Latest news with #spacecraft
Forbes
3 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
New Inspector Spacecraft To Find Russia's Secret Nuclear-Armed Orbiter
Russian nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles roll across Red Square in Moscow, ... More American intelligence agencies have revealed Moscow is now developing a nuclear-armed spacecraft to loft into orbit AFP PHOTO / KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV (Photo credit should read KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/GettyImages) After American intelligence discovered Russia is secretly developing nuclear-armed fighter spacecraft to challenge the Western space powers, a U.S. space defense outfit is testing futuristic inspector craft that could find a warhead hidden inside a capsule circling the planet. The Kremlin's clandestine project to station hyper-powerful weapons in orbit could escalate its nuclear brinkmanship, conducted via a barrage of threats to deploy its atomic arsenal - the world's largest - against any Western ally directly helping Ukraine repel its Russian invaders. Moscow has also warned it could begin shooting down American satellites aiding Ukraine - including SpaceX's broadband-beaming sats - extending its military belligerence into the celestial sphere. Russian envoys to the UN have repeatedly threatened to begin shooting down American satellites ... More aiding Ukraine - including the SpaceX Starlinks that are beaming broadband internet connections to besieged Ukrainian students and soldiers (Photo by: Alan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) A nuclear blast in low Earth orbit could - in a flash - destroy thousands of satellites and might - depending on its proximity to the International Space Station - endanger the lives of all the ISS astronauts. While the White House has leaked some details on Moscow's covert scheme to loft uranium warheads into orbit, the timing of the first launch is still shrouded in secrecy. Now, ThinkOrbital - co-founded by onetime leaders at the U.S. Space Force and the independent rocket titan SpaceX - is refining its leading-edge X-ray inspector spacecraft to spy inside satellites launched by potentially hostile powers for weapons of mass destruction. ThinkOrbital's inspectors, when launched into low Earth orbit, would be capable of detecting nuclear warheads disguised as civilian satellites, says Lee Rosen, a former Commander of the 4th Space Launch Squadron who now heads the space defense start-up. Colonel Rosen told me in an interview that ThinkOrbital's next-generation inspectors include two partner craft: one emits high-energy X-rays at a satellite speeding through space, while the other records the images the X-rays produce as they pass through the target. 'The detector spacecraft would be positioned on one side of the target, and the X-ray emitter on the other side,' he says. This orbital X-ray system could detect nuclear bombs no matter how intricately they are camouflaged, and even as they speed through space at 28,000 kilometers per hour, Rosen says. The detonation of a powerful nuclear warhead near the International Space Station would kill its ... More astronauts within hours, say American experts on nuclear weaponry. (Photo by Alexander Gerst / ESA via Getty Images) Rosen, who left his last post as a VP of Mission and Launch Operations at SpaceX to form ThinkOrbital, says the Colorado-based outfit is now testing the new detection system, and aims to launch twin demo missions into orbit next year. Development of the world's first X-ray set-up for space-based scouting missions is being partly funded by the U.S. Space Force, Colonel Rosen says, via a series of SpaceWERX contracts as part of the rapidly expanding drive to strengthen American space defenses. ThinkOrbital's twin inspectors, once in orbit, can bolster American 'space domain awareness' and preparations for prospective space clashes of the future, he says. A flotilla of ThinkOrbital's X-ray Imagers peer into satellites speeding through low Earth orbit to ... More check for concealed nuclear warheads and other weaponry in this rendering of future missions The ability to know what each spacecraft launched by a potentially hostile power is doing in orbit, and its payload, is essential for the U.S. Space Force, Rosen adds. Kremlin threats to deploy its nuclear and anti-satellite missiles against Western targets underscore the importance of gathering continuous real-time intelligence on Russian rocket forces. Moscow's stationing fission or fusion bombs in orbit would violate the Outer Space Treaty - the fundamental international pact that governs space missions across the solar system. 