Fórum Defesa Brasil

UK military eyes on-demand space launch from new spaceport


The U.K. wants regular military space launch from its new Scotland facility, featured here in a Lockheed Martin promotional video. (Lockheed Martin)


FARNBOROUGH, England — The creation of a new spaceport in Scotland has the British military eyeing the ability to get national security payloads into space in as little as 72 hours.

The Malness spaceport is scheduled to have its first launch in 2023, with a Lockheed Martin-led team delivering six cubesats into orbit focused on a weather-monitoring project. But if Air Vice-Marshal Simon Rochelle, chief of staff for capability and force development with the Royal Air Force, has his way, military launches will start soon after.

What the first payload could be is unclear, but Rochelle told reporters at a Lockheed briefing that he wants to see the U.K.’s persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in space increase.

fter the briefing, Rochelle told Defense News he believes the U.K. can use the Melness location to get operationally relevant assets into space, ideally within 72 hours of need.


“It may be beneficial to have as smallsat, a cube or something to be launched over a humanitarian disaster area, and you just happen to have one good to go and you can put it in the right place,” Rochelle said during the Farnborough Airshow.

“Then in a time of contested [activities], what you want to have is resilience. ... It just might need to be replacing a few as things happen and occur. It’s that ability. We think it’s important to be responsive.”

Obviously, having on-demand space launch would require having easy access to rockets to get the systems into space. While offering the option that the military could perhaps buy a launch vehicle and keep it on hand for emergencies, Rochelle also noted that the economics of the new spaceport require a constant stream of launches going up, meaning hitching a ride shouldn’t be difficult.

Could that involve the U.K. passing legal requirements for launches that allows a national security payload to replace a commercial one in an emergency?

“Not necessarily a law in place, but we might want to have an arrangement,” Rochelle said, while noting his office doesn’t manage the legal aspects of the port. “It’s an immature process at the moment, but we know we want [responsive launch] and we know we think it’s important, and we haven’t got beyond that point in real details.”


Rochelle also made it clear he thinks allies, including the U.S. and the other Five Eyes nations, should consider using the Malness location to get their systems into orbit.

By: Pierre Tran
“Yeah, why not? Why not? It’s about cost,” he said.

“We go and buy airplanes together, we can buy AWACS together, think of federated capability, think of how partners work symbiotically with each other," he added, referring to airborne early warning and control systems.

“The more we can — Five-Eyes and allies — respond effectively, or even offer deterrence, dissuasion, we may actually control that space domain rather than being threatened or outmaneuvered in the space domain," he said. “So all of those things are very, very keen to us.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-sho ... spaceport/

Lockheed selected to build first UK spaceport

FARNBOROUGH, England — The U.K. has selected Lockheed Martin to help develop its first domestic commercial spaceport in Melness, Scotland — an effort that could be of interest to the U.S. military as it hunts for a means to launch satellites into orbit.

Lockheed is teamed with Moog, Orbital Micro Systems, the University of Leicester, Surrey Satellite Technology, Satellite Applications Catapult, SCISYS, Lena Space, Reaction Engines and Netherlands Space Office on the project.

The first launch from Melness is scheduled for the “early 2020s,” per Lockheed.

“The countdown to the first orbital rocket launch from U.K. soil has officially begun," Patrick Wood, Lockheed Martin’s U.K. country executive for space, said in a statement. “This initiative will not only spark advancements in science and innovation, it will create new opportunities for current and future U.K.-based suppliers to become part of the next space age."


The United Kingdom has not been shy about its desire to get in on the burgeoning commercial space launch industry, with a 2015 National Space Strategy calling for the U.K. to own 10 percent of the industry by 2030.

The launch site development is being led by Scottish government economic and community development agency Highlands & Islands Enterprise, with Lockheed providing “strategic support and guidance.”

Lockheed also has a hand in the first payload scheduled to be launched from the location, designed to release up to six cubesats, including Lockheed’s LM 50 system.

While the location is not focused on defense, the militaries of the U.S. and others have become increasingly interested in using commercial space launch to get constellations of military satellites, including smaller systems, into orbit.

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-sho ... spaceport/

Esse episódio do JRE com o Neil DeGrasse Tyson me parece muito interessante, vou carregar aqui pra ver mais tarde.

Space Force could cost fraction of Air Force estimates

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon hasn’t released its official cost estimate to stand up a brand-new space service, but a top defense budget analyst has crunched the numbers and believes it may cost $550 million more per year for a Space Force — at most.

