APOGEE STAFF You can see how humans fuel climate change in the spread of drought and wildfire, the rise of sea levels and the melting of glaciers. Thanks to a growing network of orbital sensors, you can also see the source of the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to the crisis. Three microsatellites launched in November 2023 for the Canadian company GHGSAT are among the most sophisticated. They joined a fleet of GHGSAT censors, each the size and shape of a microwave oven, that can locate the source of methane emissions to within less than 25 square meters. Before…
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ERIK D’AMATO | photos by AFP/GETTY IMAGES On a Sunday afternoon in late March 2023, a rocket lifted off from the Alcântara Launch Center on Brazil’s north coast carrying a payload for the Brazilian Air Force. The launch was the 500th at the spaceport, which is even closer to the equator (2.3 degrees) than the more well-known European-run center in neighboring French Guiana. The launch involved several firsts, including the use of a hybrid motor employing solid fuel fed with liquid oxidizer via an electric pump. While on some levels a smashing success, the Alcântara launch also highlighted Brazil’s uneasy…
APOGEE STAFF Amid growing recognition that space superiority drives all-domain superiority, satellite ground stations and radio telescopes are emerging as top security concerns as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) expands its presence across Latin America. The PRC insists that space-related centers it has developed in half a dozen countries across the region serve only peaceful purposes. But pivoting them to military use seems a likelier prospect now that the PRC is accelerating its overarching strategy of military-civil fusion (MCF), integrating and leveraging science technology and innovations across both sectors. Speaking in October 2022 at the Chinese Communist Party congress,…
APOGEE STAFF For the Pentagon, space is the key to deterring aggression and allies are the key to operations in space. Across the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), people are working to build a coalition of like-minded nations to head off adversaries such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), identified by military leaders as the “pacing threat” in space and all other domains. One of the chief drivers of this effort is Kelli L. Seybolt, who has spent much of her three-decade career in government as a civilian Air Force employee specializing in international relations. For the past five…
Apogee staff The more than 300 military satellites orbiting Earth keep tabs on missile tests, enable battlefield communication and provide ground images so clear that in some cases their image resolution is measured in centimeters. They typically send their data by radio waves or laser. But in one way or another, each traces back to a Pentagon program that was born out of a national panic after the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the first manmade object into orbit in 1957. It took a dozen tries over three years after Sputnik 1 for the Corona surveillance program to…
APOGEE STAFF The drive to create what the Pentagon calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) — an initiative to deploy a network of small lower-cost satellites in low Earth orbit — was derided only a few years ago, including by one high-ranking official who predicted the effort would “result in failure on America’s worst day if relied upon alone.” Fast-forward to early 2023 and the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) launch of 10 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). The satellites — two SpaceX-built satellites for tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles and eight York Space Systems satellites with optical links…
APOGEE STAFF Russia’s land-based electronic warfare (EW) systems, which use jamming and spoofing to disrupt GPS satellite signals, are raising concern among battlefield commanders in Ukraine who say the signal interference is thwarting guided weapons systems. Russian signal jamming has become so widely used that Ukraine’s forces can’t be sure their U.S.-supplied Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) glide bombs will hit their targets. “Jamming is not causing the JDAMs to stop working, but it is risking their accuracy — arguably a key selling point of the weapon,” Dr. Thomas Withington said in a mid-2023 analysis for the Royal United Services…
JOSEP BORRELL, EUROPEAN UNION Space has become a strategic domain and an essential enabler for most of our daily activities, whether the internet, telecommunications, or the movement of people, ships, aircraft or vehicles. In addition, it plays a central role in security and defense; for example, the United States created in 2019 a U.S. Space Force. Therefore, we need to guarantee our ability to operate securely and constantly the infrastructures essential to our societies, including against threats in outer space. In November 2021, Russia deliberately destroyed one of its satellites, an irresponsible act that generated dangerous debris. But space is…
APOGEE STAFF ustralia has selected Lockheed Martin to build a satellite and ground station architecture as part of a contract valued at $2.86 billion, the nation’s largest-ever for space defense. The program, Project JP9102, the Australian Defence Satellite Communications System, would deliver Australia’s first “sovereign-controlled satellite communication system over the Indo-Pacific ocean regions,” Air Vice-Marshal David Scheul, head of the Air Defence and Space Systems Division, said in a statement announcing the award in 2023. “Currently across [the Department of] Defence there [are] up to 89 capabilities which depend on satellite communications,” Scheul said. “Once delivered, the new system will…
APOGEE STAFF Finland’s Ministry of Defence has agreed to purchase the David’s Sling long-range defense system for $345 million. The agreement with Israel — announced a day after Finland joined NATO — represented the first export of David’s Sling, which was designed to shoot down aerial threats from ballistic missiles and aircraft to UAVs and cruise missiles. The deal was finalized in November 2023. The new system will significantly enhance Finland’s ground-based air defenses. “The minimum flight altitude requirement of the system was set at 15,000 meters in the request for quotation,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.…