U.S. Space Force to Fight Extraterrestrial Wars

Area201

cold fusion
Here was my reply to the official US Space Force Twitter account

Cg0jQFS.jpg
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Here was my reply to the official US Space Force Twitter account

Cg0jQFS.jpg

Why did you alter your Twitter handle so it's not seen in the screenshot?...

...
 

Area201

cold fusion
Why did you alter your Twitter handle so it's not seen in the screenshot?...

...

I think it's because these type of forums have a everyone hide their identity vibe. I now posted a real link with Twitter handle in other reply.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I think it's because these type of forums have a everyone hide their identity vibe. I now posted a real link with Twitter handle in other reply.

Some members here do not hide their identity at all, I don't hide the Twitter handle on the forum, it does help our visibility and we have new members join from Twitter occasionally...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
If it was 10 bucks, I might spring or it.
A good look, though.

Yeah maybe even 15 dollars max I'd pay, I mean its only a 2 dollar bill face value, if it was a 5 or 10 dollar bill that would be a little different...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Space Force Announces Plans For a Moon Base and Robots

“At some point, yes, we will be putting humans into space. They may be operating command centers somewhere in the lunar environment or someplace else.”

“The lunar environment” is military-speak for the Moon, which makes sense since that quote came from Maj. Gen. John E. Shaw, head of the Space Force’s Space Operations Command and part of U.S. Space Command leadership, while answering a question this week at a conference sponsored by AFWERX, the “Air Force’s team of innovators who encourage and facilitate connections across industry, academia, and the military to create transformative opportunities and foster a culture of innovation.” This seems contradictory to recent stories that Space Force troops had been deployed in Qatar, it formalized agreements with NASA, it recruited a space horse and Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson, who said in February: “That opportunity to be an astronaut inside the Space Force today is almost zero.”

united-states-space-force-scaled-e1599768111704-570x260.jpg


Anticipating the same reaction you just had, Shaw clarified his position and agreement with Thompson:

“First, space isn’t really all that habitable for humans. We’ve learned that since our early space days. And the second is, we’re getting darned good at this robotics thing in space.”

Did Shaw just contradict himself … and the Space Force’s latest recruiting programs looking for people whose “purpose on this planet isn’t on this planet”? Not really. He’s just saying that putting Space Force cadets in space is a long way off, while we already have sophisticated robots doing important and complex security functions in space.

We do?

vacuum-cleaner-4827253_640.jpg

We do?

“The best robots that humans have ever created are probably satellites. … They’re incredible machines, and we’re only getting better. With machine learning and artificial intelligence, we’re going to have an awful lot of automated and autonomous systems operating [on] Earth and lunar orbit and solar orbit in the days and years to come, doing national security space activity.”

Robots – both autonomous and human-controlled – along with drones, rovers, satellites and other sophisticated AI creatures doing the security work of Space Force cadets in space. This doesn’t sound like what President Trump had in mind when he announced the Space Force. The president would probably prefer Space Force cadets in a SpaceX capsule to the ISS before the election. He won’t be happy with Maj. Gen. Shaw’s answer to when this will happen:

“(It’s) anybody’s guess.”

If your autonomous vacuum cleaner seems unusually excited these days, it may have heard the Space Force is looking for a few good robots.


.
 

AD1184

Celestial
Space Force Announces Plans For a Moon Base and Robots

“At some point, yes, we will be putting humans into space. They may be operating command centers somewhere in the lunar environment or someplace else.”

“The lunar environment” is military-speak for the Moon, which makes sense since that quote came from Maj. Gen. John E. Shaw, head of the Space Force’s Space Operations Command and part of U.S. Space Command leadership, while answering a question this week at a conference sponsored by AFWERX, the “Air Force’s team of innovators who encourage and facilitate connections across industry, academia, and the military to create transformative opportunities and foster a culture of innovation.”
The establishment of military bases on the moon is expressly forbidden by Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty (formally the Treaty on Principles Governing Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies), which the United States has ratified.

http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_21_2222E.pdf
 

wwkirk

Divine
Space Force Announces Plans For a Moon Base and Robots

“At some point, yes, we will be putting humans into space. They may be operating command centers somewhere in the lunar environment or someplace else.”

