Air&Space Forces 2050

[Elysium]

And if your satellite system shut down what are you doing ?

I assume what you mean is what if the enemy shoots it down? My answer to that is that missiles that can shoot down a satellite are not going to be that much less expensive than the satellites themselves + their launch costs (if you assume a Falcon 9 style reusable launcher). In conflict areas, it might be possible that relatively cheaper sats would be used on lower orbits that decay in weeks instead of months or years.
I think it's very possible that shooting down enemy sats in a peer conflict would not be economically sustainable. Lasers might change the equiation but I'm sure there's asterisks and countermeasures there as well.

 

[Josh_TN]

That depends on how many satellites you have.

It also depends on what satellites are using for sensors. I think we are still a decade or so away from universal multi mode surveillance from orbit. But yes that is probably coming…from both sides.

In any case, “RQ-180” and possibly other long endurance penetrating UAVs are available now, and likely still have a fallback role if someone like Russia or Bestest Korea nukes low earth orbit.

 

[_Del_]

That depends on how many satellites you have.

It will always be a balancing act. Space based hardware will generally need to be larger and more sophisticated relying on the inverse-square (or fourth-power in the case of active emission).
An SBR network runs into power/weight/cost difficulties like anything else, but as processing power improves, this network is happening and quickly. It won't completely supplant airborne radars, yet, particularly across certain bands, but the day of AWACS/JSTARS is quickly approaching dusk.

SBIRS and electro-optical is even easier.

If they keep the cost down, they can upgrade and launch on a frequent basis instead of adding to the constellation once or twice a decade with giant, expensive sats in geosynchronous or geostationary orbit, and still get persistent coverage.

 

[_Del_]

I assume what you mean is what if the enemy shoots it down? My answer to that is that missiles that can shoot down a satellite are not going to be that much less expensive than the satellites themselves + their launch costs (if you assume a Falcon 9 style reusable launcher). In conflict areas, it might be possible that relatively cheaper sats would be used on lower orbits that decay in weeks instead of months or years.

You can launch twenty small satellites into your network with a reusable rocket, you make the math extremely difficult for taking out the network. You can take out a few. Bigger risk is probably dazzling, but that require a lot of power and tracking. If a war escalates, launch sites and sites capable of striking satellites are obviously going to be high-priority targets on both sides.

 

[totoro]

If youre launching rockets to destroy satellites, youre already in total world war. No holds barred. You could Launch a rocket with dozens of small objects, each having propulsion and being command guided to intercept satellites.
Or you could launch a space based laser, which could move around earth and lase stuff up. SDI documents from decades ago planned lasers that could disable warheads from over 1000 km away. Disabling a much more fragile satellite would likely be doable even with a smaller satellite with today's tech, at longer ranges. Laser itself could be on some sort of small form space shuttle type of spacecraft, better suited to evade enemy counter action.

None of this is far fetched. Elements of all this have been tested individually.

 

[dark sidius]

It also depends on what satellites are using for sensors. I think we are still a decade or so away from universal multi mode surveillance from orbit. But yes that is probably coming…from both sides.

In any case, “RQ-180” and possibly other long endurance penetrating UAVs are available now, and likely still have a fallback role if someone like Russia or Bestest Korea nukes low earth orbit.

For sure they will nuke orbits this is a good way to shot down a lot of satellites in one time with out making tons of debris. The WAR will start in space for sure.

 

[yeetmahboi]

For sure they will nuke orbits this is a good way to shot down a lot of satellites in one time with out making tons of debris. The WAR will start in space for sure.

Sure.....
First, put nukes on ASAT stacks.
Then, put nukes on SAMs.
Then, Pentomic ver 2.0 .
Nukes are super clean now.

 

[Josh_TN]

ASAT nukes only make sense for nations of low space capability having a total war with countries with a very high space capability (realistically only the U.S. and PRC for medium term). That’s probably a very unlikely situation, but one you still might want to war game out.

 

[yeetmahboi]

That's exactly why I did the list. Putting tac nukes back in place? That's going to have massive, cascading effects.

