Stories about military and national security missions in orbit.
Last week, Congress released a compromise defense bill with $858B in topline funding. That represents a ~10% annual increase over last year. The fine text: The fiscal year 2023 (FY23) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) compromise bill went to the House floor last week, and was passed in the lower chamber by a 350-80 vote. […]
Note: This article refers to the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), which has since been renamed the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). Over the last few years, the space industry has grown by leaps and bounds, pushing our space capabilities forward at an unprecedented rate. While its weapons systems may be fast, the Pentagon’s procurement […]
On Friday, SpaceX added a new page to its website for Starshield. The product is billed as a secure satellite networking solution for government users and national security missions, and it marks the latest expansion of SpaceX’s portfolio of services. Starshield’s initial focus spans three functions: Extra security baked in…Beyond the end-to-end encryption protocols standard […]
Space debris x South China Sea…the crossover nobody asked for. On Monday, a Philippine military commander accused China of forcibly seizing a big piece of metal—most likely space debris—that the former nation’s navy was towing through the South China Sea. The course of events, per Philippine Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos’s telling: Beijing’s take: China’s foreign […]
After 908 days in space—and smashing its own previous orbital endurance record in July—the Boeing-built, US Air & Space Force-operated X-37B has returned to Earth. The reusable military spaceplane touched down Saturday at 5:22am at NASA Kennedy’s Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility. Oh (TV-6), the places you’ll go… Orbital Test Vehicle-6, as the name suggests, […]
Cognitive Space inked a pair of contracts with the Pentagon on Tuesday to automate and improve how quickly information can be shared in space. A first The SBIR Phase I contract with the Space Development Agency is the company’s “first engagement” with the Space Force office focused on quick development cycles and proliferated constellations, Cognitive […]
The looming departure of national security space champions from Capitol Hill is expected to leave a vacuum as the Space Force approaches its third birthday, but experts say more junior members are waiting in the wings for their shot to drive military space policy. One of the community’s biggest losses is Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), […]
The Pentagon’s long-awaited National Defense Strategy warns that conflict in space could quickly spiral out of control without a clear set of norms and expectations. Released Thursday, the strategy breaks out space concerns primarily into three buckets: Dangers of escalation The risk of accidentally escalating a conflict in space is “particularly high due to unclear […]
The US military command focused on deterring China will beef up its space footprint next month, the Space Force’s #2 officer, Gen. David “DT” Thompson, said Tuesday. The US Indo-Pacific Command will establish a Space Force component command on Nov. 22, said Thompson, who is the service’s vice chief of space operations, at a Mitchell […]
Advanced tech can only do as much as the policies that regulate it allow, Lockheed Martin’s space chief said Thursday at an event to sell Washington officials on the moon habitats, in-space manufacturing, and smart cities that the company predicts will be commonplace by 2050. “The goal really is to start a dialogue and think […]
The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy highlights America’s exploration goals and economic opportunities in orbit, but some critics say it misses the mark on national security and largely ignores threats in orbit. The 48-page, unclassified document released last week has one paragraph dedicated to America’s space ambitions, including a pledge to lead the way in […]
RAND Corporation is out with a new report on how the US’ principal adversaries—China and Russia—perceive the American space program. The overall findings are bleak, though they come as no surprise: “The Chinese and Russian native-language primary sources reviewed for this project reflect a sustained perception that US military activities related to the space domain […]
