The White House has elevated space, alongside undersea warfare and artificial intelligence, to the highest tier of U.S. military science and technology priorities, signaling a sharper focus on maintaining technological superiority in orbit and extending that advantage from very low Earth orbit to the cislunar environment.
Released this week, the 24-page National Security Science and Technology Strategy (NSSTS) provides the administration’s most explicit public framework yet for directing national security research and development toward technologies considered critical to future military competition. The strategy also calls for a combination of large, sophisticated military systems and greater numbers of lower-cost, attritable platforms.
The release came in the same week that the administration requested a record $71 billion for the U.S. Space Force, giving the strategy an immediate connection to the Pentagon’s broader plans for expanding military space capabilities.
Space, Undersea Warfare and AI Form the Strategy’s Top Tier
The NSSTS establishes a four-tiered framework for national security technology priorities. At the top are three areas identified as essential to U.S. battlefield dominance and power projection: undersea capabilities, space, and AI and autonomy.
Undersea superiority encompasses both the survivability of U.S. submarines and the ability to conduct anti-submarine warfare. AI and autonomy covers rapidly evolving technologies intended to improve military decision-making and autonomous operations.
Space is defined more broadly than simply maintaining satellites in orbit. The strategy calls for “clear technological superiority” in the space domain and the ability to detect, characterize and counter threats to U.S. space interests from very low Earth orbit through cislunar space.
That language is significant because it extends the strategic scope of military space beyond traditional Earth-orbit operations.
Very low Earth orbit presents an increasingly congested environment for satellites and other spacecraft, while the cislunar region encompasses the space between Earth and the Moon and the operational areas around the Moon. As lunar exploration, communications, navigation and commercial activity expand, the ability to monitor and operate across that larger region is becoming increasingly relevant to long-term military planning.
The strategy also distinguishes the three top priorities in an important way. It calls for clear technological superiority in both space and undersea warfare, while describing AI and autonomy in terms of achieving competitive advantage.
A More Explicit Space Priority Than in the 2025 Strategy
The new strategy builds on the administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy, but places substantially greater emphasis on technology-specific priorities.
The 2025 strategy identified space, undersea capabilities and AI among important areas of national security competition, but did not arrange them into the same clearly defined hierarchy. The new NSSTS therefore represents a more focused translation of broader national-security objectives into science and technology policy.
This distinction matters because research priorities can influence where federal laboratories, defense agencies and private-sector partners concentrate development efforts.
The NSSTS says federal agencies should focus technology competition in areas that preserve battlefield advantage, counter strategic threats to the homeland and exploit existing U.S. strengths. It also calls for federal R&D funding to complement rather than duplicate private-sector investment.
For the space industry, that approach could reinforce the government’s role as a major customer for commercial space technology while leaving more mature, commercially viable capabilities to industry.
The strategy specifically calls for stronger partnerships with private and academic organizations and greater access to federal R&D infrastructure for U.S. companies, including small and nontraditional firms, when their work supports national security requirements.
From Satellite Protection to Counterspace Operations
The language surrounding space superiority points toward a broader conception of military space power.
For decades, U.S. military space architecture has relied heavily on satellites providing communications, positioning, navigation and timing, missile warning, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Those systems support virtually every major U.S. military operation, making space assets both indispensable and potential targets.
The new strategy explicitly links space superiority with the ability to detect, characterize and counter threats.
That does not necessarily mean that every counterspace capability will involve offensive action. Detection and characterization are prerequisites for defensive operations, including identifying suspicious spacecraft behavior, tracking threats, protecting satellites and maintaining resilient communications and sensing networks.
The emphasis also reflects a fundamental change in the operating environment. Military planners increasingly assume that satellites could face jamming, cyberattacks, electronic interference, directed-energy threats, kinetic attack or hostile maneuvering by other spacecraft.
A resilient architecture therefore cannot depend exclusively on making individual satellites nearly impossible to attack. It increasingly depends on distributing capabilities across multiple spacecraft and orbital regimes so that the loss of one asset does not cripple an entire mission.
That logic aligns closely with the strategy’s broader emphasis on technological resilience.
Low-Cost Systems Will Complement Expensive Military Platforms
The NSSTS does not call for abandoning traditional high-end military systems in favor of large numbers of inexpensive platforms.
Instead, it advocates a combination of the two.
The document endorses the Pentagon’s push toward high-speed, low-cost innovation, particularly expendable systems such as drones, while emphasizing that sophisticated and expensive “exquisite” platforms remain necessary even when they are threatened by relatively inexpensive weapons.
The stated objective is to find an optimal combination of lower-cost, sometimes lower-technology or attritable systems deployed in larger numbers alongside smaller numbers of highly capable platforms.
That concept has direct relevance to military space architecture.
Large, highly capable satellites can provide powerful sensing, communications and other functions, but they can also represent concentrated investments. Smaller spacecraft and proliferated constellations can distribute risk across many nodes and potentially make an adversary’s targeting problem more difficult.
The resulting architecture is likely to be less about choosing between exquisite satellites and small satellites than about combining them.
High-end spacecraft can deliver capabilities that small platforms cannot easily reproduce, while larger constellations can provide redundancy, persistence and resilience. The strategy’s emphasis on both approaches suggests that future U.S. military space systems will continue moving toward layered architectures rather than a single standardized satellite model.
Airpower, Long-Range Strike and C5ISR Form the Next Tier
Below the three top priorities, the strategy identifies three other areas as critical to battlefield dominance and power projection: airpower, long-range strike and C5ISR.
