Slingshot will develop an analytics tool that ingests GPS telemetry data from commercial LEO constellations and uses it to paint a picture of RF hazards on the ground
WASHINGTON — Under a $2 million contract from the U.S. Space Force, Slingshot Aerospace will develop an analytics tool that uses location data from commercial satellites in low Earth orbit to identify potential sources of electronic interference on the ground.
The project is an effort by the military to take advantage of the telemetry data available from the growing population of commercial satellites in LEO. The Space Systems Command said Jan. 4 that Slingshot will “develop a prototype that utilizes proliferated LEO mega-constellations to detect, locate, and mitigate radio frequency (RF) and GPS interference sources, which are direct threats to U.S. on-orbit space assets.”
The contract is funded by the Space Systems Command’s CASINO program — short for commercially augmented space inter-networked operations — created to figure out ways for the military to use new space technology.
Radio frequency interference has been a long-time problem for the military, exacerbated by the proliferation of electronic devices designed to disrupt Global Positioning System and other satellite signals. One of the challenges is identifying the precise location and source of interference.
Melanie Stricklan, CEO and co-founder of Slingshot Aerospace, said the company was selected by the Space Force’s Space Enterprise Consortium to prototype a data analytics tool that ingests GPS telemetry data from commercial LEO constellations and uses it to paint a picture of RF hazards on the ground, identifying and characterizing the potential sources of that interference.
“The ability to collect, process and extract insights from satellite telemetry data has increased substantially thanks to the increase in commercial proliferated low Earth orbit satellite constellations,” she said. The prototype system “will automate manual data exploitation techniques to deliver finished user-friendly products at low latencies.”
The idea is to “leverage data already generated by existing spacecraft global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) sensors to extract a better understanding of the electromagnetic operational environment,” said Stricklan.
The contract was a competitive opportunity the Space Enterprise Consortium launched in June 2021.
MELBOURNE, Fla. – L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) has been selected by the U.S. Space Force to continue efforts to upgrade and modernize its space domain awareness, which is used to help combat anti-satellite threats.
Highlights:
Strengthens Space Force’s ability to track and respond to anti-satellite near-peer threats
Upgrades Space Defense Operations Center to a new system
Accelerates advanced tracking and analysis of space objects and their behaviors
The U.S. Air Force began work in 2018 to replace the Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC) with the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS). L3Harris has been developing applications in a new architecture that will allow ATLAS to scale and handle the exponential growth of commercial constellations, increased debris, anti-satellite tests and adversarial threats. Now, L3Harris has been selected to integrate the government’s equipment and oversee ATLAS application deployment.
‘Anti-satellite threats have increased and require attention now,’ said Ed Zoiss, President, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. ‘We are responding to the urgency by partnering with the Space Force to modernize space domain awareness assets that are key to understanding and acting on those threats.’
SPADOC became operational in the 1990s to monitor space objects, process space events like anti-satellite launches, and support safety of flight operations.
L3Harris space superiority capabilities provide the foundation for space domain control, protecting assets and preserving strategic advantages. A trusted partner of the Space Force and other agencies, L3Harris has served the space superiority mission for more than 30 years.
About L3Harris Technologies
L3Harris Technologies is an agile global aerospace and defense technology innovator, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet customers’ mission-critical needs. The company provides advanced defense and commercial technologies across space, air, land, sea and cyber domains. L3Harris has approximately $17 billion in annual revenue and 47,000 employees, with customers in more than 100 countries. L3Harris.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect management’s current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Such statements are made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future trends to differ materially from those matters expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Statements about the value or expected value of orders, contracts or programs or about system or technology capabilities are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. L3Harris disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
A new milestone was reached Monday in the creeping militarization of space.
A ceremony at the Clear Space Force Base (formerly Clear Air Force Station) south of Fairbanks celebrated the end of construction and installation of a new Long Range Discrimination Radar, a sophisticated monitoring system designed to bolster American missile defenses.
“Once fully operational, LRDR will provide unparalleled ability to simultaneously search, track and discriminate multiple small objects, including all classes of ballistic and, in later iterations, hypersonic missiles, at very long ranges, under continuous operation,” heralded the Missile Defense Agency in a press release.
