Creating the Space Force to counter China and Russia answered a rising threat. Now investments are needed to ensure space superiority. The first Space Race began in October 1957 with the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik, the first man-made...
cislunar space
Nestled within the 720 pages of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 are a few short paragraphs directing a briefing “on a strategy for DOD’s activities and interests in cislunar space.” There are grave national ...
Unlike the race to the Moon between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s, this new space race involves dozens of countries, dynamic geopolitical tensions, and technical capabilities associated with sustained presence.
In its official song, the Space Force touts itself as a ‘mighty watchful eye’ keeping watch on both the Earth and space—and the service now has what it needs to live up to that description and avoid any surprise attack, Vice Chief of Space Operations ...
A cubesat sent to blaze a trail for NASA’s next space station arrived in lunar orbit Nov. 13—the first cubesat known to ever have done so—after a voyage that proved tense at times. Meanwhile the small company that created the tiny spacecraft secured a new ...
Military and defense industry officials are proud to say the Global Positioning System of satellites has entrenched itself as the world standard of position, navigation, and timing. But new threats—and some futuristic considerations—are leading some to think bigger than GPS when it comes to the ...
China and Russia have dramatically boosted their presence in space in the past several years, increasing security concerns for the U.S. now and in the future, according to a new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency. In particular, the “Challenges to Security in Space” report ...
The Space Force’s farthest satellites fly some 22,000 miles above Earth, with Guardians operating firmly on the ground. But in the not-too-distant future, the head of the Space Force sees USSF satellites hundreds of thousands of miles away—and Guardians in space.
The Space Force’s goal of improving space domain awareness continues to advance along multiple avenues. New projects include ground-based radars to surveil high Earth orbits and data from a cubesat headed on a unique route around the moon. Northrop Grumman announced that it had received ...
The Space Force’s top officer thinks the U.S. needs to be able to surveil cislunar space as soon as five years from now to defend U.S. interests on and around the moon. "As the nation goes further away, as the world goes further away, from ...
A startup figuring out how to surveil the cislunar domain thinks a swarm of self-guiding cubesats could cover it, each revisiting the moon every 26 days. Unlike spacecraft in deep space now, its cubesats would maintain “radio silence.” The physicist-run startup Rhea Space Activity announced ...
The $725.8 billion bill would raise DOD spending some $25 billion above the total proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration back in May.