“The lunar environment” is military-speak for the Moon, which makes sense since that quote came from Maj. Gen. John E. Shaw, head of the Space Force’s Space Operations Command and part of U.S. Space Command leadership, while answering a question this week at a conference sponsored by AFWERX, the “Air Force’s team of innovators who encourage and facilitate connections across industry, academia, and the military to create transformative opportunities and foster a culture of innovation.” This seems contradictory to recent stories that Space Force troops had been deployed in Qatar, it formalized agreements with NASA, it recruited a space horse and Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson, who said in February: “That opportunity to be an astronaut inside the Space Force today is almost zero.”

united-states-space-force-scaled-e1599768111704-570x260.jpg


Anticipating the same reaction you just had, Shaw clarified his position and agreement with Thompson:

“First, space isn’t really all that habitable for humans. We’ve learned that since our early space days. And the second is, we’re getting darned good at this robotics thing in space.”

Did Shaw just contradict himself … and the Space Force’s latest recruiting programs looking for people whose “purpose on this planet isn’t on this planet”? Not really. He’s just saying that putting Space Force cadets in space is a long way off, while we already have sophisticated robots doing important and complex security functions in space.

We do?

vacuum-cleaner-4827253_640.jpg

We do?

“The best robots that humans have ever created are probably satellites. … They’re incredible machines, and we’re only getting better. With machine learning and artificial intelligence, we’re going to have an awful lot of automated and autonomous systems operating [on] Earth and lunar orbit and solar orbit in the days and years to come, doing national security space activity.”

Robots – both autonomous and human-controlled – along with drones, rovers, satellites and other sophisticated AI creatures doing the security work of Space Force cadets in space. This doesn’t sound like what President Trump had in mind when he announced the Space Force. The president would probably prefer Space Force cadets in a SpaceX capsule to the ISS before the election. He won’t be happy with Maj. Gen. Shaw’s answer to when this will happen:

“(It’s) anybody’s guess.”

If your autonomous vacuum cleaner seems unusually excited these days, it may have heard the Space Force is looking for a few good robots.


.
Oh Man, I really hope they establish a moon base! I've been looking forward to that since I was a kid.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The establishment of military bases on the moon is expressly forbidden by Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty (formally the Treaty on Principles Governing Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies), which the United States has ratified.

http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_21_2222E.pdf

Here's more on this below, I might be wrong but I gather from my own digging that a moon base would be NASA's (civilian) and the Space Force will be present to perform their own tasks and provide protection within the civilian base...

...

Military Bases on the Moon: U.S. Plans to Weaponize the Earth’s Satellite

In July, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, cited the U.S. “retreat from principles of cooperation and mutual support” to justify Russia’s refusal to join the latest U.S. space initiative: to build lunar bases. Rogozin was likely referring to the U.S. refusal to renew the Intermediate-range Forces Treaty and its intention to back out of the Open Skies Treaty.

Russia responded by declaring that Venus is a “Russian planet.” The U.S. continues to reject Sino-Russian efforts to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty 1967, to prohibit the weaponization of space. Doing so would interfere with U.S. plans for “full spectrum dominance.”

MOON LANDING 2.0

Last week on 22 September, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) signed a memorandum with the Department of Defense (DOD). The signers were NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, and the U.S. Space Force Chief of Operations General, John Raymond.

The signing of the memo took place in the broader context of NASA’s Artemis program. In December 2017, Donald Trump signed the Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program. It was an update of Obama’s space policy, adding that the U.S. will: “Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.”

NASA’s Artemis program oversees the U.S. mission to exploit the moon, including the construction of the Artemis Base Camp at the lunar South Pole, probably near the Shackleton Crater. This will serve as a forerunner to building a base on Mars. It “builds on a half-century of experience and preparation to establish a robust human-robotic presence on and around the Moon,” says NASA. Artemis includes a Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft. These operations will enable “U.S. commercial companies and international partners to further contribute to the exploration and development of the Moon.”

International partners, at present, include Canada, Japan, and the EU. Though, as we shall see, weaponization and competition remain serious threats to international peace and human survival. Other elements of the program include a Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), which Artemis hopes to finalize by 2023. The international efforts include deploying “science payloads” and CubeSats, as well as refueling the Gateway: an orbiting lunar outpost.

WEAPONIZED MOON

Contracts for the Human Landing System (HLS) have gone to Blue Origin, Dynetics (Leidos), and SpaceX. The HLS team includes Draper, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Draper will provide avionics, guidance, navigation, and software. The Integrated Lander Vehicle will launch on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan heavy-lift rocket. Maxar Technologies will develop the PPE. HALO is an initial crew cabin for astronauts visiting the Gateway and will likely be built by Northrop. Pressurized and unpressurized cargo, including space instruments and food, will be delivered by SpaceX.

