Fwd: Air Force discloses space surveillance satellite program

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: February 24, 2014 8:08:46 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Air Force discloses space surveillance satellite program

 

Breaking Defense

New Spy Satellites Revealed By Air Force; Will Watch Other Sats

By Colin Clark on February 21, 2014 at 2:39 PM

AFA WINTER, ORLANDO: The Air Force revealed today the existence of a new set of classified electro-optical satellites — the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSAP) — designed to spot other satellites and space debris.

What effect might this have on nations, such as, say, China, who realize the enormous military advantage that space provides the United States?

Brian Weeden, one of the few people around who speaks space fluently and doesn't have a dog in this fight, said the new satellites appear to resemble an upgraded version of DARPA's  MiTEx  (Micro-satellite Technology Experiment) satellite. They were reportedly used, among other things, to get close to and observe other satellites.

The new G-SAP satellites may raise Chinese or Russian hackles, Weedon thinks.

"Having these satellites drifting by everything in GEO [geosynchronous orbit, which allows a satellite to hover one spot of the globe] would like be a big source of information. Of course, that's exactly the sort of thing the U.S. military is extremely worried another country will do to figure out what the U.S. has in GEO. So it's likely other countries, especially Russia and China, are going to consider this a threat," he said in an email after reading the Air Force Fact Sheet on G-SAP. Weeden is the technical advisor for the Secure World Foundation, which focuses on the peaceful uses of outer space.

Among the interesting facts about the new satellites:

They can be moved once they get to orbit to maintain watch on an area of interest to the U.S., Gen. William Shelton told the audience here. Satellites designed to be moved around in geosynchronous orbit are not common. The weight of fuel is an enormous operational and cost constraint so the commitment to including it is a mark of just how important this mission is to the Air Force.

They are electro-optical. This probably means they use a combination of sensors and telescopes to spy on objects. Since most details of the program remain classified we won't know for a while.

We don't know how much they cost. Gen. Shelton was not willing to disclose that and Orbital Sciences Corp., who built the satellites, politely referred me to the Air Force. That probably means cost could provide a competitor with a good estimate of just what sensors are on board.

The first two birds will launch "later this year," Shelton told reporters after his remarks.

Why is the US building and revealing the existence of these satellites?

"As far as why they're doing this, I think China is probably part of it but not all of it," Weeden says."The U.S. has always been concerned about the security of its assets in GEO, particularly the satellites used for missile warning, protected SATCOM [satellite communications], ELINT [electronic intelligence], and SIGINT [signals intelligence]. Recent activities by China, including a launch last May that some have claimed to be a test of a direct ascent ASAT [anti-satellite] system that could reach GEO, have certainly heightened their concerns. But the Russians developed a co-orbital ASAT system that could reach to GEO back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so a Chinese ASAT is not the only potential threat."

One of the really intriguing questions that we can't answer yet is why Gen. Shelton released this information now, and why at AFA? Presumably the decision to declassify the existence of G-SAP was made at the White House level, probably an interagency decision involving the the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the State Department, Defense Department, Director of National Intelligence.

Unless these satellites are as small as MiTEx, they would be visible to observers like Ted Molczan, a keen observer in Canada who is part of a group of enthusiasts who track spy satellites using hard-won knowledge of launches, orbital modeling and telescopes. So the government might have wanted to forestall a "gotcha" moment if news reports had broken word of the satellites after launch.

Weeden added that he thinks this program is "about more than just detecting potential threats. I think part of it is also the ability to collect better intelligence on what other countries have in GEO."

 

Copyright © 2014 Breaking Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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USAF Space Chief Outs Classified Spy Sat Program

By Amy Butler abutler@aviationweek.com

Source: AWIN First

 

February 21, 2014 

Credit: NASA

 

The U.S. Air Force is planning to launch two new and previously classified space situational awareness satellites into geosynchronous orbit this year, according to Gen. William Shelton, who leads Air Force Space Command.

The spacecraft were developed covertly by the Air Force and Orbital Sciences under the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSAP), according to service officials.

The first two spacecraft will be boosted this year with two more to follow in 2016 to prevent a gap in surveillance on activities in the geosynchronous belt, Shelton said at the annual Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando. This is where commercial satellite communications are based, as well as critical national security assets such as the Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) early missile warning system and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) constellation designed to provide jam-proof communications for the president even during a nuclear event.

"One cheap shot" against Sbirs or AEHF would be "devastating" to the Pentagon's capabilities, Shelton said of a potential anti-satellite attack.

The two GSAP satellites will "drift" above and below the GEO belt, using electro-optical sensors to collect information on satellites and other objects in that region, Shelton said. They will be maneuverable, allowing them to be "tasked," much like reconnaissance aircraft, to collect intelligence on specific targets, he said. The satellites will provide "accurate tracking and characterization" of satellites, according to an Air Force fact sheet released after Shelton's speech here.

The very fact that the Air Force has developed and is deploying such a capability underscores concerns from government officials about the vulnerability of satellites that have become interwoven in government operations at all levels. The GPS constellation is already easily jammable because its signal is relatively weak, but officials worry about more widespread jamming as well as kinetic attacks.

Shelton declined to say how much the satellites cost or how long they took to design and fabricate. However, they are small enough that two of them will be launched together this year on a Delta IV from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

Declassification was cleared by authorities in the U.S. government, in part to provide a deterrent effect to adversaries seeking to conduct hostile activities in space, according to a defense official. Also, the White House has said it will provide transparency as part of its space policy. Activities, especially of a maneuverable satellite in geosynchronous orbit, are detectable by allies and adversaries. Thus, releasing at least minimal information is a nod toward transparency and, potentially, aimed at quelling concerns that the capability will be viewed as offensive, the defense official said.

GSAP is, however, likely to be viewed by Russia and China as potentially hostile and could ignite a global debate about appropriate uses of space for military purposes.

 

The satellites could carry other payloads — such as radio-frequency sensors or jammers — that have not been disclosed.

GSAP is one element of the Air Force's growing family of space situational awareness systems. Also in medium Earth orbit is the Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite built by a Boeing/Ball Aerospace team and launched in 2010. Carrying an agile, slewable electro-optical sensor, SBSS was designed to look up into GEO from a lower orbit; the distances, however, likely prevent high-fidelity imagery.

The emergence of the GSAP program likely explains why the Air Force was holding off on a SBSS follow-on, which was called for by Boeing and Ball Aerospace. It is likely the GSAP satellites provide more flexibility and higher-fidelity data than SBSS, though officials haven't compared their capabilities publicly.

GSAP "will have a clear, unobstructed and distinct vantage point for viewing resident space objects orbiting Earth in a near-geosynchronous orbit without the disruption of weather or atmosphere that can limit ground-based systems," the fact sheet says. "Data from the GEO SSA system will uniquely contribute to timely and accurate orbital predictions, enhancing our knowledge of the geosynchronous orbit environment, and further enabling space flight safety to include satellite collision avoidance."

The service also is expected to announce a manufacturer soon to build a new Space Fence site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. And a C-band radar and electro-optical telescope designed for SSA and now located in the United States will be moved to Australia to provide better coverage of the Southern hemisphere, where launches from China travel to orbit.

The GSAP satellites will be operated by the 50th Space Wing at Shriever AFB, Colo.

 

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