Now that the cutting-edge radar is installed inside a newly constructed facility nearly five stories tall, a testing and training phase will begin, with the device expected to be fully integrated and operational by 2023. Once testing is finished, control of the radar will change from the Missile Defense Agency to the U.S. Space Force.
“You have built an extra set of keen eyes that will paint the picture of any threat coming our way,” said Lt. Gen. A.C. Roper with the North American Defense Command.
The LRDR has an enormous field of vision over huge swaths of the Pacific theater and is touted for its ability to quickly spot and identify complex components from intercontinental ballistic missiles launched high into the atmosphere. For example, the sensors can track debris and decoy objects kicked out as a missile’s boosters drop away and a warhead descends back toward earth. The radar functions as the early warning system in the military’s missile defense strategy, with ground- or sea-based projectiles launched to hopefully destroy an incoming ICBM before it can hit its intended target.
After the brief ceremony and distribution of commemorative plaques, attendees were offered cake and punch before heading out on tours. Afterward, military officials held a roundtable with media calling in from around the country.
A number of questions focused on hypersonics, the emerging class of missiles that are super fast, highly maneuverable, and can fly low enough to evade many defense systems. While the U.S. has started developing hypersonic weapons, China and Russia are widely believed to be substantially further ahead in incorporating them into their military arsenals.
“The primary driving requirement,” said Vice Adm. Jon Hill of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency about the LRDR, “is against the ballistic missile threat. That is what the radar filters are designed to go after.”
It’s unlikely there would be additional hardware necessary for the LRDR to be reconfigured for tracking hypersonics in the future, Hill said.
The radar was specifically put in Alaska because of its vantage over the Indo-Pacific region to spot ICBM’s that could potentially be launched by North Korea.
“Alaska gives us a field of view we need to do homeland defense,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm, who is in charge of Alaskan Command, the Eleventh Air Force, and Alaska’s NORAD assets, including the radars that feed information back to bases in the Lower 48.
The price tag for the LRDR’s installation at Clear is around $1.5 billion. Construction and installation of the radar, which was built by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, was slowed because of the pandemic.
The LRDR will not replace the network of Long Range Radar stations across Alaska, which since the Cold War have been in place to monitor for encroaching aircraft and long-distance bombers. Krumm said the new capabilities are a complement to the existing radar systems.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force has yet to launch all of the GPS III satellites at its disposal, but work on new, more powerful versions is already underway. New GPS III Follow-on satellites — or GPS IIIF for short — will continue to improve the constellation’s accuracy and protection against jamming.
GPS III satellites are already a substantial upgrade to the current constellation, providing three times greater accuracy and eight times better anti-jamming capability than their predecessors. In addition to introducing a new civil signal that is compatible with other navigation satellite systems, the five GPS III satellites on orbit completed the space component of M-code — an even more secure and accurate signal for military use.
The Space Force has launched five of the planned GPS III satellites, and three more have been declared “available for launch” but are waiting in storage with prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The remaining two are undergoing testing.
The Space Force has a contract with Lockheed for up to 22 GPS IIIF satellites. The service already exercised contract options for seven GPS IIIF satellites, with the most recent award taking place in October 2021, when Space Systems Command issued $737 million to the company for three more satellites.
GPS IIIF satellites will be more advanced than their predecessors. Most notably, the new space systems will prove a new Regional Military Protection capability, a steerable M-code signal that can concentrate the effect in a specified region. RMP can provide up to 60 times greater anti-jamming measures, helping ensure soldiers can access critical position, navigation and timing data in contested environments.
Other new features include a laser retroreflector array to increase accuracy; an upgraded nuclear detection detonation system payload; and a search and rescue payload.
Starting with the third GPS IIIF space vehicle, the satellites will be built with Lockheed’s LM2100 Combat Bus, specifically designed for military use. The company claims its new bus, which will also be used for the Space Force’s next missile warning satellites, will have greater resiliency and cyber protections, more power, and better propulsion.
And thanks to a new port option on the LM2100 bus, it could be possible to upgrade GPS IIIF satellites on orbit. The company’s Augmentation System Port Interface essentially works as a USB port for the satellite, allowing the Space Force to launch new payloads into space that can be plugged into the system.
