Apogee Staff For nearly six decades, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 has helped prevent a nuclear arms race beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The Soviet Union — like 114 other countries including the United States — signed the agreement, which was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations and prohibits nuclear weapons in space. But fearing that Russia is now in the development stages of placing an anti-satellite nuclear weapon in orbit, Japan and the U.S. put forth a U.N. resolution that reaffirmed the ban on nuclear weapons on orbit, prompting the Russians to veto it at a U.N. Security…
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APOGEE STAFF Keeping pace with the unique safety needs presented by the U.S. Space Force is one of six goals established in the new Safety Strategic Plan developed by the Air Force Safety Center. The plan was released in April 2024 through the center’s headquarters at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It covers the period 2024-2027. Goal No. 3, according to a new release from the center: “Evolve Support to the Space Enterprise.” This includes developing a plan of action and milestones, determining authorities for overseeing space safety within the Air Force and the Defense Department, and…
APOGEE STAFF California’s congressional delegation is nudging the governor to finish the work of his Space Industry Task Force so the state can reap more of the economic benefits that Florida and Texas have enjoyed by establishing space economic development agencies. In a March 15, 2024, letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, signed by 41 of California’s 52-member congressional delegation, the authors spell out their state’s many existing “space equities,” saying, “We appreciate your efforts to position California to attract existing companies in this industry, and the countless that will form in the coming years and support continuing efforts to build…
APOGEE STAFF Breaking down walls that hamper interoperability between the military and its commercial partners is one goal established by the U.S. Department of Defense in its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy, released in April 2024. As the People’s Republic of China ramps up its space defense capabilities, the current U.S. National Defense Strategy directs the military to make greater use of commerce for its technological innovation and speed. Among areas where private industry is leading the way in space operations are launch, space situational awareness and Earth imaging. The Pentagon’s new commercial space strategy calls for integrating commercial solutions…
APOGEE STAFF The U.S. Space Force is moving forward with a concept that seems more science fiction than science: shipping equipment and materiel to warfighters around the globe on rockets. The service is seeking funding to research, develop and test an idea once known as Rocket Cargo Vanguard and now called Point-to-Point Delivery or P2PD, Defense News reported in March 2024. “When it absolutely, positively has to be there in 30 minutes,” quipped Air Force Col. Eric Felt, invoking an old Federal Express commercial during a panel discussion on the topic at the January 2024 Space Mobility Conference in Orlando,…
APOGEE STAFF Before its tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders in February 2022, Russian forces hacked a commercial satellite to disable communications. That opening salvo against United States-based Viasat Inc. sent a clear message to the U.S. and NATO regarding future conflicts: Space is a warfighting domain. Of course, Russia isn’t alone in recognizing the strategic value of U.S. military and commercial satellites. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) — described as a “pacing threat” by U.S. military leaders — also appreciates “the criticality of the space domain and the U.S. military’s increasing reliance on space,” said retired Space Force Col.…
APOGEE STAFF Once a satellite reaches orbit, it can circle the Earth at speeds of 17,000 kilometers per hour. But getting it up there, through the military acquisition process, can be slow going. “Traditionally, we don’t launch until the paper outweighs the rocket,” one defense contractor quipped. Now, new endeavors — including the purpose-built Space Development Agency (SDA) — are speeding things up. Military allies are poised to work with the U.S. as it embarks on this race, all with an eye on the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a space power. The United Kingdom Space…
APOGEE STAFF The rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a space power has sparked a culture change for militaries in the United States and allied nations, a double-time march to field new and better capabilities so they can maintain their historic advantage in the domain. Twenty-four major steps to reshape the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force were announced in February 2024, with an urgent warning from the services’ civilian leader Frank Kendall: “We are out of time to reoptimize our forces to meet the strategic challenges in a time of Great Power Competition.” The trend…
Apogee Staff Its inventors were thinking small when they hit on something big 25 years ago. Now-retired Stanford University Professor Bob Twiggs and Jordi Puig-Suari, a former aerospace engineering professor at California Polytechnic State University, had no inkling their idea, the CubeSat, would spur interest among researchers worldwide. The miniature satellites, which rely on a standardized “one unit,” or “1U,” parameter of 10 cubic centimeters, about the size of a Rubik’s Cube, are now commonly used by governments, universities, private industry and numerous other organizations. The satellites can be expanded to 1.5, 2, 3, 6, 12 and even 16Us and…
APOGEE STAFF The sheer volume of objects entering low Earth orbit is raising alarm in many quarters, inspiring scary renderings of space paths impossibly cluttered by sharp, shiny objects and prompting calls for space traffic management modeled on systems for controlling transit through air and sea. The most serious danger today, though, may lie not in the proliferation of new satellites — those that enable civilization as we know it through instant communication, precise location and sharp surveillance — but in the space ambitions of decades past. In many ways, for government and private operators keeping an ever-sharper eye on…