Airpower is tied to stealth, electronic warfare and air-defense capabilities. Long-range strike focuses on penetrating sophisticated defense networks and reaching targets with speed and precision.
C5ISR — command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance — provides the information architecture connecting these capabilities.
The relationship between these categories is particularly important for space.
Satellites increasingly function as part of a larger military information system rather than as isolated assets. Space-based sensors can collect information, communications satellites can transmit it, positioning systems can support navigation and targeting, and command-and-control networks can turn data into operational decisions.
That makes space technology an enabling layer across multiple military domains.
The NSSTS reflects this interconnected model by listing communications and networking, sensing, information security, cybersecurity and positioning, navigation and timing among its critical technology areas.
Critical Technologies Extend Well Beyond Spacecraft
The strategy identifies a broad group of enabling technologies that will support U.S. national security capabilities.
These include advanced manufacturing and materials, AI and autonomy, communications and networking, directed energy, future computing, hypersonics and advanced missiles, information management and cybersecurity, nuclear energy, positioning, navigation and timing, semiconductors and microelectronics, sensing and signature management, and space technologies.
The inclusion of these technologies shows that maintaining space superiority will depend on industrial and technological capabilities well beyond the spacecraft themselves.
Advanced manufacturing, for example, can reduce production timelines and enable more rapid replacement of space hardware. Semiconductor and microelectronics capabilities affect sensors, processors, communications equipment and guidance systems. Cybersecurity becomes essential as increasingly networked spacecraft interact with ground infrastructure and other military systems.
The strategy also identifies space nuclear power and propulsion, radiation-resistant materials and diversified positioning and navigation technologies among its critical and emerging technology areas.
Those priorities could become particularly important as military operations expand beyond traditional Earth orbits.
Resilience Becomes a Core Requirement
One of the four central pillars of the strategy is building technological resilience.
The White House argues that the United States should avoid excessive dependence on vulnerable technologies and supply chains and should develop architectures capable of continuing to function even when individual components are disrupted.
For military space systems, resilience can take several forms: proliferated satellite constellations, multiple communications pathways, diversified suppliers, distributed ground infrastructure, alternative navigation technologies and the ability to rapidly replace damaged or degraded spacecraft.
This approach also changes how military space programs may be evaluated.
A satellite that delivers exceptional performance but takes many years to replace may not necessarily provide greater strategic value than a somewhat less capable system that can be manufactured and launched rapidly in large numbers.
The industrial base therefore becomes part of space security.
The NSSTS calls for stronger domestic R&D infrastructure, a skilled science and technology workforce, targeted federal funding and closer partnerships between government, universities and industry. It also encourages federal agencies to provide private companies with access to relevant government R&D infrastructure where appropriate.
Emerging Technologies Could Reshape the Next Generation of Space Systems
The strategy separately identifies potentially transformative technologies whose ultimate national security effects remain uncertain.
Among them are biotechnology, quantum technologies and artificial general intelligence.
Quantum technologies could eventually affect secure communications, sensing and computing, although their operational military impact remains dependent on technical progress. AI and autonomy are already moving into operational applications, while future AI systems could influence spacecraft operations, sensor processing, mission planning and autonomous decision-making.
The broader strategy is therefore not limited to technologies that are already mature.
It calls for the United States to maintain leadership in emerging technologies even when their national security implications and development timelines are uncertain. The objective is to reduce the risk that a technological breakthrough elsewhere suddenly changes the strategic balance.
For space, that could encourage investment in technologies that are not yet central to today’s satellite programs but could become important as spacecraft become more autonomous and missions move farther from Earth.
The $71 Billion Space Force Request Will Test the Strategy
The timing of the NSSTS gives the document greater significance.
The administration released the strategy in the same week it requested a record $71 billion for the Space Force. That budget request provides an early test of whether the new hierarchy of technology priorities will translate into sustained funding.
Congressional action will ultimately determine how much of the administration’s proposed space spending survives the appropriations process.
The connection between the strategy and the budget is nevertheless important. A strategy document can establish priorities, but sustained funding, acquisition reforms and industrial capacity are what determine whether those priorities become operational capabilities.
The administration is also seeking faster acquisition cycles and fewer unnecessary regulatory barriers. The NSSTS specifically calls for rapid R&D funding mechanisms, innovation competitions, greater use of flexible contracting approaches and faster acquisition.
For commercial space companies, these policies could create more opportunities to sell technologies directly into national security programs, particularly in areas such as communications, sensing, autonomous systems, manufacturing and positioning technologies.
Space Is Becoming the Backbone of the Wider Military Technology Strategy
The most consequential aspect of the new strategy may be that space is no longer treated simply as one military technology sector among many.
By placing space alongside undersea superiority and AI at the top of the hierarchy, the White House is signaling that control and resilience in the space domain are considered fundamental to future U.S. military power.
The strategy also recognizes that space superiority cannot be achieved through satellites alone. It depends on launch capacity, manufacturing, semiconductors, communications, cybersecurity, sensing, navigation, autonomous systems and a resilient industrial base.
That makes the document relevant not only to the Space Force but also to NASA, the Defense Department, commercial launch providers, satellite manufacturers, communications companies and a growing ecosystem of space startups.
The next measure of the strategy will be implementation. Congressional decisions on the proposed $71 billion Space Force budget, the pace of acquisition reform and the extent to which commercial technology is integrated into national security programs will determine whether the new priorities remain a policy statement or become the foundation of a substantially larger U.S. military space architecture.
Download: National Security Science and Technology Strategy.pdf
