Masters of Space - First Edition
Here are some of the most choice cuts of news on the outer space arms race in this new Cosmodrome seasonal feature: MASTERS OF SPACE! My conviction that government contracts is what my future "consulting firm" must target is fortified by story number seven.
On May 23, 2006, the Pentagon released the 2006 version of its annual report to Congress on “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China.” The Pentagon criticized China’s lack of transparency in military spending. Of interest to readers of this update is the portion on its alleged anti-satellite (ASAT) program: “Beijing continues to pursue an offensive anti-satellite system. China can currently destroy or disable satellites only by launching a ballistic missile or space-launch vehicle armed with a nuclear weapon. However, there are many risks associated with this method, and potentially adverse consequences from the use of nuclear weapons. Evidence exists that China is improving its situational awareness in space, which will give it the ability to track and identify most satellites. Such capability will allow for the deconfliction of Chinese satellites, and would also be required for offensive actions. At least one of the satellite attack systems appears to be a ground-based laser designed to damage or blind imaging satellites.” However, this report is less adamant about China’s reported ASAT programs than earlier versions, and the evidence about the ground-based laser is dubious, to say the least.
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01. Chief Pentagon buyer supports space-based missile defense
02. Laser funding cut from House defense authorization
03. SpaceX receives DARPA contract
04. NPOESS staggers on
05. Galileo already over budget
06. Tentative settlement for EELV scandal
07. Defense policy changes could be advantageous to Lockheed Martin
08. New GPS satellite series delayed
09. Militarization of Japanese space program?
10. New director named at Ames Research Center
11. India to test its re-usable launch vehicles
12. Israel launches satellite to spy on Iran
13. Countries race to map the moon
14. Russian spacecraft incapacitated by space debris
15. Nigeria hopes to produce its own satellite
16. Russia to increase Glonass and double its Soyuz spacecraft
17. U.S. spy satellites monitoring domestic soil
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01. Chief Pentagon buyer supports space-based missile defense
Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, has come out in support of a space-based test bed that would attempt to become part of the layered U.S. missile defense system all while breaking a decades-long taboo against putting weapons in space. According to Krieg, “I'm supportive of creating a test bed…And then we'll see what we do with it afterwards.” This has been portrayed by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as merely a test bed, but critics point out that the Ft. Greely, Alaska, site – which is home to most of the agency’s deployed interceptors – also started out as a test bed. Following a common Pentagon tactic, Krieg downplayed the significance of the program, stating that it would merely increase the amount of options open to MDA, and that “increasing the number of options we have to choose from is generally a good idea.”
(Reuters, May 10, 2006)
02. Laser funding cut from House defense authorization
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) deleted funds for a controversial laser project that could be an anti-satellite program in disguise. Known as the Starfire program, the HASC noted that “the potential applicability of this technology development for anti-satellite and advanced weapons capabilities.” It went on to instruct that “none of the funds authorized for this program element shall be used for development or demonstration of laser space technologies with anti-satellite weapons purposes.” Finally, it urged that the entire $6.5 million publicly associated with the program be deleted from the final defense authorization for fiscal year (FY) 2007. It still awaits approval from the Senate. In the meantime, of particular interest is the words of Gary Peyton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs: “We’d be fools to actually get into the kinetic energy anti-satellite business…It would be hugely disadvantageous for the U.S. to get into that game.”
(Space News, May 1, 2006; Optoelectronics Report, May 15, 2006)
03. SpaceX receives DARPA contract
The launch manifest is growing for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has secured the 10th flight of the Falcon 1, and additional rockets can be purchased as needed. The DARPA payload has yet to be disclosed, but it will be associated with their efforts to demonstrate a responsive launch capability for the U.S. military. The investigation of the failed inaugural launch of the Falcon 1 in March 2006 is expected to be finished in the next few weeks. SpaceX plans to verify their low-cost rocket, complete with reliability upgrades, with an instrumented, payload-less test flight later this year. The launch manifest is enough to keep CEO Elon Musk and company busy through 2009, including three contracts for the powerful Falcon 9 vehicle.
