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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
GEOST, a small company based in Tucson, Arizona, won two U.S. Space Force contracts worth $38 million to develop an optical sensor payload that could be hosted on government or commercial satellites to scan the geostationary belt more than 22,000 miles above Earth.
The contracts awarded to the company — $6 million in November 2020 and $32 million in December 2021 — include the design and development of the sensor, ground infrastructure, technical support and integration with the host platform and launch vehicle. But the actual payload is less than $10 million, a key price point that the Space Force believes would make it possible to deploy these in large numbers, said GEOST vice president and general manager Joshua Hartman.
Hartman said the company’s payload will be ready to launch in 2023. The Space Force has not yet identified a host satellite but the whole idea behind this program is to build sensors that could go on almost any U.S. or allied government, or commercial satellite to provide space domain awareness.
The Space Force wants to proliferate these sensors across geostationary orbit, so the $10 million target price is key to make that a reality, said Hartman.
The Space Systems Command in an Oct. 21 solicitation said the Space Force is considering buying a large number of “space domain awareness sensors to augment current and planned systems.” Multiple sensors would be needed to get “frequent revisits of significant portions of the GEO belt.”
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 24 2021, @03:44PM (10 children)
The last time I looked, they don't even have any ships, craft, vehicles, or even bases or posts commissioned. And, personnel? What do they have, one Brigadeir general, a secretary, and a steward to keep the general's coffee pot fresh?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Friday December 24 2021, @03:47PM (2 children)
Don't fret. They are working hard to expand their turf and budget, building hammers and looking for nails. It's what the military-industrial-snooping complex has encoded in its DNA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @05:37PM
Yep, I met a US government employee once, his job was to help small bureaucracies become larger. Literally, he helped small gov't offices find more funding and then find more people and other ways to grow their "business".
I don't know how he slept at night...but that's just me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday December 25 2021, @03:50PM
They're still cannibalizing the Air Force to remove everything the "Air" Force did above the atmosphere.
PAVEPAWS radar and BMEWS satellites along are, or used to be, about 4K people just for those two missions. Those are the people watching for missile launches, not just ICBMs but the "usual" short range middle east exchanges.
They're doing a lot more than just putting all satcom under one roof, and of course satcom is a huge mission compared to BMEWS ...
Now someday they might expand all on their own, building military bases we don't even need decades after we defeat the martians on mars, or whatever, but so far they're mostly just cannibalizing.
Now I'm out of the loop enough that the only way I know of to join the space force is/was to be in the military doing satcom or missile stuff in the past and your whole MOS gets moved to space force, but that may change.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday December 24 2021, @04:35PM (1 child)
They do:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Space_Force_installations [wikipedia.org]
https://www.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Space-Force-Locations/ [spaceforce.mil]
I think they're in charge of all launches at this point.
A lot would have to happen before they start sending Space Marines up instead of satellites, but it could happen within the century.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 24 2021, @10:35PM
Well, Colorado certainly got it's share of pork.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Friday December 24 2021, @07:30PM (3 children)
I believe you are mistaken [military.com]...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 24 2021, @10:36PM (2 children)
So, "Space Force" is spelled U S A F now?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday December 24 2021, @10:46PM (1 child)
"Who do the marines call when they need a 'ride'"?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 24 2021, @11:09PM
Mostly, they don't. They march. Not to mention, they have their own planes, armor, etc. But, yeah, the Navy does pick up hitchhiking Marines from time to time. That would be the Gator Navy.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25 2021, @09:19PM
They have also finalized a shortlist of new ways to salute [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @04:35PM (6 children)
I'd just like to point out that the homepage is saying new stories have 0 comments now. Something is probably not quite right.
That is all. Merry Christmas.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @04:48PM
Having read the comments in question, I have to agree that they are probably not worth counting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @05:39PM (4 children)
I've posted a note on the IRC chat, previous time was on 2021-12-19. That time:
restarted the slashd process, comment counts are now a thing again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @05:41PM
That was supposed to be:
mechanicjay (in angle brackets) restarted the slashd process, comment counts are now a thing again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @06:04PM
Thank you, kind maintainer person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @10:46PM (1 child)
FYI, front page comment counts are still hosed for me. Long ago TMB mentioned that there was a separate script that handled front page counts that needed bouncing from time to time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @11:02PM
Fixed finally. Thanks. -parent poster
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday December 24 2021, @07:26PM (2 children)
Then they mounted machine guns on their airplanes.
War goes where humans go
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday December 24 2021, @07:42PM
The way I see it is someone messed with one of their satellites, but they have no idea who.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @09:59PM
As I remember the history, a WWI French pilot was the first to mount the machine gun so it fired through the propeller--aim the gun by aiming the airplane. Of course some of the bullets hit the wooden prop which was not good, to say the least. So, the clever Frog put some metal plates on the back side of the prop to protect it. He may have suffered from some bad ricochets?
Later Fokker (Dutch, but working for Germany) worked out how to have the prop blades trigger the gun, so all the bullets missed the prop.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 26 2021, @05:19PM
"Who cares what it means, make it short!"
"Space Force Eyes Lower-Cost Sensors to Monitor Geostationary Orbit"
Uh, did they mean "Space Force Eyes are Lower-Cost Sensors to Monitor Geostationary Orbit"? No, of course not, but I wish they would make headlines more readable. "Space Force looks at" is only four characters longer than "Space Force eyes" and you don't have to figure out that a word that is almost always a noun is a verb. I'm sure the people who turned eyes, up, and other non-verbs into verbs are burning in literary hell right now.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience