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30 Aug 23. Space Force responsive space mission enters ‘hot standby’ phase. The U.S. Space Force put its Victus Nox launch and satellite providers on call for a highly anticipated responsive space demonstration, notifying the companies that a 24-hour delivery window could open at any moment.
The Victus Nox mission, Latin for “conquer the night,” will demonstrate the ability to build a satellite, integrate it onto a rocket and place it in orbit on rapid timelines. Satellite manufacturer Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, and the mission’s launch provider Firefly Aerospace have been preparing for the effort since last September. Firefly is under a $17.6 m contract, and Millennium declined to disclose the value of its award.
Now, according to an Aug. 30 statement from Firefly, the companies are in what’s called a “hot standby” phase, which means that sometime within the next six months, the Space Force will request the satellite and rocket be available for launch.
The initial alert will go to Millennium, who will have 60 hours to deliver its satellite to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, fuel the spacecraft and integrate it onto Firefly’s Alpha rocket’s payload adaptor. Then, 24 hours prior to the mission, the service will call on Firefly to complete its final pre-launch preparations, which includes attaching the payload to its vehicle.
Once on orbit, the company will have two days to make initial contact with the satellite, which will begin performing its space domain awareness mission soon after.
The limited details on timing and the rapid delivery plan are part of the service’s intent for Victus Nox, which aims to mimic as much as possible the operational conditions under which it would use the capability, dubbed Tactically Responsive Space.
The service wants to have an enduring responsive space capability as soon as 2026, which would allow the service to quickly launch satellites into space either to respond to an in-orbit threat or augment a degraded or destroyed system. That could mean having a spare satellite on orbit that could be turned on or maneuvered into position as needed, working with commercial partners to buy data in a crisis or, as in the case of Victus Nox, have a satellite on the ground that’s ready to be launched on demand.
Victus Nox is the Space Force’s second tactically responsive mission. The first flew in 2021 on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. The service is making plans for a third launch, this time working with the Defense Innovation Unit. DIU announced Aug. 24 that the effort, dubbed Victus Haze, would focus on “end-to-end execution using commercial capabilities.”
The agency plans to award contracts for Victus Haze this fall. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
29 Aug 23. Hanwha Phasor exhibiting at DSEI for the first time. Satellite communications company Hanwha Phasor will be exhibiting at DSEI (Defence and Security Equipment International) 2023. DSEI is taking place from Tuesday 12th September – Friday 15th September at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London, and Hanwha Phasor will be exhibiting with Hanwha Aerospace on Stand H3-240.
A London based company, this is the first time that Hanwha Phasor will be exhibiting at DSEI and their stand will include the Phasor A7700, the satellite antenna specifically designed for use in both commercial and military aviation.
Since Hanwha Phasor’s move into the UK market three years ago, the business has invested £90 m and seen its number of employees rise from 9 to 90. As part of this expansion, Hanwha Phasor recently opened its new facility in Cambridge Science Park where their custom ASIC chip will be developed.
As world leaders in satellite communications technology this DSEI provides an opportunity for Hanwha Phasor to showcase their unique conformal, flat panel design which allows for undisrupted multi-orbit connectivity on the move – in flight, on land or at sea.
Alongside the business’ Phasor A7700, Hanwha Phasor will be discussing its wider portfolio of satellite communications options including man portable antenna and the business’ plans for wider satellite communication development for military and civilian applications. Hanwha Phasor will also discuss its close relationship with the Hanwha group and vital role they can play in the growth of UK sovereign space capabilities
Hanwha Phasor comes to DSEI on the back of a successful Paris Airshow where the business first demonstrated the Phasor A7700 and held productive meetings with industry partners and stakeholders. DSEI is an opportunity to further develop these conversations and continue to build relationships across the defence and civilian markets.
Dominic Philpott, Chief Operating Officer of Hanwha Phasor: “We are excited to be exhibiting for the first time at DSEI alongside Hanwha Aerospace, demonstrating our innovative Phasor A7700 satellite antennae. We look forward to meeting with our customer community to discuss the important role Hanwha Phasor can play in the future of the UK space sector”.
