Hypersonic Vehicle Detection, Satellite Survivability
by David Vergun, DOD News
January 17, 2022
On January 12, 2022 at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies'
Schriever Spacepower Forum ... Director of the Space Development
Agency Derek Tournear said satellites in
low-Earth orbit, or LEO, will make up the tracking layer that will
be able to detect hypersonic threats by their heat signatures,
eventually on a global scale. The satellites will provide eyes-on capability to detect
maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles during flight, and those
satellites will be affordable and prolific.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 49 Starlink satellites into orbit launches from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida on January 6, 2022. (U.S. Space Force photo by Joshua Conti, Space Launch Delta 45)
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Satellites in LEO can detect
those dim heat signatures better than satellites in higher orbits,
he added. Also, if there are several satellites doing the tracking,
getting a geometric fix on a hypersonic threat is much more precise.
Once the data gets fused in the Joint Overhead Persistent
Infrared Ground System, it’s then disseminated out typically over
UHF or other Link 16 networks, then to weapons platforms.
Those tracking satellites will communicate directly with the
transport satellites via laser optical cross links, which can
rapidly move large amounts of data.
"By September 2024, plans are that 144
transport layer satellites will begin to be launched; that will
result in initial warfighting capability, forming a mesh network ...
In 2024 or 2025, 28 tracking layer satellites will be launched,
resulting in global coverage," Derek Tournear said.
SDA is working in two-year cycles to leverage spiral development
of new technologies and launch additional satellites in tranches in
that timeframe going forward, he said.
July 12, 2021 - U.S. Army Soldiers set up scalable network nodes
on the validation site at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. (Image
created by USA Patriotism! from U.S. Army photos by Pfc. Daniel
Proper.)
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The commercial sector
has enabled the growth of this military capability as the prices of
satellites and rocket launches have plummeted and as technology has
dramatically improved, Tournear said.
Addressing concerns about
overcrowding space with satellites, Tournear said space is big, and
the higher one goes up in low-Earth orbit, the more room there is.
There's currently a lot of satellite congestion in the 400- to
600-kilometer area above the Earth, he said. SDA is looking to place
its satellites in the 1,000- to 1,200-kilometer range.
The
goal of putting a large number of small satellites in space, Tournear said, is to create redundancy in the event an adversary tries to
take them out with anti-satellite weapons. It would be much harder
to disable the network.
The SDA, established in March 2019,
will transfer to the Space Force in October 2022, Tournear noted.
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Note... Minor editing without impacting
facts.
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