'States Parties to the Treaty,' the UN space compact declares, 'undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner. ' All the major space powers, including then-Soviet Russia, signed the treaty a generation ago, and violating its ban on atomic warheads in space could threaten the future of spaceflight around the world. The White House moved to confirm Moscow's campaign to position strategic warheads hundreds of kilometers above the Earth when it introduced a UN Security Council resolution last year underscoring this longstanding proscription on nuclear arms in space. The Russian ambassador to the UN quickly vetoed the measure, prompting then-National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to declare: 'We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.' The ever-expanding threat of advanced missiles and nuclear super-bombs being produced by potential adversaries impelled the White House to propose constructing a Golden Dome missile defense shield around the globe that could hypothetically protect against ICBMs launched from any point on the planet. As the Department of Defense begins building out this supermassive dome, Colonel Rosen says, ThinkOrbital's inspectors could play a pivotal role in safeguarding the myriad Allied sensors and armed interceptors - aimed at detecting and blasting an enemy's ballistic missiles during the first three minutes of their post-launch boost phase - from any nuclear time bombs skulking through the heavens. The White House has leaked sparse details of Russia's top-secret project to launch nuclear warheads ... More on spacecraft that would orbit the planet (Photo by Chris Kleponis - Pool/Getty Images) With the building of the orbital dome, Rosen says, 'that's going to be a big juicy target' for any power challenging U.S. pre-eminence in space. Spenser Warren, a prominent American expert on Moscow's new-millennium race to strengthen its nuclear arsenal, says he strongly backs Colonel Rosen's prediction that the Golden Dome could become a prime target in any future face-off with Russia. 'I do think that Russia may launch a strike against space-based Golden Dome assets, if realized, in the event of a conflict,' Warren, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, tells me in an interview. 'Could it be nuclear? It probably could,' predicts Warren, whose doctoral dissertation was titled, 'Russian Strategic Nuclear Modernization under Vladimir Putin.' 'Any significant conflict with any peer or near-peer adversary,' he adds, 'will undoubtedly have a space dimension.' Vladimir Putin has spent much of his reign modernizing Moscow's nuclear missiles while attempting to ... More push Russia's borders outward through military force and nuclear threats (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images) Colonel Rosen says that to help pre-empt any attacks against the American dome launched from an orbital platform, 'there are multiple uses for our inspector spacecraft.' 'As part of the Golden Dome, we could help protect the protectors.' Fleets of ThinkOrbital inspectors, Rosen says, could patrol the high-traffic rings surrounding the Earth, randomly scanning spacecraft launched by rival powers for concealed weaponry. ThinkOrbital's primary goal, he says, is 'giving our commanders the ability to understand the space battlefield.' 'This will contribute to the whole space war-fighting mission.' ThinkOrbital's mission of adapting X-ray technology to scout for nuclear arms surreptitiously circling the globe could help provide 'protection for all satellites in LEO [low Earth orbit], if that is indeed where the Russians put their satellite with a nuclear warhead, and again, if they end up deploying it,' says Victoria Samson, Chief Director, Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, one of Washington DC's leading space defense think tanks. 'A nuclear ASAT would be a crude but effective weapon against a very large constellation of satellites, whether it's thousands of [SpaceX] Starlinks or thousands of [DOD] space-based interceptors,' Samson, one of the top space security experts in the U.S., tells me in an interview. While ThinkOrbital's current focus is on lofting its prototype inspectors at the start of 2026, its longer-range goal is to launch a series of orbital modules and ultimately a colossal space station - four times the size of the ISS. Nearly two years ago, ThinkOrbital's founders signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to collaborate on developing 'single-launch, large-scale orbital platforms that facilitate a wide array of applications in low Earth orbit, including in-space research, manufacturing, and astronaut missions.' ThinkOrbital was one of just seven American space-tech leaders, alongside Blue Origin, SpaceX and Sierra Space, hand-picked by NASA to design independent space stations slated to populate the closest orbital lanes when the ISS is decommissioned, or the spacecraft that will speed government and private astronauts to these new space outposts - as long as the current de facto space truce holds. ThinkOrbital's long-range goal is to launch a series of orbital modules and ultimately a colossal ... More space station - four times the size of the ISS.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Northrop Grumman Invests in Defense-Focused Space Startup
A Texas startup that landed a spacecraft on the moon in March is deepening its ties with Northrop Grumman Corp. to develop a rocket capable of competing against Elon Musk's SpaceX for some US Department of Defense missions. Northrop Grumman has invested $50 million into Firefly Aerospace Inc., the two companies told Bloomberg Thursday. The money will be used for the Eclipse, a co-developed rocket in the works since 2022 that's built upon Northrop Grumman's Antares and Firefly's Alpha rockets.
