{"id":46557,"date":"2026-07-31T07:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-force-backed-mission-does-its-best-impression-of-top-gun-in-orbit\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T11:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T03:49:39","slug":"space-force-backed-mission-does-its-best-impression-of-top-gun-in-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-force-backed-mission-does-its-best-impression-of-top-gun-in-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Force-backed mission does its best impression of Top Gun in orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

An ongoing military exercise happening hundreds of miles above Earth has\u2014for the first time in an unclassified setting\u2014demonstrated how future satellites might evade and pursue one another in a future conflict.<\/p>\n

That was the announcement Wednesday from True Anomaly, one of the companies involved in the exercise. True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal satellite, also known as Panther, played the cat-and-mouse game with another spacecraft named Puma, based on Rocket Lab\u2019s Pioneer satellite platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we\u2019ve really been building towards for the past four years,\u201d said Even Rogers, True Anomaly\u2019s co-founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

The two satellites, each somewhere between the size of a dishwasher and a refrigerator, are part of the Victus Haze mission managed by the US Space Force. Victus Haze is the latest in a series of \u201cresponsive\u201d Space Force missions aimed at demonstrating how the military and its commercial contractors can rapidly launch and deploy new satellites in reaction to an emerging threat or need.<\/p>\n

Launch, approach, inspect, evade<\/h2>\n

The scenario for Victus Haze, set in motion earlier this year, involved the launch of True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal satellite in May. Rocket Lab\u2019s Puma satellite, already built and in storage, was on standby to quickly launch when it was time to start the exercise. Rocket Lab was on call to launch its Puma spacecraft within 24 hours of call-up by the Space Force.<\/p>\n

That happened last month, when military officials informed Rocket Lab it was time to go. The company quickly rolled its Electron rocket and Puma satellite to a launch pad in New Zealand and launched them June 19, less than 17 hours after receiving the call-up. Within 38 hours, Rocket Lab had fully activated and prepared the Puma satellite for its first orbital maneuver, beating the Space Force\u2019s requirement of 72 hours.<\/p>\n

The launch set up Puma for a series of burns to move in close to True Anomaly\u2019s satellite. The Space Force\u2019s criteria for success was to complete the rendezvous and photograph the target satellite in less than 84 hours. Rocket Lab reported it did the job in less than 59 hours, culminating in a head-to-head inspection and survey, with each satellite snapping pictures of the other.<\/p>\n

One of the images, released by Rocket Lab, shows its satellite\u2019s view of True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see that we are actively tracking them,\u201d Rogers told Ars. \u201cOur solar arrays are deflected, tracking the sun, and we are staring right down their boresight, which is just a really cool demonstration of our capability. We were tracking them while they were tracking us, and maintaining power-positive status.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see the military utility for this type of capability. Imagine a mysterious military satellite launched by Russia or another space power. It suddenly starts approaching a multibillion-dollar US spy satellite with unknown intentions. To some degree, this is already happening in the real world. If US forces had a satellite on the shelf, they could quickly launch it directly into the same orbit as the adversary\u2019s satellite to take a closer look, and perhaps in the future, take action.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s Puma satellite for Victus Haze, based on the company\u2019s Pioneer spacecraft bus.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\nRocket Lab<\/figure>\n

The rapid launch and initial rendezvous and inspections were only the opening salvo in the Victus Haze exercise. On July 14, True Anomaly and Rocket Lab received orders for Mission 2 of Victus Haze. The task? Pursue and evade one another over and over again. True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal, or Panther, satellite was commanded to move in on Rocket Lab\u2019s Puma vehicle, which sensed the threat and fired thrusters to \u201cvanish into the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJackal\u2019s crew produced a validated mission plan in under 30 minutes from tasking,\u201d True Anomaly said in a statement. \u201cJackal executed ingress and a burn sequence over 23 minutes to close on Puma. When Puma maneuvered away during the approach, Jackal downlinked what it saw, and our team replanned, revalidated, and implemented a new mission plan in rapid succession.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Rocket Lab\u2019s Puma backed away, True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal executed more burns to reengage and image its prey. Military and company officials haven\u2019t released any photos from the most recent Victus Haze demo, and they declined to disclose exactly how close the satellites came to one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to operational security, further details involving sensor suites for characterization, phenomenology, payloads, distances, or docking will not be shared,\u201d a spokesperson for Space Systems Command said in response to questions from Ars.<\/p>\n

True Anomaly\u2019s ground controllers, working out of an operations center in Colorado, managed the maneuvers with the help of an algorithm generating \u201chyper-accurate\u201d targeting estimates from measurements onboard the Jackal satellite. All of this was done without coordination between True Anomaly and Rocket Lab. \u201cNo scripted target behavior,\u201d True Anomaly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPuma wasn\u2019t playing a role,\u201d the company continued. \u201cIt was maneuvering to lose us, and we didn\u2019t know how\u00a0<\/i>in advance. That\u2019s the entire reason to do this on orbit instead of in a lab: the human decisions, the unexpected conditions, and the adversary\u2019s freedom to act are all real, and integration that hasn\u2019t held up against them hasn\u2019t been tested at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal satellite, seen here, plays one part in the Space Force\u2019s Victus Haze mission.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\nTrue Anomaly<\/figure>\n

