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Space
United States
Oct 10, 2024 1:08 PM EDT In 2022, the U.S. government announced a self-imposed moratorium on destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon testing and called on others to do the same. Such testing, like one Russia conducted in 2021, creates clouds of debris that pose significant threats to other objects in orbit. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying one of two X-37B reusable spaceplanes was launched from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on December 28, 2023. The U.S. Space Force, to which the two X-37Bs are now assigned, announced planned orbital maneuvers as part of the current Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7) mission earlier today. One of America’s secretive X-37Bs is set to perform a series of aerobraking maneuvers – a series of passes using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere – that will significantly change its orbit, around Earth while expending minimal fuel and safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation which is said to be a first-of-its-kind event for the mini-space shuttle. This is part of the seventh known X-37B mission, which began last December, and has already involved the reusable spaceplane operating in a much higher orbit than ever before. As noted, the mini-shuttle will have to pass relatively close to the Earth to drag in the atmosphere to execute the maneuver at all. “Since December 28, 2023, the United States Space Force, supported by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, has conducted radiation effect experiments and has been testing Space Domain Awareness technologies in a Highly Elliptical Orbit,” in its release today, Space Force cited. “This novel and efficient series of maneuvers demonstrates the Space Force’s commitment to achieving groundbreaking innovation as it conducts national security missions in space,” Secretary of the Air Force Kendall said in a statement. The reusable spaceplane has a truckbed-sized main payload bay and can carry additional payloads on a service module adapter attached to its tail end. Space Delta 9 is the specific unit within the Space Force that now oversees the X-37Bs. It has an “orbital warfare” mission for preparing, presenting and projecting assigned and attached forces for the purpose of conducting protect and defend operations and providing national decision authorities with response options to deter orbital threats. Space-based early warning satellites are the most commonly cited capabilities in this ecosystem. Currently, the Air Force only acknowledges having only one “counter-space” system, a terrestrial electronic warfare jammer called the Counter Communications System (CCS). “We … are looking at the role of EW [electronic warfare], particularly against some of the space threats that are coming out. So the space-based side of it’s very important to us,” Air Force Secretary Kendall told on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) main annual conference last month. In the face of the ever-expanding threats to U.S. assets in orbit, including Russian work on a new space-based nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon, Space Force is “creating counter-space capabilities that allows us to be more resilient… and then when they [adversaries] have offensive capabilities of their own, our ability to either maneuver, to deny, to hide, to run,” Chief of Space Operations Saltzman said. Aerobraking maneuvers could be one means for space-based assets to evade hostile attacks. (Source: twz *)
*The Warzone, an online magazine (U.S.)
by Trevithick
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