28 Aug 23. ‘Slingshot’ launch firm ponders WA site. A Californian launch company that uses a “slingshot” to catapult satellites into space is considering opening a site in Australia.
SpinLaunch said it is examining several locations globally, including two on the south coast of Western Australia near Mundrabilla, 1,300 kilometres from Perth.
While the business is refusing to confirm details, the ABC reports that WA’s land planning department has received an application for a two-year licence to use the land for feasibility studies.
The business deploys an enormous rotating arm to fling small satellites into near-Earth space and has already completed at least 10 successful launches.
Its suborbital accelerator stands more than 50 metres tall – roughly the size of the Statue of Liberty – while its rotating arm spins payloads faster than the speed of sound.
It’s targeting using the technology for both orbital and suborbital launches.
“The SpinLaunch Orbital Launch System is a fundamentally new way to reach space,” explains the business on its website.
“The velocity boost provided by the accelerator’s electric drive results in a 4x reduction in the fuel required to reach orbit, a 10x reduction in cost, and the ability to launch multiple times per day.
“Because kinetically launched satellites exit the stratosphere without a rocket, SpinLaunch enables a future in which constellations of satellites and space payloads can be launched with zero emissions in the most critical layers of the atmosphere.
“In a future where large numbers of people are travelling to space – structures, equipment, and supplies required to support in-space civilisation must also be launched.
“For tens of thousands of people to someday work and live in space, ms of tons of infrastructure and supplies must be launched. SpinLaunch ensures that can be done with the least environmental impact possible.”
SpinLaunch started development in early 2015 and completed its first launch in October 2021. By September last year, it had hosted a range of third-party experiments from NASA, Airbus, and Cornell University.
“Today, we have accomplished our 10th test flight, and it has proven that it’s a system that is repeatedly reliable,” founder Jonathan Yaney said after achieving the milestone last year.
“This is not a rocket, and clearly, our ability to perform in just 11 months this many tests and have them all function as planned really is a testament to the nature of our technology.”
It comes after fellow alternative launch company Virgin Orbit ceased all operations earlier this year.
Like SpinLaunch, it eschewed a traditional vertical blast-off to instead launch satellites from underneath the wing of a repurposed Boeing 747. It had been hoping to launch from Toowoomba in Queensland next year.
Its demise followed the failure of its landmark launch in Cornwall, south-west England, in January. (Source: Space Connect)
25 Aug 23. Defense Innovation Unit Spinning Space Web for JADC2. On paper, the Defense Department’s joint all-domain command and control initiative is clear: deploy sensors by land, sea, space and air; transmit sensor data to command centers for fusion, analysis and decision-making; then transmit data out to forces and weapons systems to act on a target.
For it all to work, enormous amounts of data need to move quickly. However, legacy communications networks lack the bandwidth.
Enter the Defense Innovation Unit’s Hybrid Space Architecture program, which “seeks to provide global, ubiquitous and secure internet connectivity throughout the space domain for commercial, civil and military users, including international allies and partners,” according to a July 2022 press release.
While the program could provide an array of uses and benefits, it would be critical to enabling JADC2, Hybrid Space Architecture Program Manager Rogan Shimmin said in an interview.
“There’s a lot of different efforts within the government trying to figure out what the JADC2 puzzle is,” he said. “I would interpret that they’re still designing the puzzle. They’re figuring out what picture they want the puzzle to present, whereas we’re actually starting to build the pieces.”
Regardless of what the puzzle looks like, there is consensus about some of the pieces needed. There will need to be some sort of dynamic mesh network to interconnect nodes and platforms that don’t currently talk to each other. And space will be the critical domain for collecting and transporting data, he said.
The original motivation behind the Hybrid Space Architecture program, Shimmin added, was that current systems could not transmit all the data being generated by intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance constellations — there are limited numbers of ground stations and narrow windows when satellites pass over and can transmit.