Firepower compensate for precision. Sure, a state without the relevant industrial capacity to produce numbers of extremely accurate KKV tipped rockets will want nukes instead - that kind of concern also went back to Outer Air Battle wherein the Admirals in charge were walking on hot coal as the kind of defensive screen a fleet of Missileer A-6 and F-14 armed with AAAM could have prompted the Soviets to invest even more into supersonic nuke tipped AShMs.

 

[_Del_]

For sure they will nuke orbits this is a good way to shot down a lot of satellites in one time with out making tons of debris. The WAR will start in space for sure.

Yes, and no. Nuclear blasts don't travel well in space. There isn't much medium to travel through. So you're not vaporizing a giant number of satellites; space is big.
The main concern of a nuclear ASAT effort is the EMP and the cloud of radiation that gets produced hanging out there a la Starfish Prime. This effect is agnostic. It doesn't care if your own satellites enter the area. It doesn't differentiate between friends and foes. Since we outlawed testing in space, we have a good idea of effects based on earlier tests, but it will be fairly hard to predict the nuclear ASAT resulting radiation (where it gets trapped, how strong, how long) with great accuracy. So you've got to find the use case that doesn't care if you disable your own satellites. Not something you casually lob up there, especially in great numbers.
Detonating a nuke ASAT will probably produce a small effect here on the surface. So it needs to be not near yourself preferably, and detonating an EMP device over another country (even in space) is as close to asking for a nuclear exchange as you can get beyond launching an ICBM

The main result of a nuclear ASAT is a bunch of satellites that get damaged either permanently or temporarily. Including any of yours that happen to travel through the new artificial radiation belt.
Space hardware already has some level of hardening against radiation. There are methods to improve this.
They revised MIL-STD 461 a few years ago, and you can be sure that the new hardware (and quite a few of the older ones) are hardened to the degree possible beyond the spec.

You'd probably get a faster nuclear response/escalation to a single nuclear ASAT attack than you would to a single tactical device in eastern Europe. If that's the game people decide to play, everybody loses.

 

[dark sidius]

Former Space Force Officer Tapped for Air Force Undersecretary

Incoming President Donald Trump announced former Space Force Lt. Col. Matt Lohmeier as his pick to be undersecretary of the Air Force.

www.airandspaceforces.com

A lot in the space direction....

 

[siegecrossbow]

Yes, and no. Nuclear blasts don't travel well in space. There isn't much medium to travel through. So you're not vaporizing a giant number of satellites; space is big.
The main concern of a nuclear ASAT effort is the EMP and the cloud of radiation that gets produced hanging out there a la Starfish Prime. This effect is agnostic. It doesn't care if your own satellites enter the area. It doesn't differentiate between friends and foes. Since we outlawed testing in space, we have a good idea of effects based on earlier tests, but it will be fairly hard to predict the nuclear ASAT resulting radiation (where it gets trapped, how strong, how long) with great accuracy. So you've got to find the use case that doesn't care if you disable your own satellites. Not something you casually lob up there, especially in great numbers.
Detonating a nuke ASAT will probably produce a small effect here on the surface. So it needs to be not near yourself preferably, and detonating an EMP device over another country (even in space) is as close to asking for a nuclear exchange as you can get beyond launching an ICBM

The main result of a nuclear ASAT is a bunch of satellites that get damaged either permanently or temporarily. Including any of yours that happen to travel through the new artificial radiation belt.
Space hardware already has some level of hardening against radiation. There are methods to improve this.
They revised MIL-STD 461 a few years ago, and you can be sure that the new hardware (and quite a few of the older ones) are hardened to the degree possible beyond the spec.

You'd probably get a faster nuclear response/escalation to a single nuclear ASAT attack than you would to a single tactical device in eastern Europe. If that's the game people decide to play, everybody loses.

You can try to direct it in a narrow cone.

Casaba-Howitzer - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[_Del_]

You can try to direct it in a narrow cone.

Casaba-Howitzer - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It's more like a laser for a bunch of the energy (assuming one gets that to work). The operational value of something like that against satellites is not really clear to me. If you're able to get intercept geometry for a targeted satellite, you could do the same with a standard nuclear warhead. It doesn't need to be any more concentrated to zap a satellite. There is no satellite that is going to resist a nearby "normal" nuclear event. If you wanted to make a hole in the moon, something like that might be more useful than a spherical explosion.

