Orbital Command Stations, or OCS's (codenamed GARITE AND 2020) were space stations utilized by the United States military in order to coordinate its forces and rapidly deploy them across both Earth and the cislunar space. During their service lives, the Orbital Command Stations formed the linchpin the Orbital Defense Network, a fleet of reconnaissance, GPS, and defensive satellites in addition to On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) platforms and orbital depots built and launched from 2033 to 2048. Three of the stations, and most of the accompanying network of satellites were destroyed in the Thanksgiving Attacks of 2051, beginning the Third World War.
Program history and logistics[]
By the early 2030s, the United States space fleet consisted of aging geostationary satellites who were being technically outpaced by a new generation of commercial earth-imaging satellite constellations. After a precursor study on the effectiveness of the Artemis VI crew's satellite life-extension mission, President Ocasio-Cortez on 23 November 2033 approved the development of a permanent crewed platform under the initial codeword Garite, the Middle English word for "Watchtower." GARITE began by reorganizing several ongoing National Reconnaissance Office and Space Force programs under a single program director.
Subsystem level components began design and testing at Sunnyvale, CA in 2034, and construction on the stations began in 2037 at Tycho Base by Lunar Energy Ltd. and Tycho Space Systems. Five stations were initially requested, two polar and three equatorial, however cost overruns forced the cancellation of two stations. Construction began in secret chambers at the Tycho shipyards, disguised as part of the shipbuilding effort for NASA's Galileo Space Station program. All three stations were completed and Launched in 2040 while the near side of the moon was facing away from Earth. The station segments were blanketed in metamaterial shrouds and positioned in Geostationary orbit for final assembly, trisecting the Earth. The main command station OCS-101 was stationed over Ecuador, while the other two stations OCS-102 and 103 were stationed over Uganda and Papua New Guinea. After a year of shakedown tests, the stations' shrouds were removed and the program revealed to the public.
While initially proposed as OSAM stations, responsible for satellite servicing and on-orbit command and control, by the time of their deployment the GARITE program sought to provide comprehensive C2 capabilities from Space, effectively eliminating communication lag time between strategic commanders and the ships, troops, and aircraft in the field. By 2043 the United States had replaced the Unified combatant command system with the Orbital Combatant Command system, subdivided into three primary commands that oversaw subordinate commands stationed in their regions on Earth. At the time, this change was seen as a means to limited the number of failure points, with space based systems seeming invulnerable to smaller powers.
By 2048, plans were in place to retire the original 3 OCS stations by 2060, replacing them with a next-generation fleet of 5 primary platforms that would serve exclusively as command headquarters while OSAM and satellite command duties would devolve to 15 secondary platforms. The destruction of the network forced a reevaluation of the design logic of the OCS network, and successive space fleets would be almost entirely mobile rather than fixed in Geostationary Orbit.
Design[]
Initial design specifications[]
According to declassified USSF records, the initial key design elements included i) solid state power supply, ii) ONISQ quantum computers for on-orbit data processing of the Orbital Defense Network, iii) quarters for 150 guardians, iv) support facilities for crews to operate up to 100 days without resupply, v) hardened hulls to withstand impacts from space debris and ground based lasers, and vi) onboard defense systems to defeat ASAT weapons.
Once completed, the stations consisted of a hardened Stanford Torus which housed crew quarters, recreational facilities, and offices. Four integrated truss segments housed various unpressurized components, radiators, and mounts for logistics carriers. The trusses converged on the Utility and OSAM segments, which included shielded docks for spacecraft, Ka-band multi-beam antennas, wireless power receivers, and the station's primary Ku-band Space-to-Ground Antenna.
Propulsion module[]
A hydrazine-powered propulsion system mounted at four points along the exterior of the habitation torus allowed the OCS platforms to make small orbital adjustments. In order to increase the orbital lifetime OCSs, the propulsion module could be refueled using On-Orbit servicing satellites deployed from orbital depots. Plans were made for a more powerful engine, with a nuclear thermal rocket having begun prototype testing at Tycho in 2039. The proposed upgrade was terminated in 2047, with the classified report justifying the cancelation due to prohibitively high costs associated with: upgrading the structural points of the stations to handle a more powerful propulsion system, providing adequate shielding to the crew, developing space suits sufficiently shielded against radiation for reactor maintenance, and the mass penalty associated with all of these proposed upgrades in addition to the physical shielding required to prevent damage to the reactor. By 2050 a proposal was put forward advocating fusion thermal propulsion systems, however this solution was still under review at the time of the Thanksgiving Attacks. A fusion propulsion system would be used on the Block II OCS Retribution.
Destruction[]
On Thanksgiving day, 2051, all three of the original Orbital Command Stations were destroyed in pebble mob attacks by the Japanese. The only crew members who survived the attack were deployed on servicing missions to other satellites at the time, and all but 6 guardians died from oxygen depravation before being able to reach a civilian space station. This attack not only crippled US C2 capabilities in space, but also sent the Cislunar economy into a tailspin and severely hurt terrestrial markets that depended on in-space mining, manufacturing, and services.
Successor[]
After the Battle for Luna concluded, the Space Force initiated a crash program to complete and deploy the unfished OCS-104. The program required the inclusion of prototype components being tested for the original Block II OCS program, including the new Power and Propulsion Module, which allowed the station to easily conduct plane change maneuvers. Further, the Block II OCS included superconducting quantum computers, and a prototype quantum LiDAR system that could track objects under 5mm. In support of the Block II platform, named Retribution by its first crew, were a compliment of next generation OSAM and imaging satellites.
Legacy[]
The Mk. 2 OCS Station, later designated the M-2 Vanguard, remained in service until 2069 at which point it was converted into a museum, and C2 duties were transferred over to a new generation of stations and multirole spacecraft, chiefly the M-4 Thor which shared many of the M-2 and OCS design heritage.
The OCS platforms' design have influenced all successive generations of military command stations and influenced the structure of modern US and eventually Mexican military command systems. After the War the US, fearing another total loss of three critical platforms, created a command network based around many layers of redundancy with multiple heavily fortified bases networking command to smaller platforms that could replace the duties of the larger stations if they were destroyed. Mexico preferred to create stations so large that destroying them would be almost impossible, and leave them permanently staffed rather than rotating crews back to Earth.