“And it can be hours before it’s back over ground station,” he said. “And you’ve only got a three-to-five-minute window as the satellite passes overhead to download all your data. Some vendors said they were only able to download about 2 percent of data.”
The duty cycle of satellites is only increasing, which generates even more data to transmit, he said.
The commercial sector has been making giant leaps in space-based communications with systems like Starlink, Telesat and OneWeb, he said. “The commercial space industry is making this reality something that had been considered impossible even in military circles,” he said.
The government has been trying to catch up with efforts like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, he said.
“But that is going to be military owned, military operated, military sustained,” he added. “It’s going to end up as basically like another GPS program office with decades of sustainment ahead of it.”
Given how much open-source commercial ISR data there is now, it made sense to pursue commercial communications solutions, he said.
DIU identified four domains for hybrid space. First is the transport layer, which includes physical links and software-defined routing. Next is data capture, “which will be ISR constellations, and how that raw data can then be fused into useful … remote sensing products,” he said.
The third domain is cloud, “because some of these cloud providers now are looking at the space industry and the amount of growth that’s going on and pushing some of the store and compute to the edge, which sometimes means wearables for the tactical warfighter. And sometimes that means storing compute on satellites in orbit,” Shimmin said.
The fourth domain is cybersecurity, which is a growing concern as much of the communications technologies are moving from hardware defined to software defined, he added.
DIU issued its initial Hybrid Space Architecture solicitation in October 2021.
“We had 136 submissions, which was an unusually big number for DIU,” he said. “But what was even more unusual about it is that 135 of them were really good submissions. Industry had clearly been doing a lot more thinking about this new paradigm of space communications than most of the Department of Defense [had] done. So, the evaluations took a little longer than usual, but we got the first tranche of four awards out in May 2022.”
The first tranche of contracts went to Aalyria for software-defined networking, Anduril for endpoint tactical networking, Enveil for homomorphic encryption and Atlas for federated ground stations, he said.
“And the second tranche of awards focused pretty heavily on cloud providers,” he continued. “We’ve got Microsoft Azure, [Amazon Web Services], Amazon Kuiper, and SpiderOak was the outlier there who have a blockchain solution both for identity management on the network but also data provenance.”
At the time of the interview, DIU had just brought on the first vendor of a third tranche of awards “focusing mostly on demonstration hardware and actual satellite vehicles that we can demonstrate the networking [on],” he said.
That brought the expenditure to about $8 m out of a planned $17 m ceiling, but the scope and budget of the program could continue to grow, he added.
Still, it’s a relatively modest budget, he noted. “That’s one of the cool things is for relatively little investment — because this technology already exists — we’re just field testing it basically for the prototype. We don’t really need anything new to be built.”
DIU was pleasantly surprised by the maturity of the technical solutions, he said. “It has been really exciting seeing how much of the technology already exists, and 98 percent of this project is just going to be convincing people to actually start using it,” he added.
“So, our ambition has been to bring these disparate providers together, figure out how their products can plug into each other and also be scalable and interoperable for future technologies we want to pull in. So, we’ve strongly encouraged all of them to utilize open standards.”
That will be a challenge, especially for the cloud providers, he noted.
“Microsoft and Amazon have their own software-defined networks, and they’re not going to be willing to let somebody else control their cloud environment,” he said.
“So, we have to figure out what the interface is going to be,” he continued. “Aalyria has done a lot of thinking about that problem” and is working on an “east-west interface” to pass data between the networks. “And they’re working with the Microsoft team and the Amazon team to try and get to a place that everyone agrees is what is needed.”
Aalyria’s Spacetime software was originally developed by Google, but the internet giant sold it in 2022. The simplest description of Spacetime is that it is a digital twin of space, air, sea and land communications nodes and networks.
“They have created [Spacetime] as a standalone software, which … if you’ve got graceful failure of a network, each of the nodes on the network ends up voting for the most capable node, and that’s where the Spacetime instance is going to be run from,” Shimmin said.
