A missile warning satellite and another spacecraft are on their way into orbit to help the U.S. military improve tracking of rapid threats.
The two US military surveillance satellites took off today (July 1) at the top of a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, which came out of a cushion at the Cape Canaveral Florida space force station at 19:15 EDT (2315 GMT) on a mission for the U.S. Space Force called USSF-12.
The first and second stages of the Atlas V separated four and a half minutes after takeoff, a milestone that was soon followed by a more than six-minute burnout of the upper-stage Centaur engine. After two more centaur burns, the two satellites will be ready to be deployed in geosynchronous orbit, about 22,300 miles (35,900 kilometers) above Earth. But that won’t happen until about six hours after takeoff.
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(Image credit: ULA)
One of the two spacecraft, called the Wide Field of View (WFOV) satellite, is the space force system (SSC) command test platform for a new generation of missile surveillance technology. The other is a satellite bus that hosts a series of technology demonstrations for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It is simply called the USSF-12 ring.
Both the WFOV and the USSF-12 ring are considered classified payloads in support of national security, so not much information is available for any of them. However, representatives of the government agency and contractors were able to provide some details during a call with reporters on Tuesday (June 28).
The USSF-12 ring was built by Northrop Grumman from the aerospace company’s ESPAStar product line. This ring is being flown for the DoD and includes six unique payload ports as well as an independent propulsion system, Matt Verock, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of space security, said during the call.
The DoD has not disclosed details about any of these payloads, but the director of the DoD space testing program, Lt. Col. Jon Shea, said the USSF-12 ring and its payloads “will deploy key finders to to future capabilities and will offer innovative technologies to help us move forward. “future missions”.
WFOV has an image sensor that is more than 6 feet high (about 2 meters). The sensor was built by L3Harris Technologies, a company that also supplied optical components for NASA Hubble i James Webb space telescopes, as well as the Roman space telescope Nancy Grace, which is currently in development. The sensor was designed for a new type of weapon detection system: tracking hypersonic weapons – and WFOV will help SSC calibrate its accuracy.
Russian state media announced a successful test of the country’s new Kinzhal hypersonic missile in 2018 and released an animated video of the missile fired in the United States. According to reports, the Kinzhal missile is capable of traveling five times faster than the speed of sound and is capable of reaching targets anywhere in the world.
Current weapons tracking systems deployed in space are focused ballistic missiles, which have limited maneuverability. The DoD has created a new system, the Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) program, to track next-generation hypersonic threats, such as Kinzhal. WFOV is the test bed for these technologies.
“He the threat is imminent at this time, “said Colonel Heather Bogstie, senior material leader of the SSC’s resistant missile acquisition, monitoring and acquisition, during Tuesday’s call.”[WFOV] it will really be an important pioneer for our future MEO [middle Earth orbit] missile tracking systems “.
He described the WFOV mission as a “digital engineering demonstration,” which will provide “24/7 coverage in more than 3,000 kilometers.” [1,860 miles] at the Pacific Theater “.
Once the WFOV satellite and the USSF-12 ring reach their assigned geosynchronous orbits, the two are designed for mission operability for up to three years. WFOV’s successors, the satellites of the OPIR program, are well on their way to launching as early as 2025, according to an SSC statement, with a total of five scheduled to be launched between then and 2028. .
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