Nathan Strout is the staff editor at C4ISRNET where he covers the intelligence community.
The Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Northern Command and the Space Force marked the completion of construction on the long-range discrimination radar site at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska, during a ceremony on Monday.
The multi-mission LRDR is designed, for now, to better track incoming ballistic missiles. It combines the capabilities of lower frequency radars — which can track multiple objects in space at long range, but are not able to help warfighters determine which objects are a threat — with the capabilities of higher-frequency radars, which have a more limited field of view but are better able to “discriminate” among multiple objects and figure out what of those is dangerous.
As ballistic missiles are launched and shed portions of themselves along their trajectory — including decoy and countermeasure material — the LRDR will help to determine which of those objects must be targeted by the missile defense system.
When fully operational, the multi-face LRDR — equipped with a 220 degree wide field of view and arrays measuring 60 feet high by 60 feet wide — will provide the ability to search, track and discriminate multiple, small objects in space, including all classes of ballistic missiles. Future iterations of the radar’s software will allow it to also track hypersonic missiles.
The information the LRDR provides will increase the effectiveness of the missile defense system and help the U.S. Northern Command better defend the United States.
The capabilities the LRDR provides will also serve as a new kind of deterrent against potential missile attacks by adversaries, said Army Lt. Gen. A.C. Roper, the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command.
“For years, the Department of Defense has subscribed to a mindset of deterrence through punishment — taking advantage of our global response to execute retaliatory strikes,” Roper said.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has challenged the military to instead approach deterrence from a different perspective: deterrence through denial, Roper said.
“It’s a defense designed to give our potential adversaries pause,” he said. “It is the type of deterrence that shifts [their] cost-benefit calculus, providing doubt that an attack will be successful. And the LRDR helps to shift that calculus.”
The general told those responsible for designing and building the new LRDR system that they have given potential adversaries something to think about if they’re contemplating an attack on the U.S. homeland.
“This long-range discrimination radar is designed to defend the homeland by providing [the] unparalleled ability to search, track and discriminate multiple objects simultaneously,” Roper said. “This radar provides a much-needed improvement to Northcom’s homeland ballistic missile defense mission, ultimately resulting in more effective and efficient employment of the ground-based interceptors.”
Full operational capability for the LRDR is expected in 2023, Navy Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency said. Right now, the newly built LRDR will be evaluated and integrated into existing systems.
“This initial delivery is an important step to declare that we’re done with a major construction. We are now fully into the test mode of this radar,” Hill said. “That testing is so critical because it pushes you right into the integration, command and control into ground-based midcourse defense. That integration work will be complete and, then, in 2023, we’ll be able to do operational acceptance for Northern Command.”
Right now, the primary requirement met by the LRDR is against a ballistic missile threat, but in future iterations of the LRDR, tracking of hypersonic weapons can also be included without significant changes to the system, Hill said.
“That is what the radar filters are designed to go after,” Hill said. “To bring in what I call a filter — which means you can then space your tracking and your timing to go to hypersonic — that’s not a big leap … that is a software upgrade, but it is not the driving requirement for LRDR today.”
For decades, drug runners and their potential connections to terrorist groups have been a constant concern of law enforcement and military leaders at the U.S. Southern Command in Doral.
Now, the cartels are going to have a tougher time hiding, and that is in part because of what is happening almost 400 miles above the earth.
The U.S. Space Force, which has only been around for two years, is sending satellites into orbit on many days from Cape Canaveral.
Some head into orbit over the Caribbean, Central and Latin America — where drug lords have for years produced and then shipped cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. by using waterways in and around South Florida.
NBC 6 was granted exclusive access to see how space, ground, and sea forces are using what the satellites provide.
“We are trying to find the narcotraffickers and space is a big contributor to that,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Croft, the Military Deputy Commander at Southern Command.
“We can use our space detection capabilities, optical cameras,” Croft told NBC 6. “We can track things within a couple of hours and see things moving.”
That includes being able to see what’s happening in places like Colombia and Venezuela, where intelligence experts fear drug traffickers and terrorist groups will join forces.
Around the clock, space and intelligence experts are sharing what they find.
Inside a room at Southern Command, there is a big screen that shows where the satellites are located. There is also a host of workstations where space experts can explain what they are seeing to representatives from the military and federal agencies.
