Sponsored by MatrixSpace
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24 Dec 24. Viasat Supports US DoD Replicator Initiative with C2 Connectivity. Viasat’s NetAgility software-defined networking capability will enable seamless and resilient connectivity for attritable autonomous systems. Viasat has been selected by the United States Department of Defense’s DIU (Defense Innovation Unit) to deliver highly resilient command and control (C2) connectivity in support of the Replicator initiative.
Replicator aims to deliver large masses of uncrewed, all-domain attritable autonomous (ADA2) systems for warfighter operations support, and aligns with the overall U.S. Department of Defense effort to accelerate delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter at speed and scale.
Under the DIU Opportunistic, Resilient & Innovative Expeditionary Network Topology (ORIENT) project award, Viasat will provide a Multi-Domain Uncrewed Secure Integrated Communications (MUSIC) architecture with software-defined networking as the network component to enable the seamless and resilient connectivity of autonomous systems using multi-transport pathways.
Specifically, MUSIC is an optimized configuration of Viasat’s NetAgility software-defined networking (SDN) capability that is designed to respond to uncrewed swarm communications operational needs by enabling secure, seamless transport and network orchestration to optimize connectivity for the mission. The MUSIC mesh network overlay also enables secure information sharing and C2 among disparate autonomous systems.
Viasat has worked to mature the MUSIC solution in alignment with the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD R&E) for the past 18 months as part of its Technology Readiness and Experimentation (T-REX) efforts to access promising capabilities. This past October, Viasat’s team worked with OUSD R&E to demonstrate MUSIC’s application in connecting autonomous maritime systems during the Autonomous Warrior 24 exercise, which took place in Australia supporting the AUKUS (United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom) partnership.
David Schmolke, Vice President of Viasat Mission Connections and Cybersecurity, commented: “Viasat is excited to support the Defense Innovation Unit and the Replicator initiative through project ORIENT by helping advance resilience and enable collaboration across multiple autonomous systems for warfighter operations.
“The coordinated use of autonomous systems offers critical operational advantages as the demands to quickly collect and share mission data grow, including executing those missions safely without putting warfighters in harm’s way. MUSIC and NetAgility network orchestration is an optimal fit for addressing the network and advanced C2 requirements to enable resilient, multi-path communications through contested and denied environments.” (Source: https://www.defenseadvancement.com/)
02 Jan 25. UEC’s Engines were Used to Lift off a Launch Vehicle Carrying the Resurs-P Satellite. The satellite is designed for remote sensing of Earth, and regional and local monitoring of the Earth’s surface. The RD-107A/RD-108A rocket engines produced by the Samara-based facility of United Engine Corporation ensured a successful launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Resurs-P Earth remote sensing spacecraft No.5 has been carried into orbit. The Soyuz-2.1b with the Fregat booster and Resurs-P Earth remote sensing spacecraft No.5 was launched on 25 December at 10:45am Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The RD-107A/RD-108A engines installed on stages I and II of the launch vehicle worked properly.
“UEC-Kuznetsov service center personnel, who are responsible for power unit operation control during all launches, installed and tested the engine support systems.
“The Resurs-P is a Russian satellite series designed for remote sensing of Earth, and regional and local monitoring of the Earth’s surface. Data acquired by the Resurs-P satellite is used for natural resource exploration, pollution and environmental degradation monitoring, and monitoring of water conservation areas and nature reserves. (Source: ASD Network)
02 Jan 25. Commercial satellites are changing the battlespace and the balance of power. Ukraine has been scoring battlefield victories against Russia despite Russia having 10 times the GDP of the country it invaded. One of the reasons is simple, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR’s) chief Engineer for Radar and Technology and Innovation manager, Willie Nel: Ukraine has access to more satellites.
Speaking on day one of the inaugural Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) Conference, organised by defenceWeb, Nel said these aren’t military satellites but civilian ones and they are using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), first developed in 1951 to create two dimensional images, to see through day and night, clouds, smoke and even trees, in ways that other technology can’t.
