Interference with Space Maneuver and Communications of Concern, Space Force Official Says

As the United States and its allies try to build support for norms of behavior in space, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) wants such standards to address any conduct that would interfere with the maneuver and communications of space systems, a USSF official said on Apr. 8.

“If you’re operating too closely in an aircraft to another aircraft, or from one ship to another, that’s a concern in the air and on the sea, so it would stand to reason that if you operate too closely in space, that that’s a safety concern,” Lt. Gen. Chance “Salty” Saltzman, USSF’s chief of operations, said during the Aerospace Corp.’s Space Policy Show. “Certainly, RF [radio frequency] interference, a lot of RF interference is unintentional. They don’t know, and they don’t realize that their bandwidth leaks out and causes problems for other users, but we can call that out and correct it and put it back in the container. So some of it’s unintentional, but some of it is intentional. Just interfering with freedom of maneuver, anything that’s unsafe. These are not inexpensive capabilities to put on orbit. Anything that jeopardizes the longevity of those satellites is something we’re going to be concerned about and try to keep that behavior responsible.”