“Space Command can provide a perspective to be able to identify and find some of these folks, the ways that they communicate, the ways they move,” said Lt. Col. Bobby Schmitt, who is with the U.S. Space Force and is assigned to coordinate what happens in orbit with Croft’s team. “Space Command provides the ability to see down and find these folks.”
The efforts are lightyears from the days of the cocaine cowboys when violence poured into the Miami streets along with the cocaine.
Croft said the images from the satellites are a valuable resource.
“We can get multiple images in the same day of the same area. So, an aircraft would have to fly many, many missions to do the same thing at a very high cost. Whereas we can utilize that satellite imagery and also share it,” Croft said.
For example, when satellites pick up a runway popping up in the middle of nowhere.
“We can identify those airstrips from space, tell our partner nations where they are so they can go then interdict those—the narcotraffickers,” Croft told NBC 6.
He said the technology allows them to stop traffickers on the ground and at sea.
“The fast vessels they use to transport the drug, which about 90% of the drugs come via the maritime environment and we will be able to assist those nations to go interdict those drug runners that are many cases hundreds of miles out to sea,” Croft explained.
Closer to Florida, it’s the Coast Guard that moves in when the word comes.
Pilot Lt. Cmdr. Jason Neiman is the Coast Guard’s Public Affairs Officer.
“Any information we get is crucial when we use our assets which are limited in resources to target these nefarious networks and get them where they are most vulnerable on the high seas,” Neiman said.
Other federal agencies can also get the information—like the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop human smuggling.
“It’s really, really important and it’s growing rapidly our capabilities,” Croft said.
Brazil is the furthest along in Latin America with its space program.
When Disaster Strikes
Sharing this information with countries and federal agencies goes beyond tracking down criminals.
The coordination protects satellites used for banking and navigation. It also helps when a natural disaster strikes.
“That image quality is super helpful in assisting partner nations, especially in disaster response,” Croft told NBC 6.
Croft said the technology helped his team’s efforts in Haiti last Summer.
“In the Haitian earthquake that we just responded … we can use previous digital imagery, and then new digital imagery to see where a lot of the destruction occurred and where areas need to be fixed or repaired. That quality of that imagery is getting better every, every year that we continue on,” he said.
NBC 6 was onboard Coast Guard helicopters as they left Port-au-Prince and headed for rural areas in the days after the earthquake to evacuate the injured and bring supplies.
NBC 6 didn’t know then, but it was one of the satellites launched by the U.S. military that helped the Coast Guard figure out where to go.
“Information is everything, particularly when you are responding to a disaster, especially in remote and isolated places where information sharing can be difficult,” Neiman said. “You know when you have emerging technology that can make that easier that make our mission safer and make our mission effectiveness better and you know we use any information we can to help save lives in a disaster situation.”
“It’s really good to know that we are making a difference day to day,” Croft added.
Nolan Laufenberg, a business management major and All-Mountain West guard at Air Force Academy, signed to the Washington Football Team’s practice squad in late September, ending his brief free agency. (Air Force Football Facebook)
For more than a month, Nolan Laufenberg was without a status. The former Air Force Academy offensive lineman signed with the Denver Broncos in May as a college free agent, but was released before the start of the NFL season, leaving him without a football home and little certainty beyond the game. Such is the life of NFL free agency.
But Laufenberg’s career path isn’t that of a typical player.
The business management major and All-Mountain West guard at Air Force signed to the Washington Football Team’s practice squad in late September, ending his brief free agency.
But when football does end for him, Laufenberg has a second career waiting — in the United States Space Force, a new military branch established in 2019 when former president Donald Trump signed a $738 billion defense spending bill. In fact, Laufenberg was set to become an acquisitions officer in the Space Force, based in California, before the Broncos called.
“Just in the broad scheme of things, I think it’s cool the possibility that space brings to the military in general and how the world is evolving nowadays,” Laufenberg said. “So I felt like it would be a cool thing to be a part of that new kind of race to see who can become the most advanced in space and stuff like that.”
In 2021, Laufenberg was one of four football prospects from the military academies — along with Army’s Jon Rhattigan, Air Force’s George Silvanic and, after a controversial delay, Navy’s Cameron Kinley — to receive approval from the Department of Defense to defer their postgraduate service and turn pro.
