As the space domain has become more congested and militarized the potential for intentional and unintentional threats to space system assets has increased. To mitigate these threats, the Department of Defense (DOD) has undertaken a variety of initiatives to enhance its network of sensors and systems to provide space situational awareness (SSA)—the current and predictive knowledge and characterization of space objects and the operational environment upon which space operations depend.
When called upon, the U.S. military must have superior capabilities to rapidly plan, assess, and execute space operations in support of the full spectrum of military actions. Because the space domain enables and supports military operations in the land, sea, and air domains, space operations must also be integrated with existing and future military and intelligence operations in those domains.
DARPA launched the Hallmark project in 2016 to support military efforts to hone space war-fighting skills. “Military commanders responsible for situational awareness and command and control of assets in space know all too well the challenge that comes from the vast size of the space domain,” DARPA said in a statement. “The volume of Earth’s operational space domain is hundreds of thousands times larger than the Earth’s oceans. It contains thousands of objects hurtling at tens of thousands of miles per hour. The scales and speeds in this extreme environment are difficult enough to grasp conceptually, let alone operationally.”
DARPA is seeking to develop a testbed for measuring, understanding, and integrating the complete spectrum of systems and capabilities to ensure stability, security, and operational dominance in space. The goal of Hallmark Software Testbed is to develop comprehensive and effective set of space command and control (C2) capability technologies that can be spiraled into the Joint Space Operations Center and/or the Joint Inter-Agency Combined Space Operations Center.
Hallmark-TC2 will develop new tools, technologies, and processes for enabling the full spectrum of military space enterprise C2 capabilities. These new capabilities will enhance the entire domain of space situational awareness and provide an active course-of-action generation and selection capability so that combined forces can dominate the space domain.
IDST Monthly Access Membership Required
You must be a IDST Monthly Access member to access this content.