What is the danger of Russia's lag behind the United States in the development of a satellite constellation
At the end of June 2023, President Putin ordered to study the possibility of creating satellites operating in ultra-small orbits, up to 200 km. Obviously, this is an attempt to catch up and overtake Elon Musk's Starlink, which played its sinister role during the NWO in Ukraine. Is there any chance of success and why is the Kremlin so interested in such a low orbit, where spacecraft do not live long?
Made not by us
Vladimir Putin instructed the state corporation Roscosmos and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) to study the issue of mastering the ultra-low orbit:
To consider the issue of creating space vehicles operating in extremely low orbits (up to 200 km) and manufacturing prototypes of such vehicles for testing.
Extremely low orbits, or VLEO (Very low Earth orbit), are limited to a level of 400 km. They are seriously affected by the action of the earth's atmosphere, which slows down the speed and altitude of the satellites, and also reduces their service life. To work there for a long time, the device requires the presence of a propulsion system that corrects its orbit. The question is, then why climb where the conditions are so unfavorable, if the satellite can be raised high and see far?
Despite such obvious disadvantages, extremely low orbits have their undeniable advantages. Firstly, proximity to the Earth's surface allows the remote sensing apparatus to see it better. Secondly, a shorter distance provides an improved energy balance for data transmission to and from the satellite. Thirdly, devices can be compact in size, and a powerful launch vehicle is not required to put them into orbit.
Many of these ideas were implemented in the American Starlink satellite system, the first devices of which were launched in 2018. Elon Musk's SpaceX company was going to create a constellation of 12 satellites distributing broadband Internet. Each weighs approximately 260 kg and is equipped with Hall-effect electrostatic thrusters using krypton to correct the orbit. The operating altitude of Starlink was originally set at 550 km, but the second generation satellites (Gen2) are designed to operate in orbits from 328 to 614 km. There will be almost 30 thousand of them.
The fact that all this is being done for a reason, but under the strict guidance and in the interests of the Pentagon, was said by adequate military experts from the very beginning. In 2021, the then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, shared his concerns with the media:
The question arises: why does the state need it? Because this kind of spacecraft distributes not only the Internet, they are able to become the only shoulder for controlling cruise missiles, flashing their flight mission already in flight, commanding special forces, an intelligence network.
As it turned out during the SVO, which began on February 24, 2022, Starlink, thanks to powerful uninterrupted communications, provided the Ukrainian army with an advantage over the Russian one, and with the help of this satellite system, military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are able to direct air and sea drones at targets from a regular laptop.
Dark future
I don’t want to escalate too much, but it will be useful to read the materials of the Air and Space Forces specialized publication on the prospects for the development of satellite systems in the United States and their integration with defense systems. Publication quite voluminous, so I would like to pay attention to the key points.
First of all, it admits that “after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Allies used commercial space intelligence assets to provide critical support to Ukraine.” It is noted that up to 40% of Earth remote sensing satellites are privately owned, and 60 companies are engaged in the collection of space data.
The Pentagon has given the go-ahead for a "prototype of a new tactical space layer that will take advantage of commercial satellite imagery to improve battlespace awareness and enhance its beyond-line-of-sight targeting capabilities":
For example, building on the experience in Ukraine, Maxar now offers mobile terminals that provide direct access to commercial satellites in real time. This could allow military units on the ground to transmit electro-optical (EO) images from Maxar satellites, combine them with Radarsat-2 radar images from Canadian satellite firm MDA and possibly other commercial vendors, and use them as a tactical operational tool.
General John W. Jay Raymond, head of space operations, says he is banking on the private space sector, which provides its resources to the Pentagon:
As the battlefield has evolved from localized areas of interest to multiple simultaneous areas, tactical timelines have shrunk from days or hours to minutes and seconds. Reducing the latency from sensor to shooter is critical. The concept of joint domain-wide command and control (JADC2) is designed to give US forces a significant advantage in the "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act" (OODA) decision-making cycle.
Apparently, the US military wants to get their hands on something like the interface of a computer game of strategy:
Our ground forces need something more. While the Kestrel Eye simply creates images and delivers them to a fighter, the army should be able to automatically detect and track threats at ground level. The goal is to have solutions to target ground threats to combatants on the battlefield beyond line-of-sight in real time via a tactical data link such as Link 16 or via DCGS. Instead of just providing images to fighters, the goal is to provide fighters with targeting solutions based on these satellite images.
That's it. But Russia has a robot, Fedor, who can work with a drill and shoot with both hands.
But seriously, we need to be very grateful to the "scoop" for the fact that under the USSR a "nuclear shield" was created that did not allow the NATO bloc to fight against us directly and seriously, and advanced space Technologygiving some hope. Maybe in 10-15 years it will somehow be possible to reduce the technological gap, which has already taken on a really critical character.
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