In order to add the headquarters staffing needed to run a Space Force, the Defense Department would need anywhere from an additional $300 million to $550 million per year on top of the money it already budgets for space personnel, operations and procurement, according to a new report by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

All told, that amounts to a boost of $1.5 billion to a total of $2.7 billion over a five-year period.

That figure is roughly in line with Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan’s public statements last week that the initial costs of a Space Force could be as low as $5 billion and definitely within the “single digits” of billions of dollars.

And it’s a rebuke of the Air Force’s own estimate, signed off by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, which predicted almost $13 billion in additional cost over the first five years of the Space Force’s creation.

The Air Force’s estimate initially sent a wave of panic among members of Congress, but Harrison decried the Air Force figures as “malicious compliance” meant to kill the Space Force plan by overinflating its costs — a characterization he stands by.

“They were not asked to produce that cost estimate, and they did it with the largest possible scope, without sufficient caveats to let people know that that was much more than the cost of the Space Force,” he told reporters in a Nov. 19 briefing. “And they previously made it known that they don’t like this idea.”

Wilson, for her part, defended the Air Force’s cost estimate last week, saying it was scoped appropriately to reflect the wishes of President Donald Trump to create a completely independent space force.

“Whatever is put forward needs to implement the president’s proposal. What we put forward was in the cost estimates to implement a standalone department," she said Thursday. "Our estimate that we gave to a lot of people in the Pentagon in September was the cost of a fully fledged stand-alone department and also a unified combatant command.”

Wilson’s choice to include the new combatant command — U.S. Space Command — and new procurement organization, called the Space Development Agency, in its proposal is an important distinction from Harrison’s estimates, which include neither.

Nor does Harrison’s assessment include a near-term bill for creating a Space Force, though he believes that the costs for one-time items like designing a uniform, emblem and flag would be incidental.

“Most of this is just a simple matter of organization and whether or not you think that is needed. The added cost is, you know, a handful of F-35s, or less than the [Defense Department] audit” he joked. “I don’t think cost actually should be that big of a factor in their decisions. I think the bigger factor is whether or not people think it’s needed. That’s what the debate should be about.”

To create his cost estimate, Harrison put forth three different options of how a space service could be organized.

The first, a Space Corps, would function independently but fall under the Department of the Air Force, similar to the Marine Corps’ placement under the Department of the Navy. The Space Corps would be comprised of the entirety of the Air Force’s space units, known at the 14th Air Force. Harrison estimates a total cost of $11.3 billion per year for that option, with only $300 million in new funds needed per year.

The second option, termed “Space Force Lite,” includes all of the Air Force’s space units as well as the space functions of the Navy and Army: the Army’s 1st Space Brigade, the Navy’s Program Executive Office Space Systems and the Navy Satellite Operations Center at Naval Air Station Point Magu. For that concept, an additional $400 million would be needed for a total of $13.4 billion annually.

Finally, a “Space Force Heavy” would add in some functions from the Army and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency used for space situational awareness and midcourse missile intercept capabilities. That would cost $21.5 billion total per year, with $500 million in new funding necessary.

So where do the new costs come from? New headquarters staff, and for the Space Force options, staffing for the secretary of the Space Force, Harrison said.

To arrive at those numbers, he set a baseline of 500 personnel for headquarters staff and added 5 percent of the services’ anticipated workforce size — coincidentally, about the same ratio of Coast Guard personnel to its own headquarters staffing, Harrison said.

Much of the cost growth cited in the Air Force’s own estimate is linked to an increase of about 13,000 personnel for new headquarters staff, direct reporting units and forward-operating activities, a “Space Force element,” and more staff for U.S. Space Command.

Harrison criticized the service’s proposal as being unclear on the role those new billets would perform.

“The Air Force was either adding new activities — things that aren’t being done today — which is a separate question from creating a new service, so they should not included them; or they are not transferring over all of the people who do space-related jobs in the air forces,” Harrison said. “They could be assuming that they’re going to keep some of those people and not move them over.”

If that’s the case, it could rack up the Defense Department budget. Increasing the headquarters staff of the Space Force or U.S. Space Command is another potential way to increase costs, Harrison said, but Congress has some power to limit that by putting staffing limits in place.

