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SpaceX and L3Harris Awarded Pentagon Contracts to Build Missile-Tracking Satellites

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 07 2020, @08:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-does-the-launches? dept.

takyon writes:

Elon Musk's SpaceX wins a $149 million Pentagon contract to build missile-tracking satellites

Elon Musk's SpaceX has landed a $149 million contract to build missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon.

SpaceX would build four satellites in its assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, the US Space Development Agency (SDA) said on Monday, per Reuters. The plant is where SpaceX builds satellites for Starlink, a constellation of satellites designed to beam the internet around the world.

This is SpaceX's first government contract to build satellites.

The four satellites would be fitted with a wide-angle infrared missile-tracking sensor supplied by a subcontractor, an SDA official said.

See also: L3Harris, SpaceX win Space Development Agency contracts to build missile-warning satellites

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  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday October 07 2020, @07:13PM (2 children)

    by quietus (6328) on Wednesday October 07 2020, @07:13PM (#1061796) Journal

    I've always had the suspicion that the intention of StarLink isn't to give Internet access to fly-over country, but rather part of the race towards military space dominance.

    Well done -- by the time StarLink is fully deployed, the United States will have an ICBM defense capability Reagan Era SDI [wikipedia.org] developers could only dream about.

    Unfortunately, this also means the MAD doctrine is dead, and we will all have a new weapons race to look forward to.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday October 07 2020, @08:22PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Wednesday October 07 2020, @08:22PM (#1061833) Journal

    The U.S. has had missile tracking and surveillance satellites for decades. I don't think it needs tens of thousands of them, and this SpaceX deal is for *4* satellites.

    However, the U.S. military is likely to be a major customer for Starlink itself, for air and ground communications:

    U.S. Air Force Awards SpaceX $28.7 Million to Study Military Applications of Starlink [soylentnews.org]

    Air Force enthusiastic about commercial LEO broadband after successful tests [spacenews.com]

    A program known as Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet, or DEUCSI, recently tried out SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband services and demonstrated download speeds of 610 megabits per second into the cockpit of a C-12J Huron twin-engine turboprop aircraft.

    SpaceX and US Army sign deal to test Starlink broadband for military use [arstechnica.com]

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    • (Score: 2) by quietus on Friday October 09 2020, @02:03PM

      by quietus (6328) on Friday October 09 2020, @02:03PM (#1062481) Journal

      Someday [archive.org], not too distant, there can come streaking out of somewhere – we won't be able to hear it, it will come so fast – some kind of gadget with an explosive so powerful that one projectile will be able to wipe out completely this city of Washington.

      U.S. Army General Hap Arnold, 1943

      I disagree. ICBMs is a technology from the 50s (and MIRV technology from the 70s), so mass production of the things should by now be quite easy, and cheap. That leads to the next step: a nation state going for nuclear attack is going to launch its nukes along with -- a lot of -- dummies to increase the probability of a "successful" first strike. Think thousands to tens or even hundreds of thousands of ICBM missiles, all fired at once. Coupled with MIRV technology, just a couple dozen of missile tracking satellites will not cut it anymore: you'll need thousands of them.

      Whether SpaceX has received an order of 4, or thousands, is immaterial: any enemy [at nation state level] now needs to calculate potentially all of StarLink's satellites as being equiped with missile detection technology.