Rhattigan, a linebacker on the Seattle Seahawks’ active roster, and Laufenberg are the only ones of the four to still be under contract.
Laufenberg, who is in the Independent Ready Reserve for the Air Force, was granted a five-year deferment of his service, at which point he can either leave football and fulfill his required active duty, or pay back his tuition at the academy (tuition for cadets is taxpayer funded). Depending on when he begins his required service, Laufenberg could still go into the Space Force, or he could be asked to fulfill whatever position is most needed in the Air Force at the time, if he returns in later years.
But the Air Force regularly keeps tabs on his status, he says, and during his free agency in September, discussions had begun about starting his service if a team didn’t sign him in the following months.
When Washington did, he quickly shifted his mind-set to navigating a new city, a new team and a new playbook. Transitioning from Air Force’s triple option to a pro style offense can often be a steep adjustment for rookies.
“Triple option, you’re kind of racing off the ball, not a lot of pass-blocking,” Laufenberg said. “So that was definitely one of the biggest hurdles with NFL football that I went through with the Broncos, especially learning technique. The triple-option has a lot of plays, too, and I think I pick up plays pretty well. So learning what to do has been less of an obstacle than how to do it, if that makes sense.”
In Denver, where Hall of Fame former guard Mike Munchak was his offensive line coach and Pat Shurmur his offensive coordinator, Laufenberg built a foundation of NFL-specific technique. Although Washington’s offensive line coach John Matsko and coordinator Scott Turner mandate some adjustments, the translation from Denver’s scheme has been relatively smooth, Laufenberg said.
The more significant adjustment: Starting over in the District of Columbia area after spending the entirety of his football career in Colorado. But he arrived to some familiarity. Washington linebackers coach Steve Russ, a standout at Air Force and two-time Super Bowl winner with the Denver Broncos, was the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at the academy when he recruited Laufenberg in high school.
“Going into a new environment and to have someone you know is always good,” Laufenberg said. “He actually lent me one of his cars, which has been huge, because his daughter is actually a freshman at the Air Force Academy right now and they can’t have cars there. So they had an extra car for me to drive around until I could get my car out here.”
Washington’s offensive line has been one of the team’s few bright spots this season, allowing only 10 sacks (tied for seventh-fewest in the NFL) while helping its ball-carriers gain 4.55 yards per carry (ninth-most). Over the past month, Laufenberg has received a crash course in Turner’s playbook to fulfill a different kind of ready reserve as a practice squad guard.
For now, his focus is football. But the rookie knows eventually, he could don a different uniform in the Space Force.
“Whenever that time comes and I go back, it’ll be great,” he said. “Obviously going to the Academy and graduating from there, they want to make sure they’re getting an Air Force officer out of it, and to be able to fulfill my commitment to them is definitely a big thing while I’m still playing football.”
The U.S. Space Force—the sixth military service branch, which turns two years old next month—provides resources to protect and defend America’s satellites from the likes of the Chinese and the Russians. Space Force members also operate the Global Positioning System satellite constellation, providing G.P.S. services, for free, to everyone on the planet. All extremely important stuff. Yet the Space Force is considered something of a joke—the subject of late-night gibes and Internet memes. Critics have derided it as a vanity project of President Trump, a campaign-rally applause line somehow made real. Last year, when Trump unveiled the Space Force logo, which bears a striking resemblance to “Star Trek” ’s Starfleet insignia, Twitter lit up. (“Ahem,” tweeted the original “Star Trek” cast member George Takei. “We are expecting some royalties from this . . .”) Also undercutting the serious nature of the service: the Netflix comedy series “Space Force,” which stars Steve Carell as the branch’s bullheaded leader.
