Military – Luna 2076

The Pentagon Plans Highway Patrol for Cislunar Space

March 12, 2022

Image credit: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)

A congressional spending bill has added $61 million for the U.S. Space Force toward setting up a surveillance network — or “highway patrol” — to track the domain between the Earth and the Moon.

Nation-states and commercial companies will fly nearly 100 missions, both crewed and uncrewed, to the Moon by 2030. As the cislunar region fills with satellites and space junk — there are at present an estimated 27,000 piece of human-made objects larger than a softball in orbit — the Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS) will track and identify all man-made objects a combination of optical and radar sensors — critical for mitigating potential collision risks.

“The responsible use of space and unfettered access to space domain awareness ensures collision avoidance, on-orbit logistics, communication, navigation and maneuvering, all critical to the United States and allied space commerce, science and exploration,” states a video produced by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory that can be viewed here.

Some critics warn that the intrusion of the armed forces into cislunar space represents a potential usurpation of NASA and militarization of space. Military strategists say the stakes are too big to leave cislunar space to the civilians, and the Pentagon will be compelled to take on a major role. China, which has plans to build a lunar base, cannot be trusted to pursue only peaceful aims, and could use its space program for both economic and military advantage, Politico says. more “The Pentagon Plans Highway Patrol for Cislunar Space”

Boeing, General Atomics to Advance Work on Liquid Lasers

November 18, 2020

Artist’s conception of a laser weapon and beam director mounted on a truck. (Real lasers emit invisible infrared beams.) Image credit: General Atomics

The Pentagon began developing work on electrically powered solid-state laser weapons two decades ago. By 2013 the Navy was testing a 30-kilowatt fiber laser on a ship. Then focus shifted to fiber lasers in the 50- to 100-kilowatt class. Now aerospace giant Boeing has teamed with General Atomics to build lasers achieving the 250-kilowatt threshold needed to defend against nuclear missiles, reports IEEE Spectrum.

The design of high-energy solid-state lasers entails a tradeoff between size, weight and power, and the problem of dissipating heat. General Atomics had the idea of developing a liquid laser, considered crazy at the time, but DARPA funded it. Liquid lasers are similar to solid-state lasers but they use a cooling liquid that flows through channels integrated into the solid-state laser material. The trick was achieving a perfect match in the refractive index between the liquid and the solid material. more “Boeing, General Atomics to Advance Work on Liquid Lasers”

Satellite Constellations, the Kessler Effect, and Military Superiority

November 6, 2020

A satellite constellation — DARPA illustration

As the United States military machine becomes increasingly dependent upon constellations of satellites for its command, control and communications, potential adversaries such as China and Russia have become experimenting with methods to destroy or disable the satellites. Now U.S. strategists are sounding the alarm about anti-satellite weapons, or ASATs, reports GeekWire.

“We built [the command and control satellites] as if we were in a benign domain.” said Lt. Gen. John Shaw, commander of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Operations Command. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that space is becoming “a contested domain.”

Adding complexity to the strategic thinking about space is a potential phenomenon sometimes referred to as the Kessler syndrome. Donald J. Kessler wrote in 1979 how the density of objects in Low EarthOrbit could get high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade — creating debris that struck other objects, thus creating more debris. The movie “Gravity” was based on a scenario in which the Russians shot down a defunct satellite, creating a cloud of debris moving at 20,000 to 50,000 miles per hour. Apparently, military thinkers give such a scenario credence. more “Satellite Constellations, the Kessler Effect, and Military Superiority”

Coming Soon: the Cislunar Highway Patrol System

November 5, 2020

An important duty assumed by the embryonic U.S. Space Force will be tracking objects in cislunar space (the area between the Earth and Moon). The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate is now investigating technologies to undertake the task, reports Space News.

“It’s a brave new world for the [Department of Defense] to embark on,” said Capt. David Buehler, manager of the AFRL experiment named CHPS, for Cislunar Highway Patrol System. Said he:

“If we’re going to protect and defend, the Space Force is going to need to understand the environment, have space domain awareness capabilities to be able to know where everything is out there.”

Tracking objects in cislunar space presents significant technical challenges. One is estimating the trajectory objects that are subject to the gravity of both Earth and the Moon. Said Buehler: “As you go further and further beyond GEO, you start to have these weird, non-closed trajectories, they no longer look like orbits, they’re more open-ended trajectories.”

The distances are vaster than tracking objects in Earth orbit, and the brightness of the Moon creates problems for sensors. more “Coming Soon: the Cislunar Highway Patrol System”

Cislunar Space as Engine of Economic and Military Power

August 1, 2020

Officials within the U.S. military increasingly regard Earth-Moon space as the “high ground” in military power.

A July 2020 report based on a virtual workshop involving more than 150 thought leaders from industry, government and academia, “State of the Space Industrial Base 2020,” identifies a need to control critical “choke points” in cislunar space.

By 2060 space will be a “significant engine of national political, economic, and military power” and the United States must commit to having “a military force structure that can defend this international space order and defend US space interests, to include US space settlements and commerce.”

Lunar-derived resources — especially hydrogen and oxygen — are key to access asteroid resources and Mars. “Today’s race to the moon has little to do with flags and footprints. Strategically, it is a race to the great wealth of lunar resources which will fuel the greater space economy and enable future exploration and settlement in the solar system.”

At present the U.S is the civil, commercial and national-security leader in space. The U.S. is the first nation to demonstrate commercial orbital delivery, commercial heavy lift, commercial first-stage reusability, deployment of space-based mega-constellations for overhead sensing and internet broadband. The U.S. military maintains the most capable military constellation including the unique X-37B spaceplane.

While the U.S. has first-mover advantages, the nation faces significant challenges. more “Cislunar Space as Engine of Economic and Military Power”

Air Force Cadets Ponder the Future of the Military in Space

July 15, 2020

Image credit: Department of the Air Force

Nearly 90 of this year’s roughly 1,000 Air Force Academy graduates will become commissioned officers in the newly created Space Force. Some are members of an academy group, the Institute for Applied Space Policy and Strategy (IASPS), which features weekly speakers and formal research projects. The group, according to Science, is dedicated to gaming out the policies and philosophies that could guide military space activity.

One big question cadets ask is if the Space Force might someday have a military presence on the Moon. Such a thought might conflict with the pacifist worldview of many scientists, who regard cislunar space as a place for commerce and scientific inquiry, but in a world driven by geopolitical competition, someone needs to be thinking about it. In an interview with Science, IASPS President J.P. Byrne, who will graduate in 2021, offered a number of insights in the realm of “astropolitics.”

How can the United States, he asks, best mitigate the problem of space debris through space situational awareness and space traffic management.

Will mining be realistic, and if so when?

Will deterrence in space reflect deterrence on Earth? If something happens to a satellite in space, does that warrant a space response or an Earth response?

Will it be necessary, or even possible, for the military to sustain a presence on the Moon?

“The group was really interested in finding out what future role Space Force might have on the military-on-the-Moon concept 20 years or so down the line,” says Byrne. “Intergovernmental agency cooperation is paramount to having some future lunar base. Maybe [in this scenario], Space Force would select astronaut candidates who would complete training through NASA.”

Luna 2076

Category: Military