(Defense Daily, June 5, 2006)
04. NPOESS staggers on
Despite cost growths that triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach, the National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) has been granted certifications that will allow it to proceed with its development. The Air Force came out swinging for it, certifying that a restructured version of the program was necessary for national security, has no acceptable and cheaper alternatives, and its new cost estimates were reasonable. According to an Air Force statement, "The NPOESS program is essential to our nation. The restructured program provides for continuity of existing programs, constellation management flexibility, and the most capability for the least cost, while maintaining growth potential to achieve the original capability envisioned for NPOESS. This is a change to the NPOESS program, but it reaffirms the importance of this system and the need we continue to have for polar-orbiting weathe r satellites." NPOESS has had such serious cost growth that the government can’t agree on what it costs. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that the cost for the program soared 36.5 percent ($5.9 billion in August 2002 to almost $8 billion three years later), while the Commerce Department has it at a whopping 115.6 percent increase (from an earlier $4.5 billion 2002 contract to an end cost of $9.7 billion). In spite of this cost growth, the program is now 17 months behind schedule. And despite all this, the contractor has received 84 percent of its possible incentive payments (worth $123 million). The restructured program will cut down on the sensors being developed and will depend upon inputs from the European Meteorological Operational (METOP) satellite network.
(Defense Daily, June 7, 2006)
05. Galileo already over budget
Europe’s answer to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), Galileo, has already experienced overruns in its schedule. Rainer Grohe, the director of the group (Galileo Joint Undertaking) overseeing the project, reports that Galileo is $513 million over what had been predicted for its costs. This can be traced to faulty estimates for building and developing costs, as well as an enhanced security system for Galileo.
(Agence France-Presse, May 22, 2006)
06. Tentative settlement for EELV scandal
Boeing and the federal government may have reached an agreement on reparations for the company’s two recent defense contracting scandals. To make amends for the abuse of rival Lockheed Martin’s proprietary documents when competing in 1998 for the original Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program and for the Darleen Druyun affair (where she, as a procurement officer for the Air Force, leaned toward Boeing for the tanker refueling contract in exchange for a job after she left the service), Boeing will pay $615 million in penalties: $50 million in criminal charges and $565 million in civilian. However, it would not undergo any criminal prosecution for either scandal. Still, the Senate may hold an investigative hearing. According to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., such a hearing would not be confrontational but is still critical as the scandals were &ldqu o;a very important chapter in the history of our contracting.”
(Defense Daily, May 24, 2006)
07. Defense policy changes could be advantageous to Lockheed Martin
Recent policy changes could give Lockheed Martin up to an additional $3 billion in contracts. This is in addition to the estimated $5 billion already allocated to the company for other space contracts. Delays in the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) program, the proposed next-generation spy satellite network, have forced stop-gap measures to be taken to ensure surveillance capability. Part of the FIA contract was taken away last year from Boeing out of frustration with its poor development history and given to Lockheed Martin. Now, because of FIA's delays, Pentagon officials are considering buying an interim capability, which insiders think Lockheed Martin will win as well. Schedule overruns in other necessary space assets, ranging from weather satellites to GPS, have spurred a department-wide shift to rely more on existing technologies and hardware. Those projects which rely on new, high ri sk technologies will be given longer development schedules.
(Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2006)
08. New GPS satellite series delayed
Bid proposals for the new Global Positioning System (GPS) III satellites have been postponed for at least a year. While the Air Force had been eager to field the next generation of the system, now slated for 2013, the health of the current constellation is better than forecasted. Coupled with the expanded capabilities of the GPS IIR-M series, the first of which was launched last September, the Pentagon is minimizing the technical and budget risks of GPS III. Air Force officials are making the most of the delay, allowing the new program to follow modern trends in making satellites smaller, lighter, and less complex. Efforts also need to be taken to ensure interoperability with the Galileo system, Europe’s planned alternative to GPS. The delays, however, prevent new anti-jamming countermeasures not available on the II-R series from being fielded in the near future.
(Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2006)
09. Militarization of Japanese space program?
United Press International reports (June 5, 2005) that the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan wrote a bill that, if passed, would allow the military to go into space. While the use of space would be solely for the purpose of self-defense, like most of the Japanese military's alleged reason for being, it would be a big change from its current rules that keep governmental space efforts strictly civilian in nature. This bill could be discussed by Japan's parliament in the fall.
10. New director named at Ames Research Center
Simon P. “Pete” Worden has been named the next director of Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, Calif., a research center in the Silicon Valley with more than $3 billion in capital equipment, 2,500 researchers and around $600 million in its annual budget. Worden is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and a research professor at the University of Arizona, where he received a doctorate in astronomy. In the Air Force he held director- and deputy-director-level positions with the Air Force Space Command, including commander of the 50th Space Wing of the Air Force Space Command and second deputy for technology with the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
(Space Daily, April 23, 2006)
11. India to test its re-usable launch vehicles
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) begins its “Payload Recovery Experiment” with the launch of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The PSLV will place a payload 800 kilometers into orbit sometime next year. The mission is to bring the payload back intact. The experiment is significant because of its use of re-usable vehicles which the ISRO hopes to use in future space missions. Honorary director of the ISRO-University of Pune center, M.C. Uttam, stated that within the next 25 years ISRO hopes to have a single or double stage re-usable vehicle which powers itself using air breathing technology in the lower atmosphere.
