Prevention would deny, at least temporarily, an adversary's ability to exploit US systems or allied space capabilities. US Space Command's main role will be to provide the command, control, and communication architecture necessary to detect and report any unauthorized use and to assess its impact. Negation, or the direct disabling of an adversary's space-related capabilities. Commercial satellite companies already sell intelligence photos, communications, and weather data to national militaries. Minor military powers have access to information of striking military value.
Negation raises the prospect of weapons in space and so is politically sensitive.
The LRP maintains that developments will follow an evolutionary path, giving everyone plenty of time to study the problem and reach workable solutions. Negation will require a wide variety of weapons effects-ranging from temporary to permanent, from devastating to merely disruptive. That is because friends and foes may be using the same systems at the same time. The US will need to be able to discriminate in the level and type of attack it mounts so as to deny a foe the information without similarly denying an ally or friendly nation. Strikes From Space Space control isn't the LRP's only sensitive topic.