If any of this bothers General John W. (Jay) Raymond, the inaugural head of the Space Force, he doesn’t let on. The memeification of the force? “To me, it means that there’s a lot of excitement about space,” he said recently, sitting in a meeting room in Columbia University’s International Affairs Building. The four-star general, who is based at the Pentagon, was visiting between rounds of the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, a largely virtual competition in which thirty-two student teams from across the globe made policy recommendations in reaction to a hypothetical cyber-warfare scenario. (This one began with a breach made in “U.S. space sector ground stations’ systems,” an attack apparently undertaken by “Chinese state-sponsored actors.”) The event at Columbia, a partnership with a think tank called the Atlantic Council, was organized by the Digital and Cyber Group, which is run by graduate students at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Raymond, who is fifty-nine, with a head shaved bald, pointed to a space-operations badge pinned to his jacket. He noted that the delta symbol at its center had been used by the Air Force—from which the Space Force sprung—years before “Star Trek” ’s 1966 début. Raymond explained that the branch “was not a President Trump thing” but had been under discussion for decades, and came about owing to bipartisan support in Congress. The service now has close to thirteen thousand members, known as “guardians.” “Everybody said we stole it from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ” Raymond said. “Well, no.” The term derives from the Air Force Space Command motto from 1983, “Guardians of the High Frontier.”
Raymond comes from a military family going back to 1865. His great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all went to West Point and had careers in the Army. Raymond broke with tradition by attending Clemson University on the R.O.T.C. program and joining the Air Force. Still, he’s a little bit rock and roll: at the Patriot Fest 2017 concert at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado, he sat in on drums with the country duo Thompson Square, for a performance of its hit “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not.”
Raymond made his way to speak to about thirty people gathered in an auditorium, including a half-dozen members of the Digital and Cyber Group, who were wearing matching space-graphic masks that made it look as though they had turquoise nebulae for noses. “The average person in the United States probably doesn’t understand just how reliant their day-to-day life is on space capabilities,” Raymond told those assembled. “If you use your smartphone, you’re using space. Your smartphone would be called a ‘stupid phone’ without space.”
He sat for a Q. & A. with SIPA’s dean, Merit E. Janow, who asked about China’s recent test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, a development said to have taken U.S. intelligence by surprise. “What keeps me awake at night is the speed at which China is moving,” Raymond said. The Chinese, he’d noted earlier, have a satellite (the Shijian-17), equipped with a robotic arm, that has the potential to grab other satellites and disable them. Even scarier is a bit of Russian technology that Raymond described as a “nesting doll”: a satellite that releases a smaller satellite armed with a projectile capable of taking out our own orbital tech.
Afterward, a student approached Raymond with a question about whether we were entering a space arms race. “That’s why the Space Force was so important to create—to move fast and stay ahead of that,” Raymond said. Then the student pivoted to a less dire topic: “Have you watched Steve Carell’s ‘Space Force’?”
He had. “The only thing is, they picked the wrong actor,” he said. “They should have picked Bruce Willis.” He expressed curiosity about an unexplained plot point. “In Season 1, ‘my wife’ is in jail for, like, forty years,” he said. “Nobody knows why. So I keep teasing my wife: ‘What did you do?’ ” ♦
Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations for the US Space Force, said Saturday China is developing its space capabilities at “twice the rate” of the US.
On a panel of US space experts and leaders speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in a panel moderated by CNN’s Kristin Fisher, Gen. Thompson warned China could overtake the US in space capabilities by the end of the decade.
“The fact, that in essence, on average, they are building and fielding and updating their space capabilities at twice the rate we are means that very soon, if we don’t start accelerating our development and delivery capabilities, they will exceed us,” Gen. Thompson said, adding, “2030 is not an unreasonable estimate.”
Gen. Thompson was joined by Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee, which helps oversee the Space Force’s budget, and Chris Kubasik, president and CEO of L3Harris Technologies, a defense contractor that develops Space and Airborne systems.
Cooper said, “Hell yes,” when asked if the US is competing in a so-called space race with China.
Both Gen. Thompson and Kubasik agreed with Cooper’s assessment.
Cooper has been a steadfast advocate for the Space Force, but said Saturday it is not moving fast enough to “keep up” with private industry.
“It’s great that the private sector is so much more innovative than our Air Force was, and we need to get the Space Force to be much more innovative and try to keep up with the private sector,” Cooper said.
He added: “To really be superior, we’ve got to go beyond Elon Musk’s imagination, Jeff Bezos’ imagination, beyond their pocketbooks. (The) budget right now is $17 billion — that’s a lot of money, but considering how crucial space is, are we doing enough?”
Cooper suggested the Space Force should be more like the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees government space satellites and provides satellite intelligence to several US agencies.
