Final frontier: Preparing for a satellite war
How should the United States respond if a commercial satellite is intentionally shot down in space? asked Christian Davenport in The Washington Post. “White House and Pentagon officials have been trying to determine what the policy should be since a top Russian official said in October that Russia could target the growing fleet of commercial satellites if they are used to help Ukraine.” The war in Ukraine ushered in “a proliferation of small satellites” that have provided “real-time imagery of the Ukraine battlefield from space.” SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network has also “kept the internet up and running when Ukraine’s infrastructure has been decimated.” The Pentagon is investing in more of these systems, and the marketplace for “small rockets that can launch inexpensively, with little notice,” could be worth billions over the next several years. However, expanded partnerships with private contractors leads “to a host of unanswered questions” about what happens if they are attacked.
Satellite reconnaissance is one thing, said Sascha Brodsky in
The Daily Beast. But one can easily see where “space weapons that attack satellites could become an option as competition in orbit heats up.” A Denver-based startup called True Anomaly is already operational and uses “artificial intelligence to pilot small satellites that will be able to detect”—and potentially intercept communications from—“spy satellites from adversaries like China and Russia.” Backed by the venture capital firm of U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), True Anomaly is “one of many companies” vying for defense dollars. Founded by a group of former
Air Force and Space Force officers, True Anomaly is the first RPO startup exclusively focused on the military market, said Mark Harris in Wired. RPO stands for rendezvous and proximity operations, an aerospace term referring to “the ability to maneuver close to other satellites and train a battery of sensors upon them.” Its “hunter” satellites, named Jackals, “will not house guns, warheads, or laser blasters,” but True Anomaly’s founders recognized the urgency of getting pursuit satellites operational. “The deployment of space weapons by America’s rivals,” said co-founder Even Rogers, “is ‘much closer than most people would think.’”
We are under threat in space, said Sandra Erwin in Space News. Commanders of the U.S. Space Force warned earlier this month that China and Russia have “worrisome” technologies for targeting valuable U.S. satellites that are “not all that well defended.” The U.S. needs to focus on deterrence. Right now, the “centerpiece of the U.S. strategy” is getting as many of the smaller, cheaper “commoditized” satellites to get more networks up and activated so that the existing systems aren’t sitting ducks.