US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

taxiya said:

China has demonstrated in-orbit identification of ships with satellite in the Jilin-1 constellation many years ago. It was one of the sat around few hundred kilos, it was optical. The image recognition was done by the sat itself, only result was transferred to the ground to compare with marinetime tracking broadcast. Jilin-1 has equivlant radar sat in the same weight range. Jilin-1 and other constellations were evisioned to provide real-time coverage. Jilin-1 alone is planned to be 300 sats in space by 2nd phase and it is not the end. Essentially China already has a priliminary system similar to what Pantagon is planning.

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Pretty big difference between tracking and identifying ships compared to moving aircraft. Jilin-1 to my knowledge does not have any planned capability similar for what they are advertising for space based AMTI. Consistent coverage of stationary/slow moving objects is quite different from consistent tracking of aircraft in flight. Also, SAR satellite =/= AMTI capable, in fact conventional SAR cannot even track anything at all in the normal sense and rely on repeated imaging and recognition to track slow objects only. It is also doubtful that optical tracking of aircraft is reliable enough and has a wide enough coverage for airspace monitoring (ie tracking multiple targets within a designated airspace) like what the US system is alleged designed for given that the FoV of high res systems is quite small. Even if you can somehow get optical tracking working for multiple targets, it is also questionable whether it'll be able to provide useful targeting/tracking data as AFAIK, optical system could only give a estimate of speed and general heading.

taxiya said:

And even this isn't ahead of China who has demonstrated intra-sat laser communication.

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Starlink uses intra satellite lasers, this isn't anything new and pretty strange to claim China is ahead here.


Also arguably the US has a similarly sized commercial constellation with Planet Lab's as they provide most if not all the services that Jilin-1 could including SAR imagery AFAIK.

Tomboy said:

Pretty big difference between tracking and identifying ships compared to moving aircraft. Jilin-1 to my knowledge does not have any planned capability similar for what they are advertising for space based AMTI. Consistent coverage of stationary/slow moving objects is quite different from consistent tracking of aircraft in flight. Also, SAR satellite =/= AMTI capable, in fact conventional SAR cannot even track anything at all in the normal sense and rely on repeated imaging and recognition to track slow objects only. It is also doubtful that optical tracking of aircraft is reliable enough and has a wide enough coverage for airspace monitoring (ie tracking multiple targets within a designated airspace) like what the US system is alleged designed for given that the FoV of high res systems is quite small.

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No sat in either Jilin like constellation or the proposed AMTI sat (on even lower orbit) can do tracking because they all fly very fast, it is networking of many sats doing relying tracking. AMTI is not different. If they are put in a lower orbit than Jilin, their single sat coverage, tracking will be even more difficult. So I don't see any fundamental advantage of AMTI than what China is already doing.

Speed is not an issue either because you don't rely on one sat to track, so long as you have the continious coverage of the area by enough sats in orbit. The higher orbit the lesser sats you need.

The enabler of these constellation to do what in-orbit AMTI want to do is in-orbit image analysis, recognition and profiling using onboard high computational power. Jilin demonstrated how this works in 2019. US military has not, SpaceX is not in the field yet.

I am not talking about SAR. BTW, just so you know, SAR don't have to be slow as you imagined in the old ways, you can use multiple sats in the same orbit plane one after another and sats on nearby orbits on the side to get SAR image. All these sats have view over the target at the same time, it is a lot faster than you think.

Tomboy said:

Starlink uses intra satellite lasers, this isn't anything new and pretty strange to claim China is ahead here.


Also arguably the US has a similarly sized commercial constellation with Planet Lab's as they provide most if not all the services that Jilin-1 could including SAR imagery AFAIK.

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Your mind has been confined in a SpaceX world. Intra satellite laser isn't something unique to SpaceX. China has demonstrated 400Gbps between sats 640km apart. Also need to prevent you from thinking of laser com as a magic, once the sat did the recognition by itself the data to communicate is very low rate, transferring video or image data between sats is stupid for this purpose.

