{"id":1778,"date":"2025-07-31T08:54:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T06:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1778"},"modified":"2025-06-08T09:57:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:57:38","slug":"as-space-becomes-more-crowded-us-space-force-turns-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1778","title":{"rendered":"As space becomes more crowded, US Space Force turns to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Space Force will need to use AI in new ways to identify and track objects in space\u2014also called \u201cspace domain awareness\u201d\u2014as space becomes increasingly congested, the service\u2019s acting deputy chief of space operations for cyber and data said Wednesday at a Booz Allen Hamilton event.<\/p>\n

Long gone are the days when a single airman observed one satellite or space object to make sure it wasn\u2019t acting strangely or veering toward possible collision, Seth Whitworth said. Now, one of the big questions for the Space Force is how many space objects can a single guardian fly, monitor, or track at once, with the possible help of automated tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat trust level is required where I can now have one guardian reviewing 10, 20, 1,000? I don’t know what that number is. It’s the conversations that we’re having,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Guardians are now training automated tools on their activities and processes, in order to understand and build trust for the tools and find safe applications for AI, he said, such as helping to draft performance reports or participating in wargames. But establishing that trust will need to be a rigorous, ongoing process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go out and talk to guardians, I think they would say that they want a chat-like capability,\u201d Whitworth said.<\/p>\n

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Nate Hamet, the founder and CEO of Quindar, a Colorado start-up that builds AI tools for monitoring space missions, said the company has already created a type of chatbot for space operators, based on \u201cthe conversations that we see our users\u201d having. Those conversations include questions about the rules for particular maneuvers, propulsion systems for different objects in view, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But the sheer volume of space objects\u2014and the new data about those objects\u2014means the Space Force must also consider ways to deploy AI for other missions, like tracking or flying satellites.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to evaluate the risk of where we can pull guardians out? Where is that trust level,\u201d necessary to hand that role over to an automated agent, said\u00a0 Whitworth.<\/p>\n

Pat Biltgen, a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton focused on artificial intelligence, said that as the human task of monitoring the space domain and responding to possible attacks becomes more challenging, the military must consider allowing automated agents to do much more. Relying on a so-called\u00a0\u201chuman-on-the-loop\u201d<\/a> to monitor automated systems may speak to present-day concerns about human control, but as AI entities become more effective, interconnected and safe, highly distracted human monitors could detract from safety, he said.<\/p>\n

He described a hypothetical \u201cworst nightmare\u201d scenario in which reliance on human judgment becomes a liability, as a tired, isolated human operator is presented with too much data to make the best decision, but still retains authority to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s this massive, multi-billion dollar system \u2026It’s all designed to work together in network-centric warfare. And there’s one person on Christmas Eve that is the lowest-ranked person, stuck with the least amount of leave, that has a big red button that says, \u2018Turn off the United States.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Space Force will need to use AI in new ways to identify and track objects in space\u2014also called \u201cspace domain awareness\u201d\u2014as space becomes increasingly congested, the service\u2019s acting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[87,69],"class_list":["post-1778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ai","tag-us-space-force"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/US-SPACE-FORCE-AI.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1781,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions\/1781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}