The Army is making counterspace capabilities a top priority in its budget and moving closer to establishing a new space branch.
Washington, D.C. – The Army has included counterspace capabilities as a top priority in its five-year budget program starting in fiscal 2027, signaling a significant shift as the service progresses toward establishing a new space branch, according to senior officials.
Strategic Priority
„This year during program budget review, we included counterspace capabilities for the first time in our strategic priority list,” said Col. Pete Atkinson, space division chief at the Army Strategic Operations Directorate, during the Association of the US Army (AUSA) conference. „That’s the Army prioritizing how important these consequential capabilities are in making sure that they get the requisite resources, a really consequential action.”
Defense Secretary
Atkinson emphasized that the Army transformation memo signed by Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth in April identifies counterspace as a key mission area to accelerate, alongside precision long-range fires, air and missile defense capability, cyber, and electronic warfare. „Calling it counterspace by name is really important,” Atkinson added.
2024 Space Vision
The Army’s 2024 Space Vision outlines two main goals: integrating space support capabilities, such as satellite communications (SATCOM), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), and the „interdiction” of adversary space capabilities.
Protection
„Interdiction is ubiquitous with counterspace. What it’s getting at is counter-satellite communications, counter surveillance and reconnaissance, [and] navigation warfare,” Atkinson explained. „How do we protect friendly forces from threats emanating from the air and space domains? No one service has a monopoly on protection. We have to protect ourselves, and so we work as a team across the Army and the joint force to make sure we have the requisite capabilities.”
Space Branch Approval
Meanwhile, the Army is nearing the establishment of its own space branch, according to Brig. Gen. Donald Brooks, deputy commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC). „It’s in the approval process,” Brooks said at the AUSA conference. He added that the plan has received „overwhelming affirmation” from general officers, and the chief is committed to Army Space Operations.
MOS
Last December, SMDC approved the creation of a new military occupational specialty (MOS), „40D Space Operations Specialist,” aimed at doubling the number of service space specialists. Brooks stated that the MOS „activates in August of ’26.”
Non-Commissioned Officers
These non-commissioned officers, along with space-specialist officers known as 40 Alphas, will be integrated across the service, from brigade combat teams up the chain, to enhance the lethality of warfighting formations.
Warfighting formations
Brooks explained that SMDC has „been working over the last several weeks” on a proposal to integrate personnel at various echelons, extending „not just down into the company level, but up into the Multi-Domain Task Force [and] the headquarters level.”
