A new AFSPC study posits a possible future — named after ancient Chinese warlord Zhang He — where China dominates space even as human presence vastly expands to the Moon and beyond.

“[A]dversaries could track the movements of U.S. and allied military equipment, detecting patterns of training and operations; hyperspectral imaging can identify chemical compositions; short-wavelength infrared imaging can see through clouds; and SAR sensors can image at night. When determining risks to national security, one can define it as the risk of being seen or detected.”

US may face destabilizing Russian interference with NTMs “while demand for strategic intelligence on Russian strategic nuclear forces from space-based NTMs goes up significantly,” says Michael Gleason.

Missing in the national security space conversation, says Aerospace Corporation’s Russ Rumbaugh, is how space operations can and should fit with diplomacy and foreign policy. Instead, he said, the debate is solely about “how do I win the war I see.” 

Trump nominee for Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett “is a force to be reckoned with and has the leadership, experience, and knowledge to lead our Air Force into the future during a time of increased global threats,” says Sen. Martha McSally.

Large networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds. But who gets to build it?

The near-term payoff for military AI isn’t replacing human soldiers in the physical world, but empowering them to understand the world of radio waves. That’s an invisible battlefield which Russia’s powerful electronic warfare corps is poised to dominate in a future war, unless the US can catch up.

It was hard enough keeping the data flowing to the far mountains of Afghanistan, but at least the Taliban didn’t have the technology to attack the network. Russia and China, however, are investing heavily in capabilities to eavesdrop on or jam the radio transmissions and to blind or outright shoot down the satellites.

WASHINGTON: In the vast swirling enterprise of global security space, the United States must come to terms with the tectonic shifts occurring as commercial companies come to dominate launch, the building of satellites and the sensors and software on which they depend, and figure out how to lead the way. That’s the conclusion of what… Keep reading →

                CORRECTED: Raytheon Builds VIIRS WASHINGTON: The Trump Administration’s new Space Council should tackle the thorny interagency problem of how much the Air Force will do to provide weather data to the US government, says the chairman of the House subcommittee that deals with space policy. More than… Keep reading →