“They’re working on it being fully distributed,” he added, but the challenge will be getting network providers to be comfortable with having Spacetime ride on their interfaces.
“It’s obviously quite a large risk for them to trust some other software,” he said. “The authority is on the satellites themselves, the network, but if they’re trusting this third-party software to tell them where to point their satellites and what data to send between nodes, [that] does represent a pretty significant operational risk.
“So, we’re going to have to slowly approach each partner that we want to bring into the network one by one and issue a bit of an incentive for them to test this out [and] to prototype it,” he said.
It will start with a first-generation standard, he said. “And as the architecture becomes more complex, there may be things that were missed in generation one of the standard, which will be updated as we go along.”
Shimmin noted that the process of fielding HSA capabilities will be iterative and move out in generations to get new capabilities to warfighters quickly because technology is moving quickly.
“There’ve been a few approaches to standards in the past,” but the traditional methodologies involve “a lot of sitting around, overanalyzing what the standard should be. But the era that we’re in now is technology is updated so quickly that if you sit around and talk about a standard for five years, it’s already out of date.”
Alex Miller, also a program manager for HSA, described the effort as building the plane as it’s flying, and getting technology in the hands of warfighters and getting feedback is essential.
“We’re really just reaching out to a lot of the tactical warfighter and [combatant command] communities, exercises like Northern Edge and some others, to kind of basically talk to their organizers and their points of contact to be like, ‘Hey, what right now can you give us access to?’”
Getting into war games is necessary for both DIU and the users to understand each other’s needs and capabilities, he said.
“What I’ve noticed in the past when it comes to exercises is it’s better to start early and often,” he continued. “We’re starting to socialize with the warfighter at the grassroots level with exposure to a lot of the capabilities and technologies we have, even though some of them may be at its infantile level.”
Once things are in the hands of users and awareness spreads about what capabilities exist, it fuels a change in mindset around using new tools in warfare and provides important user feedback to DIU, he said.
“And the best part about it is we can kind of do some soft breaks of some of the technologies and capabilities that we’re trying out,” he added. ND
(Source: glstrade.com/National Defense)
24 Aug 23. Space Force to seek industry ideas for rapid deployment of satellites. Under a program called ‘Tactically Responsive Space Challenge’ the selected proposals can win awards of up to $1.7m. The U.S. Space Force is kicking off a new initiative focused on the rapid deployment of satellites during conflicts or emergencies.
From Aug. 30 through Sept. 28, companies can submit bids for the “Tactically Responsive Space Challenge” on the DoD Small Business Innovation Research portal. Selected proposals will receive “direct to Phase 2” Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contracts worth up to $1.7m.
The Space Force is looking for “capabilities to rapidly respond to any kind of on-orbit needs on operationally relevant timelines. And usually that means within about 24 hours or less,” said Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough, Space Safari materiel leader at the Space Systems Command.
Speaking on a webinar Aug. 24, Birchenough said the Space Force is hoping to get ideas from a broad range of companies in the launch, satellite, ground systems and space logistics sectors of the industry.
Birchenough’s organization, Space Safari, last year funded a tactically responsive space experiment and awarded contracts to Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space to launch a space mission on 24 hours’ notice. That mission, called Victus Nox, has not yet launched.
Looking for fresh ideas
In announcing the kickoff of the Tactically Responsive Space Challenge, Birchenough said there is a need for comprehensive solutions beyond just buying launch services and payloads.
In a tactically responsive scenario, for example, the U.S. would need to launch a small imaging satellite to inspect a potential adversary’s spacecraft. “It could be some type of threat response where the adversary launches something new into orbit and we want to go and characterize it in a very short timeline,” she said.
Another scenario would be having to launch communications or imaging satellites to replace assets that were damaged during a conflict.
“It’s really having the ability to have something on the ground and ready to launch at the time of need,” said Birchenough. “There’s a lot of different approaches.”
The Space Force is open to nontraditional concepts such as having payloads readily available in warehouses on orbit. “We are extremely interested in capabilities that would be prepositioned on orbit and allow us to quickly respond that way, completely taking launch out of the equation,” she said.
