Publisher's Synopsis
This May 2019 white paper is a call to action to address present and emerging challenges and threats to the U.S. space industrial base and space dominance. It summarizes the discussions, conclusions and recommendations from a meeting on March 11 and 12, 2019 of interested parties and experts gathered from across government, academia and industry sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The meeting was motivated by the recognition that in an ever more global and interconnected world, commercial, civil and national defense space capabilities are increasingly vital to national power. To preserve and expand that power requires a coordinated national space strategy and a vibrant, competitive and agile U.S. space industrial base to execute that strategy. The objectives of this meeting were to examine the increasing contribution of space to national economic, political and military power; the U.S. space industrial base required to ensure and expand that power; current and emerging challenges and threats to the space industrial base; and potential strategies to address those challenges and threats.We define the 'U.S. space industrial base' as the private-sector, industry-suppliers of technology, hardware, software, systems, data and financial and insurance capacities that grow the space economy to serve our nation's civilian, civil and national security interests. The U.S. space industrial base is presently a relatively small, nascent part of the national and global economy. As such, it remains particularly vulnerable to, and the government must protect it from, manipulation, distortion, penetration and domination by our adversaries, allies and neutral countries. While the U.S. has long played a dominant role in space and continues to make significant space investments across civil, military and commercial space, the overall domestic effort is insufficiently integrated, focused and leveraged to address the challenges and threats to our Nation's dominant position.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
