Architecture for Space-Based ISR

What are the optimal architectures for layering airborne and space-based ISR capabilities to enable long-range kill chains in contested environments, and what are the cost, performance, and resilience trade-offs between alternative sensor mixing strategies expected to be available in the FY28-32 timeframe?

• Bava, Capt. Daniel A., "Background Paper on Space ISR and Artificial Intelligence," SOS AUAR, 2025, 7 pgs. 
  • Highlights the performance bottlenecks and data overload associated with modernized proliferated space ISR constellations, noting that the traditional tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TCPED) cycle is too slow for tactical kill chains. To optimize space-based ISR architectures for near-real-time tactical application, the paper argues for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning software directly onto orbiting satellites to conduct "on-board processing" and image compression. This strategy dramatically reduces downlink latency, mitigates bandwidth limitations, and enhances resilience by allowing satellites to autonomously avoid collisions or filter unneeded data, ensuring that tactical warfighters receive rapid, actionable targeting information despite the contested nature of the space domain.
• Cosker, Maj. Nathan, "Quantity Still Has a Quality: Building Scalable Airpower for Peer Conflict," ACSC, 2025.
  • Examines the cost and resilience trade-offs of force design, arguing that the Air Force must shift toward Acceptable Loss Technology (ALT) and Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) to supplement exquisite crewed and space systems. The author argues that advanced, highly survivable platforms (like the F-35 or B-21) are too expensive and take too long to field to independently provide the sensor coverage and mass needed in a peer conflict. The optimal architecture proposed involves distributing autonomous wingmen, uncrewed ISR swarms, and networked weapons across the battlespace to extend sensor range and strike capacity at a significantly lower cost-per-effect. This strategy prioritizes redundancy and mass, ensuring that if individual sensing or strike nodes are destroyed, the overarching network retains the resilience to sustain long-range operations.
• Caldwell, Lt. Col. James T., "Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control: Requirements to Distribute Missile Defense Information to the Tactical Edge," AWC SSP, 2021, 28 pgs. 
  • Explores the architectural requirements needed to execute the find, fix, track, target, and engage (F2T2E) decision-making process at lightning speeds against asymmetric threats like hypersonic missiles in contested environments. The paper advocates for the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) architecture, which leverages an integrated "Sensing Grid" that resiliently aggregates data from space, air, ground, and sea sensors and distributes it to shooters at the tactical edge. It emphasizes that shifting from disaggregated, monolithic legacy assets to distributed C2 architectures—such as the Space Development Agency's small satellite warning sensors—is vital for maximizing performance and resilience against adversary cyber and missile strikes that threaten traditional bases and C2 links.
• Crawford, Capt. Cody, "Attritable Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Concepts and Employment," SOS AUAR 2025.
  • Addresses the extreme vulnerabilities of both multi-billion-dollar space capabilities and exquisite airborne reconnaissance assets to near-peer anti-satellite (ASAT) and A2/AD weapons. To maintain "Global Persistent Awareness" and resilient kill chains if low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes unusable, the paper recommends the deployment of mass-produced, low-cost "Attritable ISR" platforms, such as solar-powered UAS or high-altitude balloon networks. The primary cost and resilience trade-off is that these attritable systems are cheap enough to be deployed in the hundreds of thousands and lost without significant technical or financial detriment, intentionally forcing adversaries to exhaust their expensive and limited surface-to-air munitions prior to a major air campaign.
• Dunn, Maj. Michael G., "Goldilocks, Kill Chains & The Three Acronyms: JADO, F2T2EA & DIKW," AF Fellows (DARPA), 2023, 34 pgs. 
  • Explores the economic and performance trade-offs of scaling sensors to enable the Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess (F2T2EA) kill chain in Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO). The author outlines the "tyranny of scale, specificity, and uniqueness," arguing that simply increasing the number of specialized sensors or relying on mass production to drive down the cost per sensor is highly inefficient. Instead, the paper posits that the optimal strategy for improving cost-efficiency and performance across multi-domain sensor networks is maximizing the data processing rate. By adopting commercial object-based data storage and management strategies, the military can effectively process the massive influx of data generated by disparate airborne and space sensors, ensuring that complex, cross-domain kill chains remain resilient and tenable even when communications are degraded.
• Gunn, Maj. Scott A., "Operations in the Information Age: Embracing a New Paradigm," AF Fellows (Mitchell Institute), 2014, 51 pgs. 
  • This paper proposes the "Future Battle Network" (FBN) and the "Sensing-to-Action Process" (STAP) to seamlessly fuse traditional space-based ISR platforms (like the Space-Based Infrared System) with tactical airborne platforms (like the F-35 and F-22) to compress the kill chain. The author argues that treating space-based satellites not just as intelligence gatherers, but as real-time operational nodes that can immediately cue tactical aircraft, will enable long-range standoff strikes in contested environments. However, the paper focuses on the conceptual paradigm shift toward information-centric warfare rather than specific cost, performance, or resilience trade-offs for future sensor mixing.