“The scope here is very large and we’re looking for things that would fill all of those different approaches across those different mission areas,” Birchenough added.
The ‘Tactically Responsive Space Challenge’ will seek proposals under six different areas:
- Upfront coordination processes
- Logistics — defined broadly as capabilities for storage, security, fueling, support, and transportation
- Payloads sensors including electro-optical, infrared, LIDAR and radar
- Spacecraft buses, satellite refueling, maneuvering and disposal
- Launch vehicles
- Ground systems, command and control, on-orbit operations, and global antenna networks
The project is run by SpaceWERX, a Space Force technology-focused organization, and the Space Systems Command.
SpaceWERX project manager Maj. Jareth Lamb said companies are encouraged to team up with others, and can bid for multiple awards in more than one of the six areas.
Birchenough said the Space Force is looking for relatively mature technologies that can be prototyped over 15 months and fielded within two years. (Source: glstrade.com/Space News)
24 Aug 23. TTP introduces Gotonomi system for small and lightweight UAV satellite terminals. Technology company TTP is launching its Gotonomi miniaturised communication system at the upcoming Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas. Gotonomi is desiged to offer compact satellite terminals as flight trial development kits for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These terminals, developed in collaboration with Viasat’s Velaris connectivity solution, are part of the Iris air traffic modernisation initiative, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and powered by Viasat’s ELERA satellite network.
According to the press release, Velaris facilitates secure communications for commercial UAVs, enabling Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights and integration with aircraft in commercial airspace. This enables operators to conduct extended flights and access real-time monitoring tools for safe integration with air traffic.
Upon connecting to the Velaris service, Gotonomi’s terminals will offer 200kbps secure datalink, ensuring smooth communication between vehicles, remote operators, and UAV Traffic Management (UTM) systems. The initial product lineup includes three variants:
- Velaris 200 – Fully integrated satcom antenna.
- Velaris Module – Core module for satcom communication.
- Velaris Multi-link Module – Core module for satcom and LTE hybrid terminal with edge compute capabilities.
The hybrid connectivity approach combines low-latency, high-speed 4G communications with a resilient satellite link, ensuring connectivity across the globe through intelligent data routing.
For more information visit:
www.gotonomi.co (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
28 Aug 23. United Launch Alliance Successfully Launches the Penultimate Delta IV Heavy Rocket.
- Nation’s proven heavy lift vehicle delivers high priority mission in support of National Security
A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying the NROL-68 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) lifted off on June 22 at 5:18 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. To date, ULA has launched 156 times with 100 percent mission success.
“We continue to build on our valued partnership with the NRO and are grateful for their trust and collaboration as we work to precisely deliver critical national security capabilities to orbit,” said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs. “This mission marks the 11th Delta IV Heavy for the NRO and the penultimate launch of the nation’s proven heavy lift vehicle.”
The final Delta IV Heavy will launch in 2024 as ULA transitions its future missions from the East and West Coasts to the next generation Vulcan rocket. Leveraging a legacy of 100 percent mission success launching more than 155 missions to explore, protect and enhance our world, ULA is the nation’s most experienced and reliable launch service provider with world-leading reliability, schedule confidence, and mission optimization. We deliver value unmatched by any launch services company in the industry, a tireless drive to improve, and commitment to the extraordinary. (Source: ASD Network)
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At Viasat, we’re driven to connect every warfighter, platform, and node on the battlefield. As a global communications company, we power ms of fast, resilient connections for military forces around the world – connections that have the capacity to revolutionize the mission – in the air, on the ground, and at sea. Our customers depend on us for connectivity that brings greater operational capabilities, whether we’re securing the U.S. Government’s networks, delivering satellite and wireless communications to the remote edges of the battlefield, or providing senior leaders with the ability to perform mission-critical communications while in flight. We’re a team of fearless innovators, driven to redefine what’s possible. And we’re not done – we’re just beginning.
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