(Space Daily, April 24, 2006)
12. Israel launches satellite to spy on Iran
Israel has successfully placed into orbit its D33 Eros B1 satellite. The satellite was fitted on a Russian Topol solid-fuel rocket booster and launched from Russia’s far eastern region of Amur. It is equipped with a powerful camera able to spot objects of no more than 70 centimeters long. Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot quoted an unnamed defense official claiming that the satellite would be used to spy on Iran and “will permit Israeli intelligence to observe important Iranian targets in the most minute detail.”
(Agence France-Presse, April 25, 2006)
13. Countries race to map the moon
India, China and Japan, along with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), all plan to send an unprecedented barrage of probes to the moon. The implication is that while once sending a satellite into space was seen as a form of space status, the moon is now seen as a requisite for obtaining that same sort of national prestige. Each country is investing in data to globally map the moon with an assortment of sensors to analyze its potential resources. India is sending a U.S.-made imaging radar on its Chandrayaan-1 which will map the lunar poles searching for the possible presence of polar ice. By next year, China plans to send its lunar orbiter Chang’e I to map three-dimensional images of the moon’s surface and determine the content and distribution of its elements on a one-year mission. By 2012, China hopes to land a rover on the moon’s surface. Japan plans to send its SELENE robotic mission in the summer of 2007. Being billed as the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program, SELENE will survey the entire moon of its elemental and mineralogical composition, its geography, its gravity and magnetic field, and its surface and sub-surface structure. NASA’s LRO is the first in a series of the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP), a program set up in response to President George W. Bush’s recent initiative, known as the Vision for Space Exploration. It will be a first in a series of robotic missions that will hopefully pave the way for a permanent human presence on the moon.
(Space.com, April 26, 2006)
14. Russian spacecraft incapacitated by space debris
The March 29 failure of the Russian Ekpress AM11 was caused by a collision with space debris, according to Yry Izmailov, acting general director of the Russian Satellite Communications Company. The satellite is equipped with 30 transponders with total capacity of 2,000 W. It had been scheduled to remain in orbit until 2016 but has now been moved to a disposable orbit.
(Space Daily, April 17, 2006)
15. Nigeria hopes to produce its own satellite
Nigeria plans to manufacture and locally launch its own satellite in the next 25 years. Turnon Isoun, science and technology minister, stated that Nigeria’s 25-year plan includes producing a Nigerian astronaut by 2015 and launching a Nigerian-made satellite between 2018 and 2030. Nigeria has launched a low orbit remote sensing satellite with Britain’s Surrey Satellite Technology, Ltd., in 2003 and is due to launch a communications satellite next year with China’s Great Wall Industries Corp.
(Agence France-Presse, May 11, 2006)
16. Russia to increase Glonass and double its Soyuz spacecraft
Russia plans to increase its global navigation system, Glonass, with five new satellites this year and three more next year. Currently the system, consisting of13 satellites, has two versions, Glonass and the updated Glonass-M. President Vladimir Putin ordered that the system be ready by 2008. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov stated that Glonass will be available for military and civilian purposes by the end of 2007. Russia’s leading spacecraft corporation also announced that it intends to double production of its piloted Soyuz spacecraft with the help of foreign investors.
(RIA Novosti, May 17, 2006)
17. U.S. spy satellites monitoring domestic soil
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a spy agency most known for intelligence gathering on region threats, terrorist threats, and drug trafficking. However, this little-known agency has been spending more time monitoring U.S. soil that in previous years, and its director, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, is vocal and proud of this domestic mission. Using mobile command centers on the backs of Humvees, imagery was provided for rescuers during the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The agency also provided images for victims who wanted to know the conditions of their property. Past domestic missions have included preparing security for Super Bowls and political conventions and for use in other natural disasters like forest fires. However, critics are increasingly skeptical of domestic image collecting given recent revelations that the National Security Agency has been engaged in domes tic surveillance of phone calls and e-mails. It is also believed that NGA receives images from classified satellites far exceeding the one-meter resolution that is available commercially. However, Clapper insists that using the NGA’s foreign intelligence equipment does not occur at home.
(Contra Costa Times, May 14, 2006)