• Holston, Joel S., "Building the Neighborhood Watch: Partnered Integration of Airborne ISR for Into-Pacific Competition," AFGC thesis, 2024, 39 pgs. 
  • Analyzes the performance and resilience trade-offs between space-based sensors and airborne ISR (AISR) in contested Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environments. The paper highlights that while space-based ISR was once viewed as a low-risk panacea, it is increasingly vulnerable to Russian and Chinese counter-space weapons and lacks the ability to maintain real-time fixes on mobile targets as effectively as loitering airborne assets. Conversely, legacy exquisite AISR platforms are highly vulnerable to advanced air defenses. To balance cost, survivability, and sensing performance, the paper suggests moving away from legacy platforms and layering large numbers of low-cost, expendable autonomous uncrewed swarms alongside allied capabilities to saturate defenses, complicate adversary targeting, and guarantee sufficient sensors survive to complete the kill chain.
• McDonald, Lt. Col. Brough, "Mission--Go Win: Codifying Mission-Type Orders for USAF Joint All-Domain Operations," AFGC thesis, 2025, 56 pgs.
  • Addresses the C2 architecture and resilience necessary to sustain operations during the exact timeframe requested, outlining a "Phase Two: Long-Term Transformation (2028-2032)". To operate inside A2/AD environments that actively target centralized command structures, the paper recommends an architecture that integrates the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) into JADC2 by 2032 using cross-domain artificial intelligence (AI) tools, High Frequency (HF) relays, and proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) space systems. The paper argues that securing these diverse data transmission pathways and shifting execution to decentralized Mission-Type Orders (MTOs) will provide the maximum resilience needed to orchestrate multi-domain counterstrikes and maintain the kill chain even under highly contested conditions.
• McLamb, Capt. Elizabeth E., "Integrating Artificial Intelligence to Joint All-Domain Command and Control for the 2030 Fight," SOS AUAR, 2020, 21 pgs. 
  • Focusing on the 2030 battlespace, this paper details how the "Sensing Grid" component of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) will rely on a network of sensors across all domains to defeat peer-adversaries in Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environments. It highlights the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) as the technological solution to link sensors and shooters, utilizing Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to rapidly generate courses of action for the kill chain. While it addresses the 2030 timeframe and the necessity of all-domain sensor integration, it evaluates software applications, AI, and decentralized command and control rather than the specific architectural trade-offs of mixing space and airborne sensors.
• Rachel, Lt. Col. Derek A., "Make JFCC-ISR Great Again," AWC SSP, 2020, 23 pgs.
  • This paper addresses the operational necessity of integrating space-based and air-breathing ISR platforms via the "Combat Cloud" and the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) to provide real-time targeting data to warfighters. It argues that linking air, space, cyber, and ground assets into a cohesive network is crucial to shortening the kill chain and defeating simulated homeland and global threats. Ultimately, however, the paper focuses on the need to reform the bureaucratic organizational structures and the Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP) used to deploy these assets, rather than analyzing future architectural configurations or technical trade-offs.
• Strohmeyer, Col. Matthew D., "Commercial Data Revolutions for National Security," AF Fellow (CSIS), 2022, 38 pgs. 
  • Answers the question by illustrating how integrating commercial proliferated low Earth orbit (LEO) sensing constellations with artificial intelligence shatters traditional paradigms of relying exclusively on high-demand, low-density government assets. The paper notes that commercial space systems—featuring synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and radio frequency mapping—offer orders of magnitude more coverage and faster revisit rates at lower costs, which can effectively augment and queue exquisite government-operated systems. By pooling this multi-domain data into common cloud environments and utilizing machine learning for automated target detection, the architecture rapidly accelerates the sensor-to-shooter kill chain, creating a highly resilient and interoperable sensing grid capable of overcoming A2/AD challenges.
• Wetzel, Lt. Col. Tyson K., "Seizing the Advantage: A Vision for the Next US National Defense Strategy," AF Fellows (Atlantic Council), 2021, 72 pgs. 
  • Argues that to fight data-centric conflicts and achieve modernization by 2030, the military must shift its ISR architecture away from legacy, vulnerable airborne platforms like the MQ-9 toward a layered approach combining low-observable, penetrating airborne ISR with an expanded space constellation. To balance cost, performance, and resilience in contested environments, the paper advocates for a "high-low mix" of exquisite satellites at nontraditional orbits alongside large constellations of small commercial satellites. This layered architecture provides the persistent, multidiscipline intelligence coverage required to find, fix, and track mobile targets for long-range kill chains while ensuring that the overall constellation remains resilient even if individual satellites are attrited.