Creating space careers for enlisted soldiers a priority, officials say

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command has sent a proposal up the chain to establish a space-dedicated military occupation specialty for non-commissioned officers during the earlier stages of their careers, Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, the command’s leader, said Aug. 6 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

The service put together a new space vision at the end of 2023, which strengthens the Army’s role in space and its use of space-based capabilities.

“The Army has a place in space and we need to continue leading the charge by giving ourselves every opportunity to become the experts we’ll turn to during the next conflict,” Gainey said. “[But] it’s also clear to me that our Army is missing a major piece of the puzzle when it comes to space operations.”

That is where establishing a space-focused MOS comes in.

The proposal to create the military occupation specialty was submitted to the Army G-1, the branch in charge of personnel, about six weeks ago, SMDC Command Sergeant Major John Foley told reporters at the symposium.

Once staffing is complete the decision will go to Army senior leaders, Foley said. If given a green light the new occupation could take roughly two more years to implement.

Soldiers assigned to the new job would be designated as “40 Delta MOS, to where they’re now space soldiers and they’re experts,” Foley said.

Space and Missile Defense Command is also busy implementing the Army’s new space vision. The service’s space-focused mission has had to adapt since the arrival of the U.S. Space Force in 2019.

Prior to the establishment of the military’s youngest branch, the Army’s space-related mission areas included satellite communications; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and missile warning. All of those roles were transferred to the Space Force over the last several years.

The service’s new vision carves out new mission areas, such as integrating joint space capabilities and interdicting or disrupting adversaries’ use of space for hostile purposes.

The Army has stressed the need to create and exploit space domain effects — and invest in more space capabilities and formations — to enable successful operations.

Formations set to take responsibility for the interdiction mission include multidomain task forces and theater strike effects groups. The Army has already established three MDTFs — two in the Pacific theater and one in Europe. Two more will be activated in the coming years, with these task forces expected to use cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to block adversaries’ defenses.

Simultaneously, theater strike effects groups would “synchronize and deliver Army space interdiction fires in support of theater targeting objectives.”

New capabilities will include next-generation tactical terminals to fuse data from multi-orbit satellite communications services and space-enabled tactical ISR platforms, as well as high-altitude sensors like balloons and long-endurance, fixed-wing aircraft.

Already the Army has repositioned several thousand soldiers in support of multidomain operations, and the service has developed a space training strategy that will soon be released, Gainey said.

That strategy will be “key to all the formations in the Army being able to train at their unit, at the tactical level on simple space capabilities [like] GPS jamming, how to react in those environments,” Foley said. “That entire vision … complements all that we are talking about, building, modernization — and then the ownership at tactical level for those commanders to say this is a priority. We need to be able to train these specific tasks so that when and if they are denied, disrupted, jammed, [then] they can react.”

Adding more offensive space control capabilities inside the theater strike effects group is also something the command is discussing. The TSEG is moving from concept to interim capability in the 2027 timeframe and will go to the Indo-Pacific theater to inform a future “objective force,” Gainey said.

“We’re already hearing from other [combatant commands] that they want that capability,” he noted.

Personnel from Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Futures Command are working together to develop a concept for what the objective force will look like, Gainey said, adding that an announcement on that may come “hopefully next year.”

Meanwhile, SMDC is working to get capability to the multidomain task forces. Such efforts may include prototyping and experimenting with high-altitude balloons and aircraft while examining such capabilities within the MDTFs.

”You’re going to see space capability proliferate” throughout those formations, Gainey added. “[They’re] going to experiment with it, train with it, and then provide us feedback into our Army capability manager and into our schoolhouse.”