Pentagon’s New Military Satellite Program Poses Threat to Russia
Ekaterina Blinova, 24 Feb 24 https://sputnikglobe.com/20240222/pentagons-new-military-satellite-program-poses-threat-to-russia-1116925932.html—
Washington recently raised a great fuss over the alleged “Russian threat”, citing, in particular, possible space-based nuclear deployments. Moscow shredded the speculations, suggesting that the US is using the rumors as a smokescreen for its own military programs.
Hours after the US press published groundless claims of Russia’s space-based nuclear program, the Pentagon sent “a missile-tracking system” into orbit – part of the Department of Defense’s new plan dubbed Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture that aims to fill the low-Earth orbit with myriads of small and cheap satellites.
The New York Times broke the Pentagon’s new initiative on February 15, explaining that the US military had adopted an approach similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation. If America’s adversaries knock down even a dozen of those small and cheap Pentagon satellites, the system would continue operating shifting to other units, according to the media outlet. As Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks stated last month, the Pentagon will be able to launch those small cost-effective satellites “almost weekly.”
“Now, as you all know, SPACECOM is DoD’s newest combatant command,” Hicks said at a US Space Command gathering on January 10. “Every day, SPACECOM delivers tremendous value across our Joint Force, with satellite communication, early warning radars, GPS that enable not only navigation for people, planes, trucks, and ships – but also the precision-guided munitions that have become a hallmark of how the US military fights in the modern era.”
The Pentagon’s new satellite program poses a challenge to Russia, according to Sputnik’s interlocutors, Ivan Moiseev, the head of the Russian Institute of Space Policy, and Dr. Natan Eismont, a leading researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute.
Starting from 2014, the Pentagon has been dramatically increasing its capabilities in space, according to Moiseev. In December 2019, then-US President Donald Trump authorized the establishment of the US Space Force (USSF), as a special military service branch of the US Armed Forces.
In addition, the Pentagon boosted cooperation with commercial firms specializing in space technologies which dramatically enhanced the DoD’s capabilities, the scientist pointed out. To illustrate his point Moiseev referred to the Pentagon’s cooperation with Musk’s SpaceX, which operates over 5,400 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Commercial satellites can be used by the Pentagon as any dual-use equipment, but formally they would not be considered “military satellites”, he continued.
These satellites are controllable. And if there is a tense situation, because in order to do this, you need a very tense situation – virtually a war or at least a hybrid war – then these satellites can target any of [Russia] 160 satellites. This has never been announced, it is simply clear because such a possibility exists,” Moiseev presumed.
Presently, the United States has approximately 9,000 satellites in space with 70% of them being communication satellites to “connect the world,” as USSF Maj. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, deputy chief of Space Operations for Intelligence, outlined at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium on February 13.
However, the number of US satellite constellations is rapidly growing, noted Dr. Natan Eismont.
“The composition of these [satellite] groups is growing, and literally within five years, Musk alone is expected to increase the number of these devices to more than 10,000. Does this create any additional problems? Of course it does, yes,” Eismont told Sputnik.
On the one hand, one cannot rule out collisions of various spacecraft as the low orbit would become “crowded”. On the other hand, myriads of satellites could be used for military purposes, he noted.
“That is, these are both civilian and military [satellites]. It is almost impossible to separate them. Although there were attempts to separate. And not only attempts, in general, and implementation, when these tasks were divided. But still, one cannot say that these devices are exclusively for military purposes, and those are for civilian purposes. If the device was intended for civilian purposes, then converting it for use by military structures is simple. The device will remain the same. This is something that has to be considered and taken into account,” the leading researcher continued.
Eismont agreed that in this respect, US satellite constellations pose a threat to Russia. However, he resolutely rubbished the possibility of Russia using space-based nuclear weapons, promoted by the US press: “There will be no winners here. There will only be losers,” he stressed. When it comes to space, great powers need to sit and talk; these issues should be solved solely diplomatically, Eismont concluded.
The new space race Is Causing New Pollution Problems
NY Times, Ed Friedman Tue, 30 Jan 2024
The high-altitude chase started over Cape Canaveral on Feb. 17, 2023, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched. Thomas Parent, a NASA research pilot, was flying a WB-57 jet when the rocket ascended past the right wing — leaving him mesmerized before he hit the throttle to accelerate.
For roughly an hour, Mr. Parent dove in and out of the plume in the rocket’s wake while Tony Casey, the sensor equipment operator aboard the jet, monitored its 17 scientific instruments. Researchers hoped to use the data to prove they could catch a rocket’s plume and eventually characterize the environmental effects of a space launch.
In the past few years, the number of rocket launches has spiked as commercial companies — especially SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk — and government agencies have lofted thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit. And it is only the beginning. Satellites could eventually total one million, requiring an even greater number of space launches that could yield escalating levels of emissions.
SpaceX declined to comment about pollution from rockets and satellites. Representatives for Amazon and Eutelsat OneWeb, two other companies working toward satellite mega-constellations, said they are committed to sustainable operations. But scientists worry that more launches will scatter more pollutants in pristine layers of Earth’s atmosphere. And regulators across the globe, who assess some risks of space launches, do not set rules related to pollution.