Also important, Starlink has to have intra sat laser because it flies low, sat can not reach ground in many places, intra sat is the only way. Higher up in the orbit, sat has better chance to reach ground stations. Also LEO/SSO sat can talk to communication rely sats in higher orbit or even GEO orbit, SpaceX has neither, therefor it did what it did. SpaceX' solution is not the only solution to a given problem.

jli88 said:

Pentagon can very quickly have a massive space constellation up with tens of thousands of aircraft tracking satellites. What is China's plan to counter/match this capability?

Make AWACs redundant

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You’re welcome to provide the timeline and actual workability of this newly announced wonder-weapon that the Pentagon has come up with — on top of all the prior pronouncements and “world-beating” declarations it has made with nothing to show for it.
As an aside, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have been noticing your posts becoming increasingly dubious and nothing but doom-and-gloom. It’s always “China is about to get crushed if it doesn’t follow your prescribed solutions.” It’s getting pretty annoying — not because you hold contrarian views, but because of your low-IQ, drive-by style of posting. You don’t even attempt to provide an intelligent argument. Instead you simply state the situation as a matter of fact, as if it’s already set in stone.

taxiya said:

No sat in either Jilin like constellation or the proposed AMTI sat (on even lower orbit) can do tracking because they all fly very fast, it is networking of many sats doing relying tracking. AMTI is not different. If they are put in a lower orbit than Jilin, their single sat coverage, tracking will be even more difficult. So I don't see any fundamental advantage of AMTI than what China is already doing.

Speed is not an issue either because you don't rely on one sat to track, so long as you have the continious coverage of the area by enough sats in orbit. The higher orbit the lesser sats you need.

I am not talking about SAR. BTW, just so you know, you don't need to repeatedly scan to get SAR works, you can use multiple sats in the same orbit plane one after another and sats on nearby orbits on the side to get SAR image.

You seems only live in a SpaceX universe. Intra satellite laser isn't something unique to SpaceX. China has demonstrated 400Gbps between sats 640km apart.

Also important, Starlink has to have intra sat laser because it flies low, sat can not reach ground in many places, intra sat is the only way. Higher up in the orbit, sat has better chance to reach ground stations. Also LEO/SSO sat can talk to communication rely sats in higher orbit or even GEO orbit, SpaceX has neither, therefor it did what it did. SpaceX' solution is not the only solution to a given quesiton.

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Whatever it is, Chinese conservatism and delay in opening up the Space launch to private sector has given it a massive disadvantage in strategic sector. Dismissive attitude towards reusable rockets and its economics, and barebone investment in the private launch companies are to blame. Compared to semiconductor and EUV development, catching up with the US in terms of space launch capability should have been easier. But, I highly suspect, no one even saw the need for that high of space launch capacity given they have enough spy sats, working space station and well planned prestigious lunar missions. But, It was and still is the massive weaknesses of the Chinese government not to see Starlink, and upcoming Starship and US space launch capability to be primarily destined for further expanding offensive and defensive capability, while marketing them as lucrative business enterprises so that the public would fund the projects. All of these ventures will never be profitable enterprises, given the constraints of physics, but these ultra expensive projects would further expand offensive capabilities. Space based computing being marketed is primarily for that reason. Removing latency for persistent global surveillance across the world. It wouldn’t hurt the Chinese finances to increase the funding ten times to the launch sector . Having a comparable capability in the short term is an acute need .

taxiya said:

No sat in either Jilin like constellation or the proposed AMTI sat (on even lower orbit) can do tracking because they all fly very fast, it is networking of many sats doing relying tracking. AMTI is not different. If they are put in a lower orbit than Jilin, their single sat coverage, tracking will be even more difficult. So I don't see any fundamental advantage of AMTI than what China is already doing.

Speed is not an issue either because you don't rely on one sat to track, so long as you have the continious coverage of the area by enough sats in orbit. The higher orbit the lesser sats you need.

The enabler of these constellation to do what in-orbit AMTI want to do is in-orbit image analysis, recognition and profiling using onboard high computational power. Jilin demonstrated how this works in 2019. US military has not, SpaceX is not in the field yet.

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Unless I'm mistaken, US does specifically claim the AMTI constellation should be capable of tracking and even providing AEWC like targeting data.

Even if we handwave all the issues with optical tracking away, how exactly do you propose using optical methods to gain similar quality of target tracking as AMTI? Overlapping satellites is assumed anyways and while I agree that could possibly provide a consistent optical track on many individual aircraft, it doesn't to my knowledge is capable to giving a similar level of tracking data as what they claim.