This cat-and-mouse game sounds a lot like dogfighting in space, something Rogers, who started True Anomaly in 2022, has discussed with Ars in the past. Rogers previously served in a space aggressors unit in the US Air Force, taking up against US space operators in war game and military exercises.<\/p>\n

But orbital dogfighting is a lot different from what you may have seen in Top Gun.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDogfighting in space doesn\u2019t quite have the drama of an aerial dogfight,\u201d Rogers told Ars earlier this year. \u201cThe tempo is slower, and the relative velocities are slower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Relative is the key term. It\u2019s important to remember this all played out as the satellites soared approximately 300 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, speeding around the planet at some 17,000 mph (7.6 kilometers per second). But in the same orbit, the satellites\u2019 motion relative to one another is more like a carefully choreographed dance than a game of chicken.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to come on Victus Haze. The two satellites are designed to swap positions as aggressor and target throughout a series of demonstrations playing out over the next few months.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictus Haze was envisioned to remove the simulation and to learn in the orbital environment against a thinking adversary,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep executing and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ground controllers inside True Anomaly\u2019s operations center in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\nTrue Anomaly<\/figure>\n

Two to tango<\/h2>\n

While True Anomaly touts its prowess in high-tempo satellite maneuvers, Rocket Lab kicked off Victus Haze by setting a new record for rapid, responsive launch. Victus Haze builds on the Space Force\u2019s Victus Nox mission, which launched in 2023 with a then-record 27-hour call-up for Firefly Aerospace\u2019s Alpha rocket and a satellite built by Millennium Space Systems.<\/p>\n

Victus Haze adds complexity by including a second satellite in the exercise. Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket and Puma satellite were in a ready state at Launch Complex 1, the company\u2019s privately owned spaceport in New Zealand, when the Space Force issued launch orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin that first hour, we basically had three independent teams moving in parallel,\u201d said Brian Rogers, Rocket Lab\u2019s vice president of global launch services.<\/p>\n

The launch team immediately started final preparations on the Electron rocket and the Puma satellite. Rocket Lab was supposed to launch a different rocket at Launch Complex 1 with a commercial satellite the same week. Victus Haze took priority.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, guidance engineers calculated the exact trajectory the Electron rocket would have to fly to inject the Puma satellite into an orbit near True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal satellite. That required a nearly instantaneous launch window. And Rocket Lab\u2019s satellite control team kicked into gear for around-the-clock operations.<\/p>\n

From Rocket Lab\u2019s perspective, Victus Haze came with an unexpected twist. The company\u2019s engineers knew they were going to launch in pursuit of a True Anomaly satellite. That was announced in 2024 when the Space Force awarded contracts for the Victus Haze mission. But Rocket Lab didn\u2019t know which one. True Anomaly was supposed to launch its Jackal satellite for Victus Haze on a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket. Instead, it launched on a rideshare mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May. At the time, nobody outside of True Anomaly or the Space Force knew this was the spacecraft for Victus Haze.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was it was supposed to be a surprise to exercise the team, and no, we didn\u2019t know what thing we were going to go be chasing,\u201d Rocket Lab\u2019s Rogers said. \u201cThat was all meant to be part of this little war game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of Rocket Lab\u2019s launches carry commercial satellites, and although the rapid call-up of Victus Haze is a uniquely military requirement, the exercise helped fine-tune the company\u2019s procedures to improve performance on all future missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 24 hour call-up and RPO mission was very much a national security application,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cWe have seen what I would call a responsive space mission for the commercial market. We have had some commercial customers who either lost their other ride to space, they were on a rideshare and got bumped or something, or it is a business-critical need to get on orbit. And we get a phone call very late, and they say, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get on orbit to make our business work. What can you do for me, Rocket Lab?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just not many companies in the world\u2014in fact, probably only two at most\u2014that you can call and can make that happen,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually done that three or four times in the past year. We\u2019re likely to have another one this year. It\u2019s not going to be quite the 24-hour call-up for launch. That\u2019s not the level of intensity, but it is three months away from launch. Sign a contract, submit the regulatory requirements, and get somebody on orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ongoing military exercise happening hundreds of miles above Earth has\u2014for the first time in an unclassified setting\u2014demonstrated how future satellites might evade and pursue one another in a future conflict. That was the announcement Wednesday from True Anomaly, one of the companies involved in the exercise. True Anomaly\u2019s Jackal satellite, also known as Panther, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[257,7505,544,550,2118,6098],"class_list":["post-46557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-military-space","tag-responsive-space","tag-rocket-lab","tag-true-anomaly","tag-us-space-force","tag-victus-haze"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46565,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46557\/revisions\/46565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}