Image
The exhaust plume from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2018,Credit…Matt Hartman/Associated Press
Experts say they do not want to limit the booming space economy. But they fear that the steady march of science will move slower than the new space race — meaning we may understand the consequences of pollution from rockets and spacecraft only when it is too late. Already, studies show that the higher reaches of the atmosphere are laced with metals from spacecraft that disintegrate as they fall back to Earth.
“We are changing the system faster than we can understand those changes,” said Aaron Boley, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia and co-director of the Outer Space Institute. “We never really appreciate our ability to affect the environment. And we do this time and time again.”
……………………………… By the time a rocket curves into orbit, it will have dumped in the middle and upper layers of the atmosphere as much as two-thirds of its exhaust, which scientists predict will rain down and collect in the lower layer of the middle atmosphere, the stratosphere.
The stratosphere is home to the ozone layer, which shields us from the sun’s harmful radiation. But it is extremely sensitive: Even the smallest of changes can have enormous effects on it — and the world below.
………………………….Just how rockets will affect that relatively clear top, the stratosphere, remains uncertain. But scientists are concerned that black carbon, or soot, that is released from current rockets will act like a continuous volcanic eruption, a change that could deplete the ozone layer and affect the Earth below.
……………………………………………… A Race Against the Space Race
As space companies set records for launches and satellites deployed, scientists are starting to quantify the potential effects.
In a paper published in 2022, soot from rockets was shown to be nearly 500 times as efficient at heating the atmosphere as soot released from sources like airplanes closer to the surface. It’s the muddy-barrel effect.
“That means that as we start to grow the space industry and launch more rockets, we’re going to start to see that effect magnify very quickly,” said Eloise Marais, an associate professor in physical geography at University College London and an author of the study.
That said, Dr. Maloney’s team did not quantify how much more radiation exposure could occur.
The exact amounts of soot emitted by different rocket engines used around the globe are also poorly understood. Most launched rockets currently use kerosene fuel, which some experts call “dirty” because it emits carbon dioxide, water vapor and soot directly into the atmosphere. But it might not be the predominant fuel of the future. SpaceX’s future rocket Starship, for example, uses a mix of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants.
Still, any hydrocarbon fuel produces some amount of soot. And even “green rockets,” propelled by liquid hydrogen, produce water vapor, which is a greenhouse gas at these dry high altitudes.
“You can’t take what’s green in the troposphere and necessarily think of it being green in the upper atmosphere,” Dr. Boley said. “There is no such thing as a totally neutral propellant. They all have different impacts.”
Smithereens of Satellites
What goes up must come down. Once satellites in low-Earth orbit reach the end of their operational lifetimes, they plunge through the atmosphere and disintegrate, leaving a stream of pollutants in their wake. Although scientists do not yet know how this will influence Earth’s environment, Dr. Ross thinks that it will be the most significant impact from spaceflight.
A study published in October found that the stratosphere is already littered with metals from re-entering spacecraft. It used the same NASA WB-57 jet that chased the SpaceX rocket plume last year, studying the stratosphere over Alaska and much of the continental U.S.
When the researchers began analyzing the data, they saw particles that didn’t belong. Niobium and hafnium, for example, do not occur naturally but are used in rocket boosters. Yet these metals, along with other distinct elements from spacecraft, were embedded within roughly 10 percent of the most common particles in the stratosphere.
The findings validate earlier theoretical work, and Dr. Boley, who was not involved in the study, argues that the percentage will only increase given that humanity is at the beginning of the new satellite race.
Of course, researchers cannot yet say how these metals will affect the stratosphere.
“That’s a big question that we have to answer moving forward, but we can’t presume that it won’t matter,” Dr. Boley said.
…………………………………..scientists argue, satellite operators and rocket companies need regulations. Few are currently in place.
“Space launch falls into a gray area,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has been involved in a working group on this research. “It falls between the cracks of all the regulatory authorities.”
The Montreal Protocol, for instance, is a treaty that successfully set limits on chemicals known to harm the ozone layer. But it does not address rocket emissions or satellites.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency is not responsible for analyzing rocket launches. The Federal Communications Commission licenses large constellations of satellites but does not consider their potential harm to the environment. (The Government Accountability Office called for changes to that F.C.C. policy in 2022, but they have yet to occur.) And the Federal Aviation Administration assesses environmental impacts of rocket launches on the ground, but not in the atmosphere or space.
That could put the stratosphere’s future in the hands of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other private space company executives — which is particularly worrying to Dr. Boley, who says the space industry does not want to slow down.
“Unless it immediately affects their bottom line, they’re simply not interested,” he said. “The environmental impact is an inconvenience.”……… https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/science/astronomy-telescopes-satellites-spacex-starlink.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article—
1.This month.
13 July Webinar: Don’t Nuke The Climate: how to counter the nuclear disinformation
Saturday July 13 from 10.30am till 12pm.
British High Court Grants WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange the Right to Appeal U.S. Extradition.
Antinuclear 