Whether the Space Force becomes a reality will be up to Congress, which is the only part of government able to create a new military service. With the Democrats controlling the House, successful passage is a “coin toss” that will be dependent on the specific proposal put forward in Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget, and how much support it seemingly has in Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Shanahan, Harrison said.

“How big of a scope do they envision? How disruptive is it going to be perceived as being? And I think another political factor, quite frankly is: Is this seen as being Trump’s Space Force, or is this something that the military is seen on get on board with?”

https://www.defensenews.com/space/2018/ ... estimates/

Trump signs order to create US Space Command
By: Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press


The goal of U.S. Space Command is to oversee and organize space operations, accelerate technical advances and find more effective ways to defend U.S. assets in space. (U.S. Defense Department)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump launched the Pentagon’s new Space Command on Tuesday, an effort to better organize and advance the military’s vast operations in space that could cost as much as $800 million over the next five years.

Trump signed a one-page memorandum Tuesday authorizing the Department of Defense to create the new command.

The goal is to set up a command to oversee and organize space operations, accelerate technical advances and find more effective ways to defend U.S. assets in space, including the vast constellations of satellites that American forces rely on for navigation, communications and surveillance. The move comes amid growing concerns that China and Russia are working on ways to disrupt, disable or even destroy U.S. satellites.

The new order is separate from the president’s much-touted goal of creating a “Space Force” as an independent armed service branch, but is considered a first step in that direction. The memo provides little detail on what will be a long and complicated process as the Defense Department begins to pull together various space units from across the military services into a more coordinated, independent organization.

According to one U.S. official, the command would pull about 600 staff from existing military space offices, and then add at least another 1,000 over the coming years. The roughly $800 million would mainly cover the additional staff. The costs for the existing staff would just transfer to the new command, but that total was not immediately available.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations not yet announced.

Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, said that establishing Space Command is “a critical step in accelerating our space capabilities and posture to defend our vital national interests and deter our adversaries. This combatant command will lead space operations and develop space war-fighting doctrine, tactics and techniques.”

He added that the Pentagon will continue to develop a legislative proposal to meet the president's vision for a space force.

The first steps next year will be to nominate top leaders for Space Command, including a four-star general and a deputy. The command would likely at least begin to take form in Colorado, where the current Joint Functional Component Command for Space is already located. But there has been no final decision on a location for the new command.

Funding for the command will be included in the budget for fiscal 2020, which will be unveiled in February.

Trump's order accelerates what has been a decades-long effort to reorganize and improve the military's technological advances in space, which at times has gotten less attention as the Air Force has focused on warplanes and other combat priorities.

The military's role in space has been under scrutiny because the United States is increasingly reliant on orbiting satellites that are difficult to protect. Satellites provide communications, navigation, intelligence and other services vital to the military and the national economy.

Over the past year, the issue gained urgency amid growing competition and threats from adversary nations.

U.S. intelligence agencies reported earlier this year that Russia and China were pursuing “nondestructive and destructive” anti-satellite weapons for use during a future war. And there are growing worries about cyberattacks that could target satellite technology, potentially leaving troops in combat without electronic communications or navigation abilities.

A U.S. Space Command existed from 1985 to 2002, but was disbanded in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks so that U.S. Northern Command could be established, focusing on defense of the homeland.

Although Space Command went away, its functions remained and were absorbed by U.S. Strategic Command. The Air Force retained its lead role in space through Air Force Space Command. That existing space command will be a key component of the new joint entity, raising space to the same status as other headquarters such as U.S. Cyber Command, Special Operations Command or Strategic Command.

The new Space Command will also pull from existing units in the other services, such as Army Space and Missile Command and the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

Officials said the process of breaking away parts of other organizations and molding them all into a new command will be done carefully to ensure it’s done correctly without jeopardizing ongoing operations or activities.

https://www.defensenews.com/space/2018/ ... e-command/

A Russian "Inspector" Spacecraft Now Appears To Be Shadowing An American Spy Satellite
The Russian satellite recently moved into a new position where it has an especially good view of a US KH-11 spy satellite.
BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK



