WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King today encouraged United States Space Command (USSPACECOM) leadership to assess threats to America’s significant private and public satellite fleet. In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), King questioned General Stephen Whiting, USSPACECOM Commander, about what the United States is doing to mitigate existing risks in space and what the country can do to keep American assets and infrastructure safe from foreign adversaries.

The hearing comes as the world has learned about Russia’s nuclear anti-satellite space program. These satellites are critical for day-to-day operations, including GPS technology used in most smartphones worldwide.

“We have the best space capability and have for many, many years. That's the good news. The bad news is the dependency that we have on space, which makes us asymmetrically vulnerable in terms of the relationship with these potential adversaries. What are we doing to think about alternatives to space? For example, I understand recently, they're now teaching celestial navigation at Annapolis again. We need to be thinking about how we reduce our reliance on space assets, given the development of anti-space capabilities of our adversaries. Talk to me about how we mitigate this risk,” Senator King said.

General Whiting replied, “Senator, thank you for the question. We've gone to space because of the advantages it brings us – it allows us to operate globally untethered to terrestrial networks.

“And were unopposed for years,” Senator King answered.

General Whiting responded, “Yes, sir. And that gives us a unique advantage. But to your point, and I know all the services are thinking about this: what do we do when our primary capability may not be available? Now, in Space Command, it's our job to make sure that that doesn't happen. But no doubt the services have to train what their secondary plans are — and all of them have those plans in place … Several of the services such as the Army, the Navy, and the Marines also have a relatively small but dedicated cadre of space personnel to help their commanders understand the benefits and the vulnerabilities of space so they can understand when those times might be that they would have to go to those secondary or tertiary plans.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Co-Chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on national security and foreign policy issues in the space realm. He recently pressed the Commander of United States Space Command on the threat of GPS systems being targeted in a conflict and called for investments in capabilities that will deter and confront Russian and Chinese aggression in growing areas of space competition.

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