It’s all thanks to a new space race, said Nel, who delivered a presentation during the Future Warfare component of the AAD Conference. This began in2017 with the miniaturisation of SAR, which began life in the Lockheed U-2 spy plane and then segued to satellites in 1964. But it was only in 2006 that the weight of SAR devices came below 780 kg and then two years later below 300 kg. SAR payloads are small enough to be launched as microsatellites, including constellations, which is precisely what ICEYE, the Finnish American micro-satellite start up, began to do in 2015.
In 2017, there were a total of 24 microsatellites orbiting earth, by the following year, ICEYE itself had launched 38.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine crowdfunded $14.45 m to buy access to access to all ICEYE’s 38 satellites, each with the potential to scan down to 25 cm of earth from their orbit 700 km above. The Russians, by contrast, had two satellites, each capable of only 1 metre resolutions, Nel told the conference.
The Ukrainian satellite feed provided swaths of 300 km x 300 km with the capacity to zoom in on the next orbit. With so many in orbit, information was reaching Ukrainian soldiers every 15 minutes, allowing them to track troop movements, as well as artillery and armour placements, as opposed to the Russian feed which only updated twice a day.
The net result was that the Ukrainian military was able to destroy these in situ without ever running the risk of being ambushed by Russian troops lying in wait.
The Ukrainians took out 60 Russian tanks in days – effectively paying for the original investment in satellite access several times over.
“That’s why they were so effective with their drone attacks,” said Nel, “because they knew where they were. They had access to data in theatre within minutes. It was a complete change of how warfare will be waged.”
Access to the satellites rendered 4 173 images of Russian targets: 370 airbases, 238 positions of air defence systems, 153 oil fuel depots, 147 missile and ammunition caches and 17 naval bases over two years, helping the Ukrainians inflict bns of dollars of damage to the Russian war machine.
The SAR imagery was extremely useful to the Ukraine war effort in other ways too: allowing the Ukrainian government to assess damage to infrastructure and buildings wrought by the Russians and direct humanitarian aid efforts to the areas in greatest need, as well as letting them evacuate civilians from areas at greatest risk of Russian attacks and neutralise impending threats before they developed. It has also given the Ukrainian military better intelligence with which to direct their own offensives, limiting potential collateral damage through effective targeting.
But there are also significant takeaways from all of this, said Nel, firstly that the balance of power has shifted in warfare towards large commercial entities rather than states, with whoever they decide to support in a conflict quickly getting the upper hand.
The lessons for Africa, he said were stark.
Africa needed to create and own its own constellations of microsatellites or risk being at the mercy once again of being dependent on the first world. Africa also needed to prevent asymmetric forces with enough money of using existing SAR satellite capabilities against them. It would probably be too expensive for individual African countries to do on their own, but by pooling their resources and working together, they could get the necessary micro-satellites to protect them against mutual threats such as Al Qa’ida and ISIS.
This was something that the CSIR was working towards, in collaboration with Dragonfly and SCS Space to create its own microsatellite constellation; 16 of them to be able to secure maritime security and aid with food security by monitoring crop health and yield. (Source: https://www.defenceweb.co.za/)
30 Dec 24. Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Completes Integrated Launch Vehicle Hotfire. New Glenn successfully completed an integrated launch vehicle hotfire test today, the final major milestone on our road to first flight. NG-1 will carry a Blue Ring Pathfinder as its first manifested payload and will launch from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, FL.
The seven-engine hotfire lasted 24 seconds and marked the first time we operated the entire flight vehicle as an integrated system. The multi-day test campaign leading up to the hotfire included numerous inert functional and tanking tests. The integrated launch vehicle included the first and second stages of the NG-1 flight vehicle, and a payload test article comprised of manufacturing test demonstrator fairings, a high-capacity fixed adapter flight unit, and a 45,000 lb payload mass simulator.