“The NRO has actually done a pretty amazing job,” Cooper said. “They’re not as well-known as some other agencies. … But I had a recent side-by-side briefing with the NRO and Space Force. My conclusion after that briefing was: thank God for the NRO. I anxiously await the day that I can say the same about the Space Force.”
When asked to respond, Gen. Thompson said, “As Congressman Cooper noted, every time we meet, Congressman Cooper asks what he can continue to do to help, and my request of him is always the same: continue to be our strongest supporter and our toughest critic, and I can say this morning he continues to perform effectively in both of those roles,” to which the room erupted in laughter.
If you are outside doing some stargazing in the Western Hemisphere this evening and are looking up at just the right time, you might catch sight of something that will appear quite strange: a small circular cloud of light that will rapidly expand to roughly the apparent size of a full moon, before finally fading away some minutes later.
What you will have just seen is not some strange atmospheric phenomenon, but a fuel dump from a U.S. Space Force (USSF) mission that launched earlier today on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 511 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The launch, which occurred on right on schedule at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT), carried two satellites for the USSF’s Space Systems Command (SSC). The mission, called USSF 8, will place the two identical Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellites — GSSAP 5 and GSSAP 6 —directly to a near-geosynchronous orbit approximately 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the equator.
Related: Atlas V rocket launches 2 surveillance satellites for US Space Force
According to ULA’s flight profile, 6 hours and 35 minutes after launch, the first of the two satellites (GSSAP 5) will be released to its geosynchronous orbit, followed 10 minutes later by the second satellite (GSSAP 6).
Fuel dump should create luminous cloud
Seven hours, 11 minutes and 40 seconds after the launch, the Centaur second stage will dump its unused (excess) fuel out into space. Dumping excess fuel is the usual practice for all Centaur booster-assisted launches. It happens after satellite separation; the fuel bleeding off from a Centaur upper rocket stage.
As it turns out, the timing of this event will be perfect for creating a sky show for much of the Western Hemisphere. When the Centaur releases its excess fuel, it will be nighttime over North and South America. But the Centaur, at an altitude of roughly 22,300 miles (36,000 km) will be in sunlight and as such the fuel will be reflecting sunlight as seen from Earth.
In a Twitter thread, assiduous satellite watcher Cees Bassa has provided a considerable amount of information concerning the visibility of the fuel dump:
Alerting observers and astrophotographers! Friday evening a fuel dump from a rocket may be visible as a bright nebula in the sky for observers in North, Central and South America. The fuel dump will occur at 18:11PST/21:11EST for the planned 19:00UTC launch of the #AtlasV rocket. pic.twitter.com/EjO88ktAc8January 21, 2022
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Bassa likens the appearance of the fuel dump as a “bright nebula, possibly as big as the full moon on the sky.”
“The cloud should be visible to the naked eye, and with binoculars or telescopes it should be possible to see the cloud grow and change shape,” Bassa added.
The fuel dump is expected for 9:11:40 p.m. EST (6:11:40 p.m. PST). It should suddenly appear to the naked eye as an expanding circular, comet-like cloud about 10 to 15 degrees west (or to the right) of the bright bluish zero-magnitude star Rigel in the Orion constellation. Your clenched fist held at arm’s length measures roughly 10 degrees, so approximately “one or one and a half fists” to the right of Rigel is where the cloud should appear.
Such fuel dumps from satellites have been seen before. On the evening of Aug. 12, 1986, shortly after 10 p.m. EDT (0200 Aug. 13 GMT), countless numbers of people across the U.S. and Canada, who were watching the Perseid meteor shower, were surprised by a fuel dump from a Japanese satellite launch that created a luminous cloud.
And on Sept. 1, 2004, the fuel dump from an NRO-1 satellite launched earlier that day, was visible from the Eastern U.S. and Canada.
Why dump fuel into space?
Some might ask what is the necessity to dump fuel into space? The reason it is done is for safety; to minimize the risk of an explosion of the vehicle, which in turn, would create a large amount of space junk, or orbital debris that would then put other space vehicles at in danger. At such a high altitude, the fuel is dissipated quickly and poses no environmental threat to the Earth.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers’ Almanac and other publications. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.