Intelligence on Russia highlights new US satellite push

Hours after news emerged Wednesday that the United States had gathered troubling information about Russia's ability to attack U.S. satellites, the Pentagon sent a missile tracking system into space as part of a massive new effort to combat the military's growing presence. to strengthen in space.

The timing was coincidental. But it underscored how concerns about advances in Russian and Chinese capabilities in space have led the United States to embrace innovative ways to protect vital communications, surveillance and GPS systems on the battlefield of the future.

The system launched into orbit on Wednesday was a prototype developed to test a new plan called Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which aims to cover low Earth orbit with hundreds of smaller, cheaper satellites. The approach resembles a version of Elon Musk's Starlink internet communications system that Elon Musk's SpaceX already has in orbit, with more than 5,000 satellites. (The Pentagon prototype launched Wednesday on a Space X rocket.)

The idea is that even if enemies of the United States were able to take out some of their satellites – or even more than a dozen – the system could continue to function by switching to other units in the spinning web.

“For a long time, our space constellations could be counted by the handful — satellites the size of school buses that took decades to buy and build and years to launch,” Kathleen H. Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense, said last month at US Space Command, which is responsible for coordinating the Pentagon's military operations in space.

But now, she said, the United States is shifting to “expanded constellations of smaller, resilient, lower-cost satellites” that “can be launched almost weekly.”

Washington officials have realized in recent years that one of the first steps the United States would likely face in a major war with China or Russia would be an attempt to deploy U.S. telecommunications, geolocation and surveillance systems in space. to change gear.

That's what new intelligence suggests Russia may be planning with its new space weapon, the subject of a briefing from senior national security officials to congressional leaders on Thursday.

Currently, most US military satellite systems are extremely vulnerable to such an attack because they are very few in number and very large. When they were first built, they were considered unlikely targets for any American enemy except during a nuclear war.

The continued surveillance of the world they provide has become one of the United States' most important military advantages. Not only can the Pentagon track major missile threats, it can also use its system to communicate between branches of the military and send targeted information to its own weapons, while simultaneously providing direct intelligence on enemy troop or equipment movements.

The war in Ukraine has shown how important these instruments are. Relying in part on U.S. satellite images from private companies, Ukraine has been able to track Russian movements more closely than technology would have allowed in a previous war and maintain its communications systems despite Russian efforts to jam them.

Commercial satellites are also a crucial part of the U.S. economy, powering everything from GPS to the communications systems used by thousands of businesses, from banks to gas stations.

“If I were on the General Staff of Russia, or if I were serving in the PLA, I would advise the leadership to go after the United States' space capabilities,” said Lt. Gen. John Shaw, who until recently served as deputy commander of the US Space Command, said at an Air Force conference in Colorado last year, referring to China's People's Liberation Army.

The United States relies on satellites “to project power across the planet, and they are not very well defended,” General Shaw said. “So we shouldn't be surprised that they were threatened.”

The Pentagon's Space Development Agency has budgeted nearly $14 billion over the next five years to build out the new system. budget documents showThough delays by Congress in approving a 2024 budget could delay the timeline, Pentagon officials said. The agency is responsible for buying the new satellites and paying for the launches to put them into low Earth orbit for missile warning and tracking and further research, prototyping and deployment of new space weapons.

Right now, the Pentagon, like NASA, is relying heavily on Mr. Musk and SpaceX to put these new satellites in space. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the two prototype Pentagon satellites that will be tested over the next two years took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Wednesday evening.

The satellites launched Wednesday — they're called Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensors, or HBTSS — are intended to help detect missiles that might be launched by China, Russia or another country, giving the United States a better chance of intercepting them sooner and destroy.

“These HBTSS satellites are a critical step forward in our efforts to stay one step ahead of our adversaries,” Lt. Gen. Heath Collins of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said in a statement before the launch.

Contracts for other small systems in low Earth orbit have already been awarded to major military suppliers such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. But the Pentagon is also working with start-up companies focused on the space market, such as Rocket Lab and Sierra Space, which launched in January announced a Pentagon contract worth up to $740 million for 18 warning and tracking satellites, the largest in its history.

The Pentagon is separately looking for new launch companies that can take orders from the military and quickly put a new satellite system into space. In September, Firefly Aerospace launched a military spacecraft into orbit from California only 27 hours after receiving launch orders. The previous record was 21 days.

This kind of quick turnaround could allow the United States to quickly deploy new satellites if existing ones are destroyed during a conflict. It could also be vital in any major global conflict, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in an interview.

“We will not be able to operate successfully in the Western Pacific unless we can defeat it,” he said last month, referring to new Chinese and Russian anti-satellite systems.

Todd Harrison, an aerospace engineer and space security scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the Pentagon will likely have a thousand new satellites in low Earth orbit, which is less than 1,200 miles, by the end of this decade. of the surface.

Older Pentagon and spy satellites were typically much further away in so-called geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth. From that vantage point, satellites can see more of the Earth at once, but their signals take longer to reach the surface. That would make it more difficult to use them in advanced artificial intelligence-based weapon systems that may make targeting decisions independently and almost instantaneously.

China has moved quickly in recent years to build its own ground-launched weapons to hit U.S. satellites stationed in orbit or space. The country has already tested satellites that have arms that can grab or catch other satellites; a capacity that the United States also has, but has so far only used for peaceful purposes.

Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch, an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Space Force, said China is moving toward building its own constellation of as many as 13,000 satellites for communications and military needs. That's in addition to other advanced tools such as synthetic aperture radar, which can use radio waves to track military movements, even at night and under cloud cover.

“Where China is going now, they are completely eclipsing the Russians in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.” from space, he said last month at a Space Force conference in Florida.

The United States is already working to add capabilities to the new satellites it launches so they can be refueled in space and move into orbit if necessary, as part of a plan to extend their lifespan and defend themselves if necessary.

The United States has its own Earth-based missiles that can target enemy satellites in space or send radio signals that could disrupt them. But so far the country has not publicly acknowledged that it has offensive weapons in space, Mr. Harrison said.

“We are designing a future space architecture that will be much less vulnerable,” Mr Harrison said. “Our economic and military security now depends heavily on space.”