The recent NASA-DOD memorandum of understanding references the proposed lunar base and says that NASA and the Space Force “reaffirm and continue their rich legacy of collaboration in space launch, in-space operations, and space research activities, all of which contribute to the Parties’ separate and distinct civil and defense endeavors”—the latter are classified. The Space Force will act as the NASA’s guarantor. Space Force’s responsibilities “include developing military space systems and doctrine, as well as presenting space forces to support the warfighting Combatant Commands.” The memo reiterates common NASA-DOD interests.

The memo also seeks to establish a Foundation for Broad Collaboration. General Raymond says: “A secure, stable, and accessible space domain underpins our nation’s security, prosperity and scientific achievement. Space Force looks forward to future collaboration, as NASA pushes farther into the universe for the benefit of all.” The Space Force states that it “will secure the peaceful use of space, free for any who seek to expand their understanding of the universe, by organizing, training and equipping forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.” “Peace” means U.S. dominance unimpeded by commercial rivals, like China, India, and Russia.

NASA AS STIMULUS FOR HI-TECH

As the BBC acknowledges: “Many practical products developed by NASA during the Apollo years are well known: cordless drills, PV (solar) panels, freeze-dried food, thermal insulation material, heat coatings and so on.” Having learned their craft at the Fairchild Semiconductor company, NASA scientists formed Intel, which later worked on personal computers with Microsoft. The so-called Apollo Effect, in reference to the first moon landing, indirectly and reportedly inspired Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with creating the World Wide Web, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX, which is now contracted to work on the latest program.

NASA says of the future that taxpayer dollars will fund research and development for corporate, hi-tech innovation: “Space Technology investments will stimulate the economy and build our Nation’s global economic competitiveness through the creation of new products and services, new business and industries, and high-quality, sustainable jobs,” like those above. It notes more broadly:

“Knowledge provided by weather and navigational spacecraft, efficiency improvements in both ground and air transportation, super computers, solar- and wind-generated energy, the cameras found in many of today’s cell phones, improved biomedical applications including advanced medical imaging and even more nutritious infant formula, as well as the protective gear that keeps our military, firefighters and police safe, have all benefitted from our nation’s investments in aerospace technology.”

Colonel Eric Felt, Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, says: “The space renaissance happening on the commercial side is fantastic, there is innovation we can use.” Felt also notes the link between civilian-commercial and military technology: “We have limited funding in our budget for science and technology … We have to leverage dual-use technologies”—which means weaponized civilian and commercial products.

CONCLUSION

As pundits analyze what was arguably the lowest point of U.S. electoral politics in the mont of September, namely the “debate” between The Donald and Creepy Joe, Sky News reports on the Space Command’s first foreign deployment to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar: “Their mission is to confront new threats in the region from Iran’s missile programme – as well as attempts to jam, hack and blind satellites.” Confront threats means maintain dominance.

The Space Force has also seen the transfer of Air Force personnel to the Marine Expeditionary Unit, indicating that the Force will integrate into all levels of the U.S. military, realizing the U.S. elite dream of “full spectrum dominance.”

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The establishment of military bases on the moon is expressly forbidden by Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty (formally the Treaty on Principles Governing Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies), which the United States has ratified.

http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_21_2222E.pdf

Apparently a new agreement has been made in regards to the moon, 'The Artemis Accords', not without its downside, not everyone is onboard with it...

...

The Artemis Accords - A New Space Pact Seeks to Ensure Peace and Prosperity on the Moon

Laws have long been portable things. Human beings settled frontiers with tools and muscle—and too often with weapons, seizing lands that belong to others. One other thing the settlers also brought along were their legal systems, rules of the road to govern their behavior in the new communities they built. That was true when all our exploring was terrestrial, and it remained true when we ventured into space. As long ago as 1967—just six years after the first human spaceflight—the U.S. and other signatory nations established the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies—better known simply as the “Outer Space Treaty.” The pact bound partner nations to use space only for peaceful purposes, to forswear claims of sovereignty over any region beyond Earth, to lend aid to astronauts in distress, and more.