https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... -satellite

Meus prezados
A Força Aérea dos EUA identificou 23 organizações e unidades com missões espaciais específicas que passarão para a Força Espacial dos EUA nos próximos seis meses, anunciou o Serviço na terça-feira.
A transferência se aplica a cerca de 1.840 locais da Força Aérea, que não serão realocados fisicamente - nem nenhuma das pessoas designadas para essas unidades, disseram autoridades em comunicado.
"A construção da Força Espacial dos EUA representa uma das principais prioridades do Departamento da Força Aérea", disse a secretária da Força Aérea Barbara Barrett. "Essas transferências de missão incorporam as forças existentes na ágil Força Espacial, que está pronta para defender os interesses americanos e aliados".
À medida que o serviço implementa a mudança, os indivíduos permanecerão na Força Aérea para preservar a continuidade, como benefícios centralizadores. Funcionários nos últimos meses disseram que aqueles que se mudarem para a Força Espacial manterão sua classificação ou grau e seus salários sob sistemas já estabelecidos de promoção, remuneração e benefícios na Força Aérea.
"Nos próximos meses e quando disposições apropriadas estiverem em vigor, como parte de um processo separado, os militares que atenderem aos critérios aplicáveis terão a oportunidade de se voluntariar para a transferência para a Força Espacial", afirma o comunicado. "Se eles optarem por não se transferirem, permanecerão na Força Aérea e serão designados para a unidade da Força Espacial até que sua rotação normal de tarefas seja concluída, quando serão transferidos para uma tarefa dentro da Força Aérea."
Aqui estão as unidades que se deslocam para a Força Espacial (* indica uma transferência parcial da missão em relação ao tamanho de um flight, ramo, divisão ou acima):

• Na Base da Força Aérea de Peterson, Colorado: 17º Esquadrão de Testes; Instituto Espacial de Segurança Nacional; Destacamento do Centro de Testes e Avaliação Operacionais da Força Aérea 4; 544º Pessoal e destacamento do Grupo de Inteligência, Vigilância e Reconhecimento 5 • Na Base da Força Aérea de Wright-Patterson, Ohio: 18º Esquadrão Intel; Direcção dos Sensores do Laboratório de Pesquisa da Força Aérea (AFRL) *; Execução da missão do laboratório de pesquisa AFRL *; Esquadrão de Análise de Contra-Espaço; Esquadrão de Análise Espacial.
• Na Base da Força Aérea Schriever, Colorado: 25º Esquadrão da Faixa Espacial; 527th Esquadrão de Agressores Espaciais; 705º Esquadrão de Treinamento de Combate OL-A; 16º AF / Programas Avançados *; Destacamento 1, Centro de Guerra da USAF. • Na Base da Força Aérea de Kirtland, Novo México: Diretoria de Veículos Espaciais da AFRL *; a Divisão Eletro-Óptica AFRL * (parcialmente baseada na base, mas também em Maui, Havaí); a Divisão de Segurança Espacial do Centro de Segurança da Força Aérea. As unidades remanescentes incluem: o 328º Esquadrão de Armas, na Base Aérea de Nellis, Nevada; 7º Esquadrão Intel * e 32º Esquadrão Intel *, ambos em Fort Meade, Maryland; o 566º Esquadrão Intel * na Base da Força Aérea de Buckley, Colorado; o 533º Esquadrão de Treinamento na Base da Força Aérea de Vandenberg, Califórnia; e a Divisão de Propulsão a Foguetes da AFRL * na Base da Força Aérea de Edwards, Califórnia. Aqui estão alguns outros desenvolvimentos que ocorrem em toda a Força Espacial e no portfólio espacial militar:
A Barreira do Espaço torna-se operacional
Em 27 de março, a USSF disse oficialmente que seu sistema de radar Space Fence, localizado na ilha de Kwajalein, na República das Ilhas Marshall, está pronto para uso. O serviço declarou capacidade operacional inicial, ou COI, para o sistema, que pode "detectar e rastrear objetos em órbita, como satélites comerciais e militares, foguetes empobrecidos e detritos espaciais em órbita terrestre baixa, média e geossíncrona" que aumentarão o espaço geral de conscientização dentro da Rede de Vigilância Espacial (SSN). Conforme relatado pelo Space News, o radar de US $ 1,5 bilhão pode rastrear objetos muito pequenos, até do tamanho de uma bolinha de gude. Os membros do 20º Esquadrão de Controle Espacial (SPCS), Destacamento 4, no Space Fence Operations Center em Huntsville, Alabama, podem operar esse sistema, que então alimenta os dados para os 18 SPCS em Vandenberg. As informações de rastreamento do SSN podem ser encontradas em www.space-track.org.
Ações anti-satélite disruptivas em ascensão
Disfarçar informações e comunicações por meio de falsificação de GPS, conexões bloqueadas e até ofuscantes - ou satélites ofuscantes com lasers - estão aumentando, à medida que mais países lançam tecnologias no domínio espacial, de acordo com um novo Centro de Estudos Estratégicos e Internacionais. Países, incluindo grandes players como EUA, Rússia e China, que já estão interferindo no espaço, estão gradualmente normalizando essas maneiras não cinéticas de interromper as operações, de acordo com o relatório de 30 de março, "Space Threat Assessment 2020". Ações como ofuscantes "são uma forma interessante de ataque [porque] poderia ser usada como parte de uma estratégia da zona cinzenta para um país tentar ficar abaixo do limiar do ... conflito" sem causar danos colaterais, disse Todd Harrison, diretor do Projeto de Segurança Aeroespacial e da Análise de Orçamento de Defesa no CSIS. "Essas são algumas das áreas que considero vulneráveis no momento. Elas também são difíceis de defender", disse ele a repórteres durante um briefing sobre o relatório. "Essas são formas realmente preocupantes de ataque, e estamos vendo países como Rússia e China realmente dobrar seus investimentos nessas áreas". O relatório alertou para o aumento da atividade adversa co-orbital, como inspeção de satélites em órbita geoestacionária, e que "a taxa de incidentes de obstrução e falsificação de satélites só aumentará à medida que essas capacidades continuarem a proliferar e se tornar mais sofisticadas nos próximos anos. "