IMO, if it performs as claimed it could be quite revolutionary for modern and future air combat, at worst it would still be a extremely valuable tool to augment AEWC fleet.

That is of course all built on the assumption that the USSF actually pulls this off, it's hard to verify their claims given basically nothing technical is known about the actual satellite system or even the methodology used to track and search in their system given that there are quite a few different methods of achieving space based AMTI to various capability but also has their corresponding issues and difficulty associated.

I've moved the various posts from the China Space thread because it isn't really relevant. We try to avoid excessive wishcasting in other threads as well, so same applies there.

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taxiya said:

No sat in either Jilin like constellation or the proposed AMTI sat (on even lower orbit) can do tracking because they all fly very fast, it is networking of many sats doing relying tracking. AMTI is not different. If they are put in a lower orbit than Jilin, their single sat coverage, tracking will be even more difficult. So I don't see any fundamental advantage of AMTI than what China is already doing.

Speed is not an issue either because you don't rely on one sat to track, so long as you have the continious coverage of the area by enough sats in orbit. The higher orbit the lesser sats you need.

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The goal of the US Space Based AMTI project is intended to be a super constellation of radar satellites that can provide overlapping fields of view to provide AEW like capability but from satellites rather than aircraft.

The viability of the project would depend on having a sufficiently large mega constellation (as the mega constellation would of course be moving relatively quickly being in LEO), as well as the software and algorithms to stitch all of the overlapping satellite views together for a coherent picture, and their ability to be used in a more dynamic, realtime AEW&C manner would likely require some important networking nodes closer to whatever area the "frontline of air combat" is situated as well as being resistant to EW themselves (both in terms of relaying information from satellites to terrestrial/aerial assets near the frontline, as well as the radar satellites themselves).


And even as an in service capability it is likely going to be more of a complement to conventional aircraft based AEW&C than a full replacement in wartime -- against a capable adversary, one's LEO satellites are likely going to be at significant risk.

Bellum_Romanum said:

You’re welcome to provide the timeline and actual workability of this newly announced wonder-weapon that the Pentagon has come up with — on top of all the prior pronouncements and “world-beating” declarations it has made with nothing to show for it.
As an aside, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have been noticing your posts becoming increasingly dubious and nothing but doom-and-gloom. It’s always “China is about to get crushed if it doesn’t follow your prescribed solutions.” It’s getting pretty annoying — not because you hold contrarian views, but because of your low-IQ, drive-by style of posting. You don’t even attempt to provide an intelligent argument. Instead you simply state the situation as a matter of fact, as if it’s already set in stone.

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Just some concern trolling from a certain country.

Truth be told, the Pentagon last year wanted to completely scrap new aircraft AEW&C and move on to sats ASAP. They reversed course sometime later, I'm willing to bet because they are not confident that Space Based AMTI will come soon enough or be good enough to replace E-7s rather than augment them.

Having said that, it is a very interesting capability if it pans out. I think that it certainly would be more difficult for any adversary in times of war to deal with a LEO mega-constellation, than a handful of large airplanes.

We will have to see how this unfolds.

Wouldn't a constellation of satellites run into the issue of having a far more predictable trajectory, allowing to set EW equipment capable enough of jamming them or outright disrupting them with HPM's in the expected route, though?

Dante80 said:

Truth be told, the Pentagon last year wanted to completely scrap new aircraft AEW&C and move on to sats ASAP. They reversed course sometime later, I'm willing to bet because they are not confident that Space Based AMTI will come soon enough or be good enough to replace E-7s rather than augment them.

Having said that, it is a very interesting capability if it pans out. I think that it certainly would be more difficult for any adversary in times of war to deal with a LEO mega-constellation, than a handful of large airplanes.

We will have to see how this unfolds.

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Congress forced the Pentagon to continue with plane-based AWACs, rather than the Pentagon actually wanting them.

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Also remember that aircraft spend most of their on the ground (or on a carrier) rather than in the air.

It is far easier to hit aircraft parked on the ground, and note that while China has hardened most of its airbases, the US only has access to a few airbases in the Western Pacific, and they aren't hardened.

The US really should be building hardened infrastructure in the Western Pacific as well.