Now that old law has a new follow-up. On Oct. 13, NASA announced the completion of what it has called the Artemis Accords, an agreement among eight partner nations to cooperate and collaborate in future explorations of the moon and Mars, especially via participation in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and the next man on the moon before the end of 2024. The seven other signatories to the pact include the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Italy. But the accords are, in a sense, open source, with other countries invited to join if they both agree with the pact’s provisions and contribute to the joint enterprise in some way.

“Both the foreign ministries and the space agencies of the various nations were involved in developing the accords,” says Mike Gold, NASA’s acting administrator for the office of international and interagency relations. “It’s important that we take not just our astronauts to the moon, but our multilateral agreements.”

“Our interest,” adds NASA deputy administrator Jim Morhard, “is to bring everyone we can in under the tent.”

That’s a lot easier to do now than it was back in the Apollo era, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the only powerful space players around and, as mortal enemies, were not exactly inclined to collaborate. In the years since, Russia, the U.S. and more than a dozen other partner nations have come together to build and operate the International Space Station (ISS), establishing a template for cooperation in space.

What’s more, this time around the hardware lends itself to partnerships. The key elements of the Apollo program—the Saturn V rocket, the Apollo orbiter, and the lunar module—were all one-time-use machines, good for a single mission and no more. NASA now envisions building a sort of mini space station, known as Gateway, in a permanent lunar orbit that can be used as an embarkation point for trips to and from the lunar surface. Like the Artemis Accords themselves, the Gateway would be open source, with docking ports that would allow other nations to add their own modules or bring their own crews in their own spacecraft.

“We have compared the Gateway to an iPhone, which anyone can write software for,” says Gold. “The point of Gateway is interoperability, to make it open to other nations.”

But the Accords go well beyond Gateway. The text of the 18-page agreement establishes 10 different sets of rules that partner nations agree to obey. Among them are ensuring that all lunar operations remain peaceful; that countries are transparent about the work they are doing on the moon; that they release and share scientific data; and that any resources discovered—such as water ice at the south lunar pole—can be extracted freely and sustainably, with no interference or claim-jumping by one nation over another’s digs. The partners also agree to respect lunar heritage sites, such as the locations of the six Apollo landings.

“The accords are a political commitment to live by the agreed-upon rules,” says Gold. “The goals are peace and prosperity.”

But not everyone can be part of the new enterprise. The Wolf Amendment, passed by Congress in 2011, forbids NASA from collaborating with China in any way, for fear of theft of U.S. technology. Russia, meantime, which is very much an equal partner in the ISS program, has not—so far at least—signed on to the Artemis Accords. On Oct. 12, during the first day of the annual International Astronautical Congress—being held virtually this year—Dimtry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, complained in a statement that the accords are “too U.S.-centric” and that only if the program were run more like the ISS—with the U.S. and Russia maintaining dual control over the station, with twin Mission Controls in Houston and Moscow—would Roscosmos “also consider its participation.”

Rogozin’s counterpart, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine pushed back—gently—telling The Washington Post that “the Gateway uses the exact same agreement…that the International Space Station uses” and that NASA has “shared with Roscosmos what we would like to do with the Gateway in terms of collaborating with them and seeing what their interest is, and we just haven’t heard back.”

It’s that kind of open-handed, soft-power negotiating that historically has made peace possible among nations on our home world. The Artemis Accords are an attempt to ensure the same on other ones.

.
 

August

Metanoia
Apparently a new agreement has been made in regards to the moon, 'The Artemis Accords', not without its downside, not everyone is onboard with it...

...

The Artemis Accords - A New Space Pact Seeks to Ensure Peace and Prosperity on the Moon

Laws have long been portable things. Human beings settled frontiers with tools and muscle—and too often with weapons, seizing lands that belong to others. One other thing the settlers also brought along were their legal systems, rules of the road to govern their behavior in the new communities they built. That was true when all our exploring was terrestrial, and it remained true when we ventured into space. As long ago as 1967—just six years after the first human spaceflight—the U.S. and other signatory nations established the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies—better known simply as the “Outer Space Treaty.” The pact bound partner nations to use space only for peaceful purposes, to forswear claims of sovereignty over any region beyond Earth, to lend aid to astronauts in distress, and more.

Now that old law has a new follow-up. On Oct. 13, NASA announced the completion of what it has called the Artemis Accords, an agreement among eight partner nations to cooperate and collaborate in future explorations of the moon and Mars, especially via participation in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and the next man on the moon before the end of 2024. The seven other signatories to the pact include the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Italy. But the accords are, in a sense, open source, with other countries invited to join if they both agree with the pact’s provisions and contribute to the joint enterprise in some way.

