Stories about military and national security missions in orbit.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov told reporters that it was critical for Ukraine’s military to gain real-time access to Western satellite operators’ imagery (h/t Ars Technica). “Right now, we need to have this intelligence,” Polyakov said Monday, as quoted by Ars. “Every night, we’ve been bombarded, and at night we are blind.” Polyakov said […]
Last Wednesday, in the lead-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we wrote about how commercial satellite imagery laid bare the open secret of Moscow’s military mobilization. Satellite imagery has contributed to a growing corpus of open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis, a vital asset helping to pierce through the fog of war. Newsrooms, analysts, and amateur […]
The ISS and other US-Russian collaborations in space are hanging in the balance, to say the least, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Yesterday, President Biden announced sweeping sanctions on Russia, in part intended to “degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program.” State of affairs: The US and Russia have a long history of […]
Intelligence agencies have their own tactics and techniques to follow the latest military developments near Ukraine. But spies aren’t inclined to share all that classified information with the rest of us. Satellite imagery, along with other sources like social media posts and video geolocation/metadata, enable open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis from publicly available data. Coupled with […]
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense released a report on the state of competition in the defense industrial base (DIB). So, how is the state of competition? Not great, per the report. Synopsis: Since the 1990s, consolidation has hit the aerospace and defense sectors harder than most. There were 51 prime contractors in the ’90s. Now, there […]
Earlier this month, the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) awarded SpaceX a $102M, five-year contract for its rocket cargo transportation program. The contract, first reported by Aviation Week, is a part of AFRL’s rocket cargo project, which seeks to tap into advertised commercial launch capabilities as a leased service. No Rocket Cargo funding is going toward […]
Space is “increasingly contested, congested, and competitive,” NATO writes in its newly released overarching space policy (emphasis ours). Those three C’s in space require allies to be ready to “operate in a disrupted, denied, and degraded environment.” Monday represents NATO’s first public articulation of its space policy. NATO first declared space an operational domain and created a classified policy in late […]
Pentagon procurements are on pause until the federal government passes the full-year defense appropriations bill, USSF Chief of Space Operations John W. Raymond and other DoD officials testified Wednesday. Backstory: The government is currently operating on a stopgap spending bill, or continuing resolution (CR), that ends Feb. 28. Congress is considering passing a yearlong CR, stretching […]
A political battle is a-brewin’ over the formation of a Space National Guard, which could “bring in citizen guardians with private-sector experience,” Politico reports. In favor? The National Guard, for starters. Spearheading or supportive of the idea? Elected officials from Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, and other US states with strong bases of space activity. In the 2022 National Defense […]
What’s the expert view on hypersonic glide vehicles, in light of recent news? To get some answers, we spoke with Jaganath Sankaran, a professor at UT Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Sankaran’s research spans space weapons, missile defense, and arms control policy. NB: HGV = hypersonic glide vehicle; FOBS = fractional orbital bombardment system. Payload […]
China conducted a successful test of a hypersonic glide vehicle over the summer, according to an in-depth report published by the Financial Times. The FT’s story draws on interviews with five unnamed officials. The purported launch and covert demonstration of the vehicle, which glides around space, caught US intelligence agencies off guard. The nuclear-capable spacecraft travels through […]
Orbit Fab and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have struck a partnership to share technology and R&D. What does that mean in practice? Per yesterday’s announcement, Orbit Fab will share the specs of RAFTI, its on-orbit refueling port, with AFRL. In return, AFRL will review Orbit Fab’s refueling tech, “advise on requirements and designs,” […]
