TPY-4 radar promotional film, with an interesting fixed wing target at half way mark.
US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
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TPY-4 radar promotional film, with an interesting fixed wing target at half way mark.
NRO is building the "most capable, diverse, and resilient space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system the world has ever seen". $2bn contract for Starshield + already deployed prototypes.
So yeah, LEO mega constellations are the future of space militarization. NRO + Space Development Agency is relentlessly moving ahead here with Starshield, next gen KH program and missile tracking layers.
Anyone who isn’t aggressively building production facilities to churn out tens of thousands of LEO satellites and the rockets necessary to launch them (ideally reusable rockets), and developing civilian commercial use cases from telecommunications to ADAS to spread some of the costs, might as well by living in the 2010s still.
I told you guys the US would eventually use these low orbit satellite constellations to put imaging satellites in large numbers in orbit.
This was originally planned to happen in the 1990s by the BMDO with the Delta Clipper reusable vehicle. But then that project got cancelled after Bill Clinton came in as President.
This contract for Starshield is sure going to ruffle some feathers in the MIC though. If you believe those news then Starshield is going to replace the recon, global positioning, communications, etc military satellites. i.e. basically everything. I doubt this won't be fought hard against.
This was originally planned to happen in the 1990s by the BMDO with the Delta Clipper reusable vehicle. But then that project got cancelled after Bill Clinton came in as President.
This contract for Starshield is sure going to ruffle some feathers in the MIC though. If you believe those news then Starshield is going to replace the recon, global positioning, communications, etc military satellites. i.e. basically everything. I doubt this won't be fought hard against.
NRO, DARPA has always sought to create strategic advantage in space and the guy who helped Elon's SpaceX become the company it is today, former NASA head Mike Griffin, has on multiple occasions called for the launching of megaconstellations for a variety of purposes. In fact he started the Space Development Agency in 2019.
If you look at Starship, a very LEO optimized vehicle, it's hard to imagine it won't be serving this task in the next few years.
If you look at Starship, a very LEO optimized vehicle, it's hard to imagine it won't be serving this task in the next few years.
Interesting. So is SpaceX actually designing these satellites? They have massive production capacity for Starlink, but I am not sure how that will translate over to this program?
Either way, their launch capacity is so far and away the largest in the world that they can easily put thousands of these satellites in orbit in short order.
If Starship functions as intended, then they will be able to absolutely dominate LEO.
Agreed! The problem is that SpaceX is way ahead of the competition and building to expand that lead. Just look at the launch statistics for 2024 so far.
SpaceX is designing them but with input and recommedations from various government agencies, so some obvious requirements would be to provide a common satellite bus for mounting various payloads (optical/IR etc).
Most of the military stuff are prototypes (or at least in the early stagse) at this stage, we know this because we can track each Falcon 9 launch and indeed the vast majority of them are building out the civillian Starlink. Although there was a last year that described a system that seemed suspiciously like Starshield ("taking near real time time-series videos"). Keep in mind SpaceX did not report orbit data for some of those launches.
I knew they wouldn't be just for broadband. If broadband why would they need tens of thousands of them. Alot of places are fully connected with internet without satellite.
You have to assume that all starlink satellites in space have SAR capabilities.
In a space conflict, you need a massive constellation (in 10s of thousands) that are able to perform these functions: collide into your enemy satellite, do SAR, EW, spoofing, jamming, etc..
For ground and sea, you need remote control or AI himars that are able to launch missile on its own without humans.
We're still in the early stages of this inevitable conflict but it is without a doubt at this point that the US military is developing this capability. The CEO of ULA, rival to SpaceX, has essentially admitted this in his article:
This is a big deal for his company because ULA was the sole launch provider for big, extremely expensive, USG space capabilities for a long time. Future space strategem has changed from big expensive birds in SSO/GEO to (tens of) thousands of LEO sats.
These LEO sats have a common satellite bus for mounting optical, IR, SAR payloads.
Of course the Pentagon would fully utilise SpaceX payload capabilities lol
Anyone who said otherwise was simply deluded which is why (a few) people here were advocating for a similar Chinese capability instead of the usual stupid circlejerk about SpaceX failures
As it stands, SpaceX is a national US strategic asset and a key force multiplier for its competition with China