“Both the foreign ministries and the space agencies of the various nations were involved in developing the accords,” says Mike Gold, NASA’s acting administrator for the office of international and interagency relations. “It’s important that we take not just our astronauts to the moon, but our multilateral agreements.”

“Our interest,” adds NASA deputy administrator Jim Morhard, “is to bring everyone we can in under the tent.”

That’s a lot easier to do now than it was back in the Apollo era, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the only powerful space players around and, as mortal enemies, were not exactly inclined to collaborate. In the years since, Russia, the U.S. and more than a dozen other partner nations have come together to build and operate the International Space Station (ISS), establishing a template for cooperation in space.

What’s more, this time around the hardware lends itself to partnerships. The key elements of the Apollo program—the Saturn V rocket, the Apollo orbiter, and the lunar module—were all one-time-use machines, good for a single mission and no more. NASA now envisions building a sort of mini space station, known as Gateway, in a permanent lunar orbit that can be used as an embarkation point for trips to and from the lunar surface. Like the Artemis Accords themselves, the Gateway would be open source, with docking ports that would allow other nations to add their own modules or bring their own crews in their own spacecraft.

“We have compared the Gateway to an iPhone, which anyone can write software for,” says Gold. “The point of Gateway is interoperability, to make it open to other nations.”

But the Accords go well beyond Gateway. The text of the 18-page agreement establishes 10 different sets of rules that partner nations agree to obey. Among them are ensuring that all lunar operations remain peaceful; that countries are transparent about the work they are doing on the moon; that they release and share scientific data; and that any resources discovered—such as water ice at the south lunar pole—can be extracted freely and sustainably, with no interference or claim-jumping by one nation over another’s digs. The partners also agree to respect lunar heritage sites, such as the locations of the six Apollo landings.

“The accords are a political commitment to live by the agreed-upon rules,” says Gold. “The goals are peace and prosperity.”

But not everyone can be part of the new enterprise. The Wolf Amendment, passed by Congress in 2011, forbids NASA from collaborating with China in any way, for fear of theft of U.S. technology. Russia, meantime, which is very much an equal partner in the ISS program, has not—so far at least—signed on to the Artemis Accords. On Oct. 12, during the first day of the annual International Astronautical Congress—being held virtually this year—Dimtry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, complained in a statement that the accords are “too U.S.-centric” and that only if the program were run more like the ISS—with the U.S. and Russia maintaining dual control over the station, with twin Mission Controls in Houston and Moscow—would Roscosmos “also consider its participation.”

Rogozin’s counterpart, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine pushed back—gently—telling The Washington Post that “the Gateway uses the exact same agreement…that the International Space Station uses” and that NASA has “shared with Roscosmos what we would like to do with the Gateway in terms of collaborating with them and seeing what their interest is, and we just haven’t heard back.”

It’s that kind of open-handed, soft-power negotiating that historically has made peace possible among nations on our home world. The Artemis Accords are an attempt to ensure the same on other ones.

.

I thought they did all that in the 1960s when they went to the Moon and said space belonged to everyone ?
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable

AD1184

Celestial
Apparently a new agreement has been made in regards to the moon, 'The Artemis Accords', not without its downside, not everyone is onboard with it...

...

The Artemis Accords - A New Space Pact Seeks to Ensure Peace and Prosperity on the Moon
This agreement is one between national civil space agencies. It does not abrogate the Outer Space Treaty. In fact, in the text it affirms the importance of compliance with the Outer Space Treaty, and one of its stated principles is that activities governed by the agreement are exclusively for peaceful purposes. The United States still remains party to the Outer Space Treaty.
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
NORAD tracks, on average, 2 UFOs per month.

"What I knew from other sources was that unidentified objects were spotted periodically. In fact, years before that, when on an Inspector General study at Fort Carson, Colorado, I took the time to visit to NORAD. While there I decided to take a chance and probe a bit. A young lieutenant was giving the unclassified public briefing and asked for questions. I asked, “Do you ever track objects that accelerate very quickly, or make extremely sharp turns?” Without blinking he responded, “You mean UFOs. Yes.” He declined to comment any further. In fact, another U.S. Air Force officer who later participated in the ATP* had provided me with unclassified data indicating that uncorrelated objects were spotted, probably once or twice a month."

