“The economic impact of this (COVID_19) situation may be most acutely felt by the smaller businesses in the booming space startup sector,” says Megan Crawford, managing partner of Space Fund.
By Theresa HitchensVice President Mike Pence still is scheduled to chair the upcoming National Space Council meeting despite the White House decision to cancel the public event.
By Theresa HitchensWASHINGTON: Aerospace titan Lockheed Martin is watching with intense interest as the Air Force births Multi Domain Command and Control. MDC2 is an infant initiative meant to develop a new global data system to share information from all sources, analyze it and offer commanders predictive information. Some 52 companies came to the Air Force last month to offer…
By Colin ClarkPENTAGON: If a spy satellite is attacked, who will command America’s response — the head of Strategic Command or the Director of National Intelligence? If an Air Force satellite is attacked first, who would command America’s response? These questions are being hotly — but very quietly –debated at the highest reaches of the U.S. government. Since an…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: The United States has tripled its spending on offensive space control and “active defense” weaponry since 2013 in the last two years. It plans to spend “a majority” of $150-plus million pool of funding on them over the next five years, part of a broad and fast-moving shift in US space priorities. The relevant budget line rose from $9.5…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: Citing “increasing threats” against America’s satellites, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said here today that the US military “must be able to respond in an integrated, coordinated fashion” to attacks on US space assets and he used the charged term “space control” in making his argument. “While we rely heavily on space capabilities,…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: Do not ever, ever tell Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, that your satellite will use a proprietary ground system to receive and telemetry and fly the satellites. Today, Hyten told several hundred people at the annual Space Symposium here that he “was not happy” when a team of…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: We’ve known for some time that China conducted an anti-satellite test July 23 last year, but we learned today that that test was “successful” even if it didn’t destroy anything. China has successfully placed low earth orbit satellites at risk, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond told an overflow audience at the annual…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: For more than a decade, the US military has fumbled and groped and stumbled and, gradually, figured out ways to buy a mix of commercial satellite communications and dedicated military satellites so it could communicate and watch video from Predator, Global Hawk, and Reaper drones in theaters where military bandwidth was precious. For much…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: The intelligence community is on the verge of “revolutionary” technical advances. Spy satellites and other systems will be able to watch a place or a person for long periods of time and warn intelligence analysts and operatives when target changes its behavior. Satellites and their sensors could be redirected automatically to ensure nothing is missed. “We will…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: Australia, Britain, Canada and United States have signed a symbolically important Memorandum of Understanding committing them to “a partnership on combined space operations.” As is often the case with such international agreements — especially on such a highly sensitive area as space operations — figuring out what it means and how things may…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRING: Message to Elon Musk of SpaceX: the head of Air Force Space Command is not really happy with you, and he personally supports development of a new rocket engine that would mean the United States did not have to depend on the Russians’ RD-180 rocket engine. I asked Gen. Willie Shelton, who will…
By Colin ClarkCOLORADO SPRINGS: After more than a month during which upstart rocket company SpaceX defined the debate about how much America should pay to launch big satellites into space, the Boeing-Lockheed United Launch Alliance crawled out from under its own rock and let fly. Feisty CEO Michael Gass sat opposite a phalanx of defense and space…
By Colin Clark