tracking Earth-crossing objects, is the best solution.
Kuo outlines the challenges that space professionals face as they support traditional power-projection missions and new homeland-security tasks. Many navigation, communication, and weather-support missions translate easily from military roles to domestic-security support. But legal constraints, security classification, and complicated relationships among many agencies may make space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities difficult to integrate with local, state, and federal response agencies. Colonel Kuo also states that partial solutions to such challenges can come from innovative and creative uses of space assets.
The use of spacecraft for national security purposes and to combat terrorism is on a dramatic growth curve. That increased reliance calls for new spaceborne abilities, protection of orbiting hardware, quick access to space, and an overhaul of how America's military and security organizations utilize satellite assets.