One of the primary goals of the test campaign was to demonstrate day-of-launch operations in our NG-1 test configuration. Additionally, the team conducted several tests to validate vehicle and ground systems in the fully integrated, on-pad configuration. This data will be utilized to finalize day-of-launch timelines, confirm expected performance, and correlate our models to real-world test data.
“This is a monumental milestone and a glimpse of what’s just around the corner for New Glenn’s first launch,” said Jarrett Jones, SVP, New Glenn. “Today’s success proves that our rigorous approach to testing–combined with our incredible tooling and design engineering–is working as intended.”
The tanking test included a full run-through of the terminal count sequence, testing the hand-off authority to and from the flight computer, and collecting fluid validation data. The first stage (GS1) tanks were filled and pressed with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LOX), and the second stage (GS2) with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen–both to representative NG-1 set points.
The formal NG-1 Wet Dress Rehearsal demonstrated the final launch procedures leading into the hotfire engine run. All seven engines performed nominally, firing for 24 seconds, including at 100% thrust for 13 seconds. The test also demonstrated New Glenn’s autogenous pressurization system, which self-generates gases to pressurize GS1’s propellant tanks.
This test campaign captured a number of firsts for the New Glenn launch system, including the first seven-engine operations, the first integrated GS1-GS2 tanking demonstration, the first LNG/LOX fill for GS1, as well as first chilled helium operations for GS2.
The campaign met all objectives and marks the final major test prior to launch.
Blue Origin has several New Glenn vehicles in production and a full customer manifest. Customers include NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, several telecommunications providers, and a mix of U.S. government customers. Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program to meet emerging national security objectives.
About New Glenn
New Glenn stands more than 320 feet (98 meters) high and features a seven-meter payload fairing, enabling twice the volume of standard five-meter class commercial launch systems. Its reusable first stage aims for a minimum of 25 missions and will land on Jacklyn, a sea-based platform located several hundred miles downrange. Reusability is integral to radically reducing cost-per-launch.
The vehicle is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, the most powerful liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fueled, oxygen-rich staged combustion engine ever flown. LNG is cleaner-burning and higher-performing than kerosene-based fuels, and the seven BE-4s generate over 3.8 m lbf of thrust. The vehicle’s second stage is powered by two BE-3Us, liquid oxygen (LOX)/liquid hydrogen (LH2) engines designed to together yield over 320,000 lbf of vacuum thrust.
In addition to the BE-4 and BE-3U, Blue Origin manufactures BE-7 engines for our Blue Moon lunar landers and New Shepard’s BE-3PM engine. (Source: ASD Network)
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Founded in 2017, MatrixSpace is creating the next generation of artificial intelligence enabled sensing solutions to digitize the outdoors beyond the limits of human perception.
The company combines novel artificial intelligence and radar technologies to identify movement and provide context in real-time. MatrixSpace sensors are the smallest, lightest and most portable high-performance systems on the market powered by AI. They deliver actionable insights that empower a broad range of public and private enterprises to protect assets and maintain safety with superior situational awareness.
For the modern, mobile battlespace, MatrixSpace provides both high performance 4D radar and jam-resistant mesh networked communications engineered to perform in the harshest conditions—day or night, in any weather, and in remote, rugged locations. Designed for flexibility, our radar systems can be integrated with tactical vehicles or mounted on structures like buildings, TOCs, or stanchions. Offering 360° coverage, they provide unmatched field-of-view advantages, while low energy consumption allows for solar/battery-powered operation in off-grid environments at twice the duration and a fraction the cost of alternatives. The MatrixSpace AI platform removes clutter and classifies objects, so operators can act confidently without specialized radar expertise.
The MatrixSpace expeditionary radar kit fits in a standard daypack and contains everything needed to deliver actionable detections to an ATAK mobile device in less than 5 mins.
MatrixSpace solutions are designed and developed in the United States, without ITAR export restrictions, manufactured under the highest ISO and IATF standards and rigorously tested for quality, reliability and compliance.
Visit maxtrixspace.com
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