Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for advanced programs, said the service wants to field cislunar capabilities by the end of fiscal 2029.
The new White House plan for cislunar S&T tasks DoD to lead development of new, and/or improvement of current, ground- and space-based sensors for monitoring the cislunar region.
As threats continue to evolve, speed will increasingly depend on what is already available when the need emerges.
Future military, civil and commercial cislunar operations will require precise lunar maps not just of topography, but also of the Moon's gravitational and magnetic fields.
The Mitchell Institute is advocating that from now on Congress bolster the Space Force's budget by "about $250M a year" and "increase end strength by approximately 200 personnel for the new responsibilities associated with emerging national interests on the moon and the cislunar region."
The new version of Joint Publication 3-14 explains that "offensive and defensive space operations" are supported primarily by "direct capabilities" — that is, "fires that impact an adversary."
Oracle has to be able not just to detect space objects, but also discriminate targets of interest from what is currently an unfamiliar background for space imagery analysts filled with myriad stars and a growing number of spacecraft, AFRL's Lt. Col. David Johnson explained.
Lithium-metal batteries are one way to break the weight and endurance limits of today’s unmanned systems.
Space Force has established the new 19th Space Defense Squadron to monitor what officials now refer to as "xGEO" space.
The Aerospace study found that controlling the creation of dangerous space junk is a regulatory arena "where clarity is badly needed," for one.
"The behavior of some of our adversaries in space is surprising. If similar actions had been taken in other domains, they'd likely be considered provocative, aggressive, or maybe even irresponsible," said SPACECOM Commander Gen. Jim Dickinson.
AFRL last Thursday held a classified stakeholder meeting to discuss R&D to underpin future military operations beyond the traditional near-Earth orbits used today.
A commitment to long-term operational value.
The highly mobile D2S2 satellite will carry a 20cm camera to test the sensor performance needed for lunar imaging.
"We are interested in technologies to support wide area search, narrow field tracking, and autonomous space domain awareness," says CHPS program manager Capt. David Buehler.