WASHINGTON — SpaceX was awarded a $29.6 million contract under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract that allows the U.S. Space Force to monitor and study data from the company’s commercial and civil space missions.
The one-year contract “provides early integration studies and fleet surveillance for non-national security space missions,” said the Space Force contract announcement Nov. 9.
Fleet surveillance includes access to proprietary “tools, systems, processes and launch site activities developed by the launch service provider for non-national security space missions,” said the Space Force.
SAN FRANCISCO – L3Harris Technologies will help the U.S. Defense Department extract information and insight from satellite and airborne imagery under a three-year U.S. Army Research Laboratory contract.
L3Harris will develop and demonstrate an artificial intelligence-machine learning interface for Defense Department applications under the multimillion-dollar contract announced Oct. 26.
“L3Harris will assist the Department of Defense with the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities and technologies,” Stacey Casella, general manager for L3Harris’ Geospatial Processing and Analytics business, told SpaceNews. L3Harris will help the Defense Department embed artificial intelligence and machine learning in its workflows “to ultimately accelerate our ability to extract usable intelligence from the pretty expansive set of remotely sensed data that we have available today from spaceborne and airborne assets,” she added.
Four decades of supersonic-combustion ramjet propulsion research culminated in a successful flight of the X-43A hypersonic technology demonstrator in March 2004, the first time a scramjet-powered aircraft had flown freely. After being launched by Dryden’s venerable B-52B mothership off the coast of Southern California, a modified first-stage Pegasus booster rocketed the X-43A to 95,000 feet before the X-43A separated and flew under its own scramjet power at an airspeed of Mach 6.8, or about 5,000 mph, for about 11 seconds. On Nov. 16, another identical scramjet-powered X-43A did it again, this time reaching hypersonic speeds above Mach 9.6, or about 6,800 mph, in the final flight of the X-43A project. Both flights set world airspeed records for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine, and proved that scramjet propulsion is a viable technology for powering future space-access vehicles and hypersonic aircraft.
Imagine this scenario: You’re deployed to some godforsaken hellhole downrange, in desperate need of additional ammo and chow. You call your superior officer for a very special airdrop: with approval from the U.S. Transportation Command, your cargo is launched into low earth orbit in a rocket-assisted payload. Within an hour, voila — fresh 5.56mm rounds and some delicious pizza MRE, ready to refresh your arsenal and renew your spirit.
The idea of space-borne resupply pods may seem like something out of science-fiction but it could someday be a reality for troops downrange, according to Army officials.
India has decided to fly the three Rafale fighter jets from France directly to India, which are scheduled to arrive on November 4, according to Indian government sources. The Indian Air Force will now have eight of the 36 Rafale jets in operation.
This revolution has already started, with wealthy citizens building their own space programs and entrepreneurs building spacecraft on relatively tiny budgets.
This time it must be about people, not governments. Rather than a centrally controlled quasi-military government race to space by two superpowers, we must enable the people themselves to go where they want to go, to do there what they want. If governments decide to return to the Moon — as seems to be the case — it must be to build villages, not bases, and to do it as rapidly as possible, as it needs to be an immediate challenge, not a distant dream. And if some want to go to Mars or mine asteroids, they need to be seen as part of a new frontier community. Thus, with both public and private players doing what they do best where they want to do it, we can make it happen far faster than many might believe.
After all, wherever we go between here and Mars, the challenge this time is not as daunting as going from the Earth to the Moon was in 1961, when we went from knowing almost nothing about space to walking on the Moon in eight years. Since then we have 50 years of experience operating in space. And while we foundered for many years in the waters just off shore in Earth orbit, we’ve learned a lot, developed a vast tool kit and honed our ability to get there, keep people alive and get them back. Opening the new worlds of space is not a technological challenge, so much as it is psychological. It is a matter of decision.
The Frontier offers us new ways of living, new ways to save our world and new ways to work together. It is an anathema to the ideologies of ignorance and hate espoused by those who attack us, as it literally rises above such wars. Even as we roll up our sleeves to defeat those who would push us back into the dark ages we can be creating the age of light. We can look at our children and tell them they need not be afraid. Instead we can share with them a new dream of people working together to achieve something incredible.
Military observers said the disruptive technologies – those that fundamentally change the status quo – might include such things as sixth-generation fighters, high-energy weapons like laser and rail guns, quantum radar and communications systems, new stealth materials, autonomous combat robots, orbital spacecraft, and biological technologies such as prosthetics and powered exoskeletons.
Speeding up the development of ‘strategic forward-looking disruptive technologies’ is a focus of the country’s latest five-year plan.
In the last few years, countless cyber-attacks were reported globally that were linked to the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese cyber-hackers, who target the foreign networks and websites are sponsored by the Chinese government. They are highly trained and have acquired abilities not only to exploit common vulnerabilities but also to discover and even create new vulnerabilities.
The US National Security Agency’s in-depth report of 23rd October points out that one of the greatest threats to the US National Security Systems, Defence Industrial Base and Department of Defence information networks is the “Chinese state sponsored malicious cyber activity”. The report underlines that the Chinese hackers exploit “computer networks of interest that hold sensitive intellectual property, economic, political, and military information.”
In July 2020, US had ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Huston, when it discovered that the Chinese officials there were involved in the intellectual property theft and indicted two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies and crucially had attempted to steal coronavirus vaccine research. The United States Department of Justice has charged five Chinese national for their involvement in hacking targets not only in the US governments but also the networks of the Indian and Vietnam government. They also carried out attacks on the UK government network unsuccessfully.
In what leading campaigners are describing as “a new chapter for nuclear disarmament”, the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will now come into force on 22 January, after Honduras became the 50th Member State to ratify on Saturday.