Segue-se outro estudo divulgado esta semana pela Secure World Foundation, que afirmou que países em todo o mundo não devem desconsiderar que alguns maus atores podem estar adotando medidas ofensivas e defensivas no espaço. "As evidências mostram uma pesquisa e desenvolvimento significativos de uma ampla gama de recursos de contra-espaço cinético (destrutivo) e não-cinético em vários países", de acordo com o estudo anual Global Counterspace Capabilities, conforme relatado pelo Space News.
Fonte: Oriana Pawlyk - Military.com 1 abr 2020
Trad./adapt. jambockrs

Space Force Boss Says One Of Russia's Killer Satellites Fired A Projectile In Orbit

A very recent test involved small orbital "inspectors" that had previously been observed shadowing an American spy satellite.
BY JOSEPH TREVITHICKJULY 23, 2020



he head of U.S. Space Force, the U.S. military's newest branch, had said publicly for the first time that the Russian government has conducted two on-orbit anti-satellite weapon tests in the past three years. These revelations come less than six months after the U.S. military expressed concern about a Russian "inspector" satellite that appeared to be shadowing an American KH-11 spy satellite.

Chief of Space Operations General John "Jay" Raymond, Space Force's top uniformed officer, revealed the two apparent tests in an interview with Time for a profile of the new service. Raymond is also presently head of the joint-service U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM). That piece, which was published on July 23, 2020, offers a detailed look at where Space Force is now and where it hopes to go in the future and is worth reading in full.*

"Russia is developing on-orbit capabilities that seek to exploit our reliance on space-based systems," Raymond told Time. He explained that, on July 15, 2020, a satellite identified as Cosmos 2543 launched a projectile that could be used to destroy another craft in space.

The Kremlin describes Cosmos 2543, also sometimes written Kosmos 2543, as a "space apparatus inspector," one of a number in orbit now, which are ostensibly intended to do just what the name says, inspect other satellites. On the face of it, this offers Russian officials a way to investigate problems with or assess damage to other space-based assets on-orbit.

However, given their small size and high degrees of maneuverability, there have been long-standing concerns that these orbital inspectors could double as spies or even "killer satellites" capable of getting close to and then disrupting or destroying other space-based platforms by any of a number of means, including electronic warfare jamming or a directed energy weapon, such as a high-powered microwave beam. They could also potentially manipulate a satellite in a way that would disable it or launch kinetic attacks, either smashing into the target themselves or launching projectiles, the latter being something that Space Force now says the Kremlin has been actively testing.


An infographic from the Defense Intelligence Agency depicting a number of ways in which one satellite might attack another, including by acting as kinetic kill vehicle.

The destruction of various satellites could easily be a key feature of any future large-scale conflict, especially during its opening stages. The U.S. military, among others, is heavily reliant on space-based systems for a wide array of functions, including early warning, intelligence gathering, communications and data-sharing, navigation and weapons guidance, and more.

