Fórum Defesa Brasil

O Pentágono começou a se preparar para batalhas militares com Rússia e China no espaço

O Pentágono está preocupado com o desenvolvimento de armas a laser e mísseis na China e na Rússia e planeja fortalecer a infraestrutura americana no espaço, segundo o The Wall Street Journal.

Segundo a publicação, para isso, o departamento militar dos Estados Unidos pode aumentar o orçamento da Força Espacial dos EUA para um recorde de US$ 30 bilhões, quase US$ 4 bilhões a mais que no ano passado.

A principal ameaça no Pentágono é o programa espacial chinês, porque os militares dos EUA acreditam que Pequim pode lançar mísseis e satélites que irão interferir ou destruir os veículos americanos.

A Força Espacial dos Estados Unidos (USSF) foi criada em 2019 como o sexto ramo das forças armadas, desempenhando funções antes atribuídas à Força Aérea. O principal objetivo de um ramo autônomo das forças armadas é planejar, equipar e proteger os interesses dos EUA no espaço.
@Slavyangrad

Starlink satellites, launched by SpaceX, are primarily known for their commercial and military communication purposes. However, SpaceX's recent $1.8 billion contract to develop a constellation of spy satellites and its agreements with the Space Development Agency (SDA) suggest that the company's ambitions with Starlink and Starshield extend further.

The concept of large satellite constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) has its roots in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). This Cold War-era program aimed to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons by intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Satellites positioned closer to Earth in LEO can swiftly target and track objects on the ground, providing both low-latency communication and high-resolution sensing capabilities. They also hold the potential for offensive actions, such as deploying interceptors to shoot down rockets or ICBMs during their vulnerable boost phase.

The idea of Brilliant Pebbles, an SDI initiative, was to deploy small, space-based interceptors to neutralize ICBMs. Although the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) eventually precluded their full development, the concept morphed into early commercial LEO constellations in the 1990s, such as Teledesic. Supporters of SDI actively supported these efforts. The idea was to let commercial markets drive the foundational tech development for these constellations with the expectation that it could serve an eventual dual-use military purpose once the political will was reconstituted. A future military payoff incentivized companies to build these LEO constellations even if commercial Internet alone didn't make full sense from a business profitability perspective. Unfortunately they all went bankrupt after launch costs failed to lower sufficiently and the political barriers for SDI refused to resolve.

But now after the ABMT and all other blocking treaties have been abandoned, SpaceX appears to be following a similar path with its Starshield program. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's President/COO, has publicly confirmed that offensive capabilities could be supported by the company if requested by the U.S. government. This aligns with the growing interest among Republicans and the Heritage Foundation in weaponizing space, contrasting with the Biden administration's more cautious approach.

Elon Musk's political shift towards the Republican party may be influenced by these strategic developments. From a personal exchange with Elon on this topic a few years ago, he was cagey discussing SDI but eventually suggested it could support "just war". SDI's purported ability to solve the nuclear threat also supports his efforts to "preserve human consciousness" by eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons.

Others believe -- mainly on the political left -- that Brilliant Pebbles is a classic fallacy that attracts those who believe there is a technological solution to everything without understanding the value of diplomacy and the fundamental interdependence of humanity. It is thought unlikely to be reliable and will inevitably lead to an arms race where either side shortens the time to launch nukes (by pre-launching / staging them in orbit or otherwise).

One of the founders of SpaceX, Michael D. Griffin has been driving SDI forward for decades after serving as it's Deputy for Technology and designing the first space-based interceptors. Griffin helped SpaceX grow from it's founding in multiple key ways under the presumed premise that this military SDI dream would be realized eventually. Griffin was one of the first advocates for reusable rockets and now Falcon 9 (and soon Starship) is a big part of making the costs of SDI viable according to Congressional reports. Over the last 7 years, there has been a concerted effort to build the capability. Competing entities like Kuiper and Rocket Lab are also vying for a share of this emerging market, but SpaceX remains the only game in town so far.

While Russia must resort to threatening to place nukes in orbit, China has the economic capability to compete directly, by promoting domestic launch cost reduction and deploying multiple Starlink competitor constellations such as G60.

At SpaceX, Terence O'Shaughnessy (who goes by "Shags") runs the Special Programs that include Starshield. As a four-star general, his background is in homeland missile defense for Northern Command. He is an ideal person to guide and align the commercial side of Starlink with the more strategic national security objectives of LEO constellations.

Further reading, https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/ ... ace-force/

[Interceptors are cheap]. "A rocket pod of 100 interceptors at a cost of approximately $60,000 per micro-missile" (note General Hyten quoted here now works for Kuiper)