Tag: military space
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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…
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NRO chief: “You can’t hide” from our new swarm of SpaceX-built spy satellites
The director of the National Reconnaissance Office has a message for US adversaries around the world. “You can’t hide, because we’re constantly looking,” said Chris Scolese, a longtime NASA engineer who took the helm of the US government’s spy satellite agency in 2019. The NRO is taking advantage of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite assembly line to…
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NRO chief: “You can’t hide” from our new swarm of SpaceX-built spy satellites
The director of the National Reconnaissance Office has a message for US adversaries around the world. “You can’t hide, because we’re constantly looking,” said Chris Scolese, a longtime NASA engineer who took the helm of the US government’s spy satellite agency in 2019. The NRO is taking advantage of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite assembly line to…
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As North Korean troops march toward Ukraine, does a Russian quid pro quo reach space?
Earlier this week, North Korea apparently completed a successful test of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, lofting it nearly 4,800 miles into space before the projectile fell back to Earth. This solid-fueled, multi-stage missile, named the Hwasong-19, is a new tool in North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons. It has enough range—perhaps as…
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While ULA studies Vulcan booster anomaly, it’s also investigating fairing issues
A little more than a year ago, a snippet of video that wasn’t supposed to go public made its way onto United Launch Alliance’s live broadcast of an Atlas V rocket launch carrying three classified surveillance satellites for the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. On these types of secretive national security missions,…
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After nozzle failure, Space Force is “assessing” impacts to Vulcan schedule
United Launch Alliance has started assembling its next Vulcan rocket—the first destined to launch a US military payload—as the Space Force prepares to certify it to loft the Pentagon’s most precious national security satellites. Space Force officials expect to approve ULA’s Vulcan rocket for military missions without requiring another test flight, despite an unusual problem…