Tag: military space
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Space Force wants six kinds of space weapons—including anti-satellite lasers
DENVER—The US Space Force lacks the full range of space weapons China and Russia are adding to their arsenals, and military leaders say it’s time to close the gap. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, told reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium last week that he wants…
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The X-37B spaceplane lands after helping pave the way for “maneuver warfare”
The US military’s robotic mini-space shuttle dropped out of orbit and glided to a runway in California late Thursday, ending a 434-day mission that pioneered new ways of maneuvering in space. The X-37B spaceplane touched down on Runway 12 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 11:22 pm local time Thursday (2:22 am EST Friday),…
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When Europe needed it most, the Ariane 6 rocket finally delivered
Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket lifted off Thursday from French Guiana and deployed a high-resolution reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the French military, notching a success on its first operational flight. The 184-foot-tall (56-meter) rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 11:24 am EST (16:24 UTC). Twin solid-fueled boosters and a hydrogen-fueled core stage engine…
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ULA’s Vulcan rocket still doesn’t have the Space Force’s seal of approval
Last October, United Launch Alliance started stacking its third Vulcan rocket on a mobile launch platform in Florida in preparation for a mission for the US Space Force by the end of the year. That didn’t happen, and ULA is still awaiting the Space Force’s formal certification of its new rocket, further pushing out delivery…
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Rocket Report: Another hiccup with SpaceX upper stage; Japan’s H3 starts strong
Welcome to Edition 7.30 of the Rocket Report! The US government relies on SpaceX for a lot of missions. These include launching national security satellites, putting astronauts on the Moon, and global broadband communications. But there are hurdles—technical and, increasingly, political—on the road ahead. To put it generously, Elon Musk, without whom much of what…
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Trump executive order calls for a next-generation missile defense shield
One of the new Trump administration’s first national security directives aims to defend against missile and drone attacks targeting the United States, and several elements of the plan require an expansion of the US military’s presence in space, the White House announced Monday. For more than 60 years, the military has launched reconnaissance, communications, and…
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Rocket Report: China launches refueling demo; DoD’s big appetite for hypersonics
Welcome to Edition 7.26 of the Rocket Report! Let’s pause and reflect on how far the rocket business has come in the last 10 years. On this date in 2015, SpaceX made the first attempt to land a Falcon 9 booster on a drone ship positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. Not surprisingly, the rocket crash-landed.…
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The US military is now talking openly about going on the attack in space
ORLANDO, Florida—Earlier this year, officials at US Space Command released a list of priorities and needs, and among the routine recitation of things like cyber defense, communications, and surveillance was a relatively new term: “integrated space fires.” This is a new phrase in the esoteric terminology the military uses to describe its activities. Essentially, “fires”…
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A lot of people are mistaking Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for UAPs
SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites are responsible for more and more public reports of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAPs), but most recent cases remain unsolved, according to a US government report released Thursday. Starlinks often move across the sky in “trains” that appear like gleaming gems in the blackness of space. They are particularly visible to the…
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A lot of people are mistaking Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for UAPs
SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites are responsible for more and more public reports of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAPs), but most recent cases remain unsolved, according to a US government report released Thursday. Starlinks often move across the sky in “trains” that appear like gleaming gems in the blackness of space. They are particularly visible to the…