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Science
- Washington Post
China launches spacecraft it says will return samples and yield 'groundbreaking discoveries'
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China launched a spacecraft that promises to return samples from an asteroid near Mars and yield 'groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos,' the country's space agency said. The Tianwen-2 probe launched early Thursday from southern China aboard the workhorse Long March 3-B rocket. The probe will collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3 and explore the main-belt comet 311P, which lies even further from the Earth than Mars, according to the China National Space Administration.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
China launches landmark mission to retrieve pristine asteroid samples
China has successfully launched a spacecraft as part of its first-ever mission to retrieve pristine asteroid samples, in what researchers have described as a 'significant step' in Beijing's ambitions for interplanetary exploration. China's Long March 3B rocket lifted off at about 1.31am local time (18:30 GMT) on Thursday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China's Sichuan province. It was carrying the Tianwen-2 spacecraft, a robotic probe that could make China the third nation to fetch pristine asteroid rocks. Announcing the launch, Chinese state-run news outlets said the 'spacecraft unfolded its solar panels smoothly', and that the China National Space Administration (CNSA) had 'declared the launch a success'. Over the next year, Tianwen-2 will approach a small near-Earth asteroid some 10 million miles (16 million km) away, named '469219 Kamoʻoalewa', also known as 2016HO3. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the asteroid, which researchers believe is potentially a fragment of the Moon, in July 2026. It will then shoot the capsule with rock samples back to Earth for a landing in November 2027. If successful, China would become only the third country to carry out such a mission after Japan first fetched samples from a small asteroid in 2010, followed by the United States in 2020. The People's Daily state-run newspaper described the mission's purpose as an 'endeavour to shed light on the formation and evolution of asteroids and the early solar system'. The newspaper quoted Shan Zhongde, the head of the CNSA, as saying that the mission represented a 'significant step in China's new journey of interplanetary exploration'. He added that the mission was expected to yield 'groundbreaking discoveries and expanding humanity's knowledge of the cosmos'. The mission has multiple goals over the 'decade-long expedition', according to Chinese state media, including 'collecting samples from near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3' and 'exploring the main-belt comet 311P'. It will also aim to measure the 'physical parameters of the two celestial targets', including their 'orbital dynamics, rotation, size, shape and thermal properties'. The samples will be used to determine the 'physical properties, chemical and mineral composition and structural characteristics' of asteroids, according to researchers working on the project. As a quasi-satellite of Earth that has orbited the Sun in a synchronised path with the Earth for nearly a century, 2016HO3 has a diameter of between 120 feet (40 metres) and 300 feet (100 metres). China has swiftly expanded its space programmes and embarked on several landmark missions in recent years, including landing robots on the far side of the Moon and collecting humankind's first-ever samples from the area in June last year. China is also running its own Tiangong space station in orbit – the only operational space station other than the International Space Station (ISS) – after the US barred it from participating in the ISS. In April, three crew members landed back in the country's north after spending six months on board Tiangong in what was the longest-ever mission in space by Chinese astronauts. Beijing has also invested heavily in planned crewed missions to the Moon that would see Chinese astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030. The US has also stated its aim to put astronauts back on the Moon for the first time since 1972, with NASA planning to launch its Artemis 3 mission in 2026 at the earliest.
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
China's Tianwen-2 lifts off on mission to bring asteroid samples back to Earth
China has launched an ambitious mission to bring asteroid samples back to Earth – part of broader efforts to explore the solar system and make advances in planetary science, resource utilisation and defence. Advertisement The Tianwen-2 spacecraft lifted off aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China at 1.31am Beijing time on Thursday, according to the China National Space Administration. 'About 18 minutes after lift-off, the rocket placed the spacecraft into a transfer orbit from Earth to asteroid 2016 HO3. The spacecraft's solar panels deployed successfully, marking the complete success of the launch mission,' the agency said on its website. The spacecraft's first planned visit is asteroid 469219 Kamo'oalewa (2016 HO3) – a small, fast-spinning quasi-satellite of Earth which scientists believe may be a fragment of the moon. Tianwen-2 is expected to collect samples from its surface and return them to Earth in late 2027 via a re-entry capsule. After that, the main spacecraft will use the Earth's gravity for a slingshot manoeuvre and begin a seven-year journey to comet 311P/PANSTARRS – an object in the solar system's asteroid belt, known for shedding dust in multiple tails. Tianwen-2 will investigate the comet's orbit, shape, rotation, surface composition and dust activity. Advertisement If successful, the mission will make China the third country – after Japan and the United States – to return samples from an asteroid.