Once the energy (electrons in the case of beta particles, for instance) is up there, they get toyed around with the Earth's magnetosphere. The initial blast of energy would be more directed, but the electrons don't just disappear. All the radiation is hanging out afterwards creating problems

 

[ncc81701]

And if your satellite system shut down what are you doing ?

The paradigm shift is a mega constellation like starlink. First there is more than ten thousand satellites when the starlink mega constellations is completed. Knocking a few satellites down will have no practical effect on the constellation.

If you use a nuke and decide to blow a hole in the constellation over a geographical location of earth (say south east Asia), that hole is going to move relative to the ground and within ~15 mins (probably less) or so that area will have coverage again as the hole move out of the geographical location and the next set of working undamaged satellites move in to fill its spot. It will take many nukes to destroy enough satellites to degrade a system like starlink. Even if you put in a sizable hole in the constellation, SpaceX have demonstrated launching 2 batches of 80 new satellites each a week. When Starship comes online it will be 3-4x that amount. This is also why the Space Force has been contracting startups like Firefly and Rocket lab in testing rapid launch capability where the contractors have 1 week or less of notice to launch. Even if the adversary decides to nuke LEO enough to significantly degrade a mega constellation via Kesseler syndrome, because the satellites are at such low orbits the debris will deorbit in a matter of weeks, at most months, and you can put up a new constellation assuming the world hasn’t gone ham and enter a nuclear winter at that point.

The launch capacity of the US (specifically SpaceX) is incomparable to the capacity of any other country. This is why China is trying to copy Falcon 9s and Starships. But realistically they are a decade out from being able to do what SpaceX can do today. This launch capacity is what gives the US the option of relying on mega constellations like starlink for high speed low latency network and datalinks. Mega constellation and huge launch capacity through reusable rockets are US’s ace in the hole.

 

[Grey Havoc]

How Trump’s Air Force pick could elevate space priorities

Troy Meink's specialization in space could upend the priorities of a service typically dominated by Air Force interests.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Josh_TN]

Gonna be interesting with the principle deputy of NRO coming over to be SecAF.

Trump picks NRO official Troy Meink as next Air Force secretary - Breaking Defense

The selection of Meink is likely of interest to top Trump ally Elon Musk, whose SpaceX business will deal directly with the new Air Force secretary.

breakingdefense.com

I think we will see NRO rolled into USSF during this administration. 1/3 of NRO personnel are USAF/SF anyway; it really no longer makes sense to separate the strategic intelligence and tactical intelligence missions.

 

[Josh_TN]

If you use a nuke and decide to blow a hole in the constellation over a geographical location of earth (say south east Asia), that hole is going to move relative to the ground and within ~15 mins (probably less) or so that area will have coverage again as the hole move out of the geographical location and the next set of working undamaged satellites move in to fill its spot. It will take many nukes to destroy enough satellites to degrade a system like starlink. Even if you put in a sizable hole in the constellation, SpaceX have demonstrated launching 2 batches of 80 new satellites each a week. When Starship comes online it will be 3-4x that amount. This is also why the Space Force has been contracting startups like Firefly and Rocket lab in testing rapid launch capability where the contractors have 1 week or less of notice to launch. Even if the adversary decides to nuke LEO enough to significantly degrade a mega constellation via Kesseler syndrome, because the satellites are at such low orbits the debris will deorbit in a matter of weeks, at most months, and you can put up a new constellation assuming the world hasn’t gone ham and enter a nuclear winter at that point.

That’s not how a STARFISH PRIME like event plays out. The initial blast would affect a small number of satellites (relatively), but the ionized radiation would stay in the magnetosphere for some time. Most any satellite in a relatively high inclination will pass through it eventually. Plus I would assume anyone who went this route would hardly stop at just a single nuclear event; I’m sure a number would be used to create an a wide are of lingering ionization that lasted for weeks and affected most of the satellites in a suitably low enough polar orbit.

 

[ncc81701]

That’s not how a STARFISH PRIME like event plays out. The initial blast would affect a small number of satellites (relatively), but the ionized radiation would stay in the magnetosphere for some time. Most any satellite in a relatively high inclination will pass through it eventually. Plus I would assume anyone who went this route would hardly stop at just a single nuclear event; I’m sure a number would be used to create an a wide are of lingering ionization that lasted for weeks and affected most of the satellites in a suitably low enough polar orbit.