Are Satellites Tracking UFOs?
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Space Force Has A Unit Dedicated To Orbital Warfare That Now Operates The X-37B Spaceplane - The Warzone

The fledgling U.S. Space Force's Space Delta 9 is tasked with performing a mission set that the service describes as orbital warfare. This includes keeping an eye out for potentially hostile activity in space, as well as deterring those threats and even potentially defeating them, according to the unit's official website. Publicly, it provides this support primarily through various space-based surveillance and communications systems, but, interestingly, it is also responsible for overseeing the operations of the experimental X-37B mini space shuttle, the exact mission and capabilities of which remain obscure.

Space Force highlighted the intriguing orbital warfare mission of Space Delta 9, as part of the larger array of capabilities within its new Space Operations Command (SpOC), in a Tweet earlier this week. The unit had first come into existence in July and had previously been known as the Air Force's 750th Operations Group, which had only been activated and assigned to that service's 50th Space Wing the month before. 50th Space Wing, headquartered at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, was also transferred to the newest branch of America's armed forces that month, at which time it was rebranded as the Peterson-Schriever Garrison.

(Much more on the link)

message-editor_1604076023023-elg-lfgxyaehzi1.jpg
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Space Force Creates Orbital Warfare Unit and Has Its First Battleship

You knew this was coming. The U.S. Space Force’s Space Delta 9 unit has officially been given its mission — orbital warfare. As part of beefing up the Space Force’s weaponry, it has officially taken over control of the mysterious, unmanned experimental X-37B mini space shuttle that has completed a number of secret years-long orbits with undisclosed purposes – the last of which included a secret project for the Space Force. And, to unofficially join the Space Force with NASA, Air Force Col. Michael “Hopper” Hopkins, the commander of NASA’s upcoming SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station, will be commissioned into the U.S. Space Force while onboard the ISS. Is this progress, readiness or the initial steps towards orbital warfare?

Boeing_X-37B_after_ground_tests_at_Vandenberg_AFB_October_2007-570x265.jpg

X-37B

“Delta 9 consists of three active duty squadrons headquartered at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado: 1st and 3rd Space Operations Squadrons, 750th Operations Support Squadron, and one operational Detachment. The mission of Delta 9 is to prepare, present, and project assigned and attached forces for the purpose of conducting protect and defend operations and providing national decision authorities with response options to deter and, when necessary, defeat orbital threats. Additionally, Delta 9 supports Space Domain Awareness by conducting space-based battlespace characterization operations and also conducts on-orbit experimentation and technology demonstrations for the U.S. Space Force.”

"The 750th Operations Support Squadron ensures the combat readiness of Delta 9 by building, developing, and equipping space professionals for orbital warfare. The squadron is responsible for training, intelligence, weapons and tactics, and other operational support necessary to enable Delta 9 to conduct its on-orbit protect and defend mission across the spectrum of conflict.”

The Delta 9 website was updated recently to reflect its expanded mission for orbital warfare – an “on orbit protect and defend mission.” To be “on orbit” requires an orbiting spacecraft, and the Air Force has at least on of those that we know of – the X-37B space plane. Built by Boeing for the Air Force, it’s launched from Cape Canaveral and lands at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with Edwards Air Force Base as a backup. Other than that, little is known about its missions, which have lasted from 224 days to 779 days. And now it has its first orbiting warship, which The Drive reports may be used to “carry, or at least be used to test, space-based weapons, including directed energy systems, such as laser or high-power microwaves.”

spaceship-618230_640-570x321.jpg

Modified X-37B?

“If all goes well, we’re looking to swear him into the Space Force from the International Space Station.”

Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, announced that Col. Hopkins will become the first NASA astronaut to serve in the Space Force. Col. Catie Hague, a spokesperson for the chief of space operations, described to SpaceNews that the transfer on the ISS to SpaceNews will be “a way to spotlight the decades-long partnership between DoD and NASA.” Well, the military has long provided pilots and personnel to NASA, so it’s about time for some moves in the opposite direction. And, with the expansion of Space Force duties to include “orbital warfare,” this is probably regarded as a promotion for Col. Hopkins. Is it possible that he’s being groomed as the first commander of the first manned mission on the X-37B?

If you’re into interesting coincidences, here’s one – Col. Hopkins’ previous trip to the ISS was as part of Expedition 37 and now he’s part of the Space Force, whose space plane is X-37B. Just a lighthearted ending to the heavy news that “orbital warfare” preparations are underway.


.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
 
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