It's worth noting that another inspector satellite, Cosmos 2542, which the Russian government launched in November 2019, had actually deployed Cosmos 2543 while in orbit the following month. Time says the U.S. military has dubbed these "nesting doll" satellites, a reference to traditional Russian matryoshka dolls.

The Russian Ministry of Defense had previously announced a test involving Cosmos 2543 on July 15. However, it said that this simply involved the satellite maneuvering close to another orbital inspector, Cosmos 2535, and gathering imagery and other information in line with its publicly stated inspection mission. At that time, U.S. Space Command did note that it had detected something separating from Cosmos 2543, which it labeled Object 45915, but recorded its type as "to be determined."

The assertion that these satellites are actually part of a space-based anti-satellite weapon system is even more significant given that Cosmos 2542 had moved into a position to shadow a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite, publicly identified only as USA 245, in January. The month before, USA 245 had shifted its own orbit, potentially to avoid hitting the smaller Cosmos 2543, which Space Force later said also appeared to be following the American satellite.


A graphical representation of the position of Cosmos 2542 with regards to USA 245 in January 2020.

"This is unusual and disturbing behavior and has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space," General Raymond said at the time in a statement to Business Insider. "The United States finds these recent activities to be concerning and do not reflect the behavior of a responsible spacefaring nation."

It's worth noting that this was hardly the first instances of satellites shadowing each other in space and that U.S. government has conducted similar activities in the past, as well. However, it appears now that the U.S. military had a particular concern about what was going on in January based on existing intelligence.

General Raymond also told Time that the space-based anti-satellite weapon test on July 15 was similar to something the U.S. military had observed in 2017. He did not elaborate on that previous incident, but it seems very possible that is related to another set of "nesting doll" satellites that emerged that year. The Kremlin launched the first of these, Cosmos 2519, in June 2017. Two months later, that satellite deployed another, dubbed Cosmos 2521. These were joined by a third, Cosmos 2523, which also appeared to have been deployed on-orbit from other these other satellites, in November 2017.

If that trio is what Raymond was referring to, it's unclear if Cosmos 2523 is what the U.S. military believes was actually an anti-satellite interceptor or if one of these satellites launched yet another object at some point.

"This is further evidence of Russia's continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin's published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold U.S. and allied space assets at risk," the head of Space Force said in a separate statement following the publishing of Time's piece.

"This event highlights Russia's hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control, with which Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counter-space program – both ground-based anti-satellite capabilities and what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry," Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Christopher Ford also said.

Russia, as well as China and others around the world, has been actively developing various anti-satellite systems, including ground-based and air-launched interceptors and directed energy weapons. In April 2020, Space Force publicly accused Russia of testing an unspecified "direct-ascent anti-satellite missile," or DS-ASAT.

“Russia’s DA-ASAT test provides yet another example that the threats to U.S. and allied space systems are real, serious and growing,” General Raymond said in a statement after that test. "The United States is ready and committed to deterring aggression and defending the Nation, our allies and U.S. interests from hostile acts in space."

These public statements, together with the disclosure of the earlier assessment that an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test had taken place in 2017, also follow comments from various senior U.S. military officials about the need to declassify more about what it is doing in space and the threats that it faces, as well as how it might be able to respond. In 2019, then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson warned that the United States might have to demonstrate its own counter-space capabilities in the future in order to deter potential adversaries.

"We’ve got some education to do for the average Americans on just how reliant their lives are on space capabilities," General Raymond told Time.

The disclosure that Russia has been testing on-orbit anti-satellite weapons certainly appears to be part of a campaign to increase public awareness of the very real threats to space-based systems that exist now and are continuing to emerge.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... s-in-orbit

U.S. Confirms China Has Launched What Could Be Its Version Of The X-37B Spaceplane

The reusable experimental spacecraft was launched into space on a secret mission from Inner Mongolia earlier today.

BY THOMAS NEWDIC



Beijing says it has successfully launched an uncrewed “reusable experimental spacecraft” from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi Desert in northwest China. Space-Track.org, a U.S. government online database of public space launches that the U.S. military's Combined Space Operations Center and the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command maintain, confirmed that the "PRC TEST SPACECRAFT" successfully made it into space.

The as-yet-unknown space vehicle was delivered into low Earth orbit atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket on September 4, 2020. The launch was the 14th mission for the Long March 2F rocket and was apparently the result of months of preparations at Jiuquan.

...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... spaceplane