But think about that, an aggressor needs to employ a nuclear device in order to disrupt a mega constellation. The concern in the 2010s is that a small number of conventional ASAT weapons can seriously disrupt satellite operations by knocking down a handful of satellites and it would take months maybe years to replace those satellites. This concern makes operating RPVs, CCAs and a bunch of other things over datalinks via satellite a risky proposition.

Mega constellations essentially eliminate conventional ASAT weapons as an effective means of deterrence. If an aggressor wants to disrupt satellite operations, they will now need to consider whether or not they'd risk using a nuclear weapon and incurring a nuclear response. Even if a large portion of the constellation is disrupted, the launch capacity that the US has today means a Mega constellations can be rapidly repaired within weeks/months of the initial disruption after ionized radiation have decayed; a capability that no other country in the world has right now. This is the thing that makes the consideration of CCAs being operated over datalinks at distance from a crewed aircraft viable; and why LGM-35 Sentinel is a critical program for the USAF.

 

[Josh_TN]

I agree large constellations have made KE ground to orbit strikes relatively meaningless. The cost of the interceptor likely exceeds the satellite, and it would take a large number of launchers days to chew through even a couple hundred satellites, assuming you were willing to accept the resulting debris situation (and any retaliation). I suspect non nuclear satellite suppression becomes largely an ECM affair, with the country that can orbit the most platforms likely the winner.

For a select few countries though, a nuclear option likely would be retained and used in a last resort, and likely thousands of satellites would be affected in that case.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The paradigm shift is a mega constellation like starlink. First there is more than ten thousand satellites when the starlink mega constellations is completed. Knocking a few satellites down will have no practical effect on the constellation.

If you use a nuke and decide to blow a hole in the constellation over a geographical location of earth (say south east Asia), that hole is going to move relative to the ground and within ~15 mins (probably less) or so that area will have coverage again as the hole move out of the geographical location and the next set of working undamaged satellites move in to fill its spot. It will take many nukes to destroy enough satellites to degrade a system like starlink. Even if you put in a sizable hole in the constellation, SpaceX have demonstrated launching 2 batches of 80 new satellites each a week. When Starship comes online it will be 3-4x that amount. This is also why the Space Force has been contracting startups like Firefly and Rocket lab in testing rapid launch capability where the contractors have 1 week or less of notice to launch. Even if the adversary decides to nuke LEO enough to significantly degrade a mega constellation via Kesseler syndrome, because the satellites are at such low orbits the debris will deorbit in a matter of weeks, at most months, and you can put up a new constellation assuming the world hasn’t gone ham and enter a nuclear winter at that point.

What that effectively means is that the ASAT user is going to pop enough nukes every ~10min to depopulate that entire orbital.

With the attendant radiation flux buildup.

That’s not how a STARFISH PRIME like event plays out. The initial blast would affect a small number of satellites (relatively), but the ionized radiation would stay in the magnetosphere for some time. Most any satellite in a relatively high inclination will pass through it eventually. Plus I would assume anyone who went this route would hardly stop at just a single nuclear event; I’m sure a number would be used to create an a wide are of lingering ionization that lasted for weeks and affected most of the satellites in a suitably low enough polar orbit.

The more important part is to knock out satellites quickly, so I think you'd see a series of ASAT launches to smoke everything in the immediate orbit, and then let the built-up flux do the rest of the work.

But you've still fired nukes, with all that goes with that act.

I'm pretty sure that "accidentally" nuking the various GPS networks would not make your country very popular.

 

[Byeman]

I think we will see NRO rolled into USSF during this administration. 1/3 of NRO personnel are USAF/SF anyway; it really no longer makes sense to separate the strategic intelligence and tactical intelligence missions.

nope, will stay separate. Still too many secrets for mainstream, especially SIGINT.

 

[Byeman]

Gonna be interesting with the principle deputy of NRO coming over to be SecAF.

Trump picks NRO official Troy Meink as next Air Force secretary - Breaking Defense

The selection of Meink is likely of interest to top Trump ally Elon Musk, whose SpaceX business will deal directly with the new Air Force secretary.

breakingdefense.com

And nothing new. See John L. McLucas, Hans Mark and Edward C. Aldridge Jr.