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Space The Military Communications Government United States

US Space Force Successfully Launches First Mission (upi.com) 76

Posted by BeauHD from the mission-accomplished dept.
schwit1 shares a report from UPI: The first official mission for the new U.S. Space Force lifted off from Florida at 4:18 p.m. EDT on Thursday into a virtually cloudless sky with a military communications satellite aboard. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket emblazoned with the Space Force chevron logo carried the satellite toward orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Stations Complex 41.

The payload on board is the sixth in a constellation of next-generation satellites known as Advanced Extremely High Frequency or AEHF. The satellite system, developed by Lockheed Martin, has upgraded anti-jamming capability. Northrop Grumman is the manufacturer. The new network provides global coverage for national leaders and tactical warfighters operating on the ground, at sea or in the air, Lockheed said. The anti-jam system also serves international allies such as Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Australia.
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US Space Force Successfully Launches First Mission More

US Space Force Successfully Launches First Mission

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  • Permanently ahead (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moxrespawn ( 6714000 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @03:35AM (#59876828)

    This time, neither China or Russia will escalate to match, leaving us netting out in exactly the same place, except poorer.

    I can feel it. History stops here.

    • Re:Permanently ahead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @08:32AM (#59877294) Journal

      This time, neither China or Russia will escalate to match,

      Russia has had the Space Forces [wikipedia.org] for almost 30 years. IIRC, China had more launches in 2019 than everyone else combined. We're playing catch-up,

      I get that some people like to bitch about anything the president does, whoever he may be that year, but it's not like anyone has recently militarized space more than before. The recent launch was the 6th new communications satellite of 6, part of a larger comms network known as MilStar that's been around forever. The US and USSR have had their military launching stuff into space since early in the Cold War.

      • Who "moved first" (which is always debatable and the very source of the issue) doesn't affect the pattern of continual escalation.

        And my post has nothing to do with specifically Trump. I would respond the same on this whoever was president.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          There is no escalation, is the thing. Just communications satellites and spy satellites (few than the cold war, I think) and GPS.

          • I'm not sure you can tease "dual use" technologies apart for this circumstance. Launch a satellite that gives you even better resolution on all my military deployments? Well, I might double them to make sure in the event of an attack, I can overwhelm the attack. Same thing with U2-type spyplanes, Soviet Eurpose-deployable tank counts, ICBM's, ABM's, sub-launched nukes, "Star Wars" SDI, biological weapons, etc., etc., etc..

            If we had the slightest notion of "turn the other cheek" or even failing that, simp

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by lgw ( 121541 )

              Yes, they're all for military purpose. No they're not an escalation. It's the same sorts of satellites we've been launching for decades, and I don't see a problem with that. I want our military to be superior, after all. What we're not doing is suddenly starting to put nukes in space or launching a bunch of anti-satellite weaponry or anything like that, which would be an escalation.

              • Every enhancement to any capability relating to military capacity is escalation. The countries don't need to be in some imaginary "equality" for that to apply.

                It seems that this is where we fundamentally see things differently.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by lgw ( 121541 )

                  Yes, it seems you fundamentally want the US to have a weak military. Which, hey, if you're posting from China, fair enough.

                  • Okay, irrational guy. Imagine more a propos of nothing.

                    I want a strong country, which involves not letting our infrastructure disintegrate while we spend a few trillion more on moving from 1000x overkill to 10000x overkill, to feed Northrop Grumman an endless stream of unjustified cash.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        The thing I tend to be critical of, at least personally, is not that trump made some grand move towards militarizing space, but that he set up an expensive reorganization for questionable gains. It will get him in the history books (first picture on their wall of presidents), and it will create a bunch of loyalists who know who they owe their promotion to, but ultimately it just created ANOTHER command structure to do things that each branch will just continue to do for themselves anyway.
    • On Time? On Budget? Exceeded expectations? Or launched stuff 8 years out of date? Or is it really all pigs flying? The taxpayer cant afford any more 'successes'.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Nothing real changed here, it's just a branding change to pump the orange ego. I hope Joe changes the name back just to watch him have a twitter fit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z80a ( 971949 )

        I think we're getting another 4 years, and i hope this time the left decide to actually talk to the orange man instead of just trying to wish he was not the president.

    • so there's another satellite, big deal.

      Tell us what we *really* want to know: how many Klingons satellites has it shot downs so far? :)

      hawk

  • is launching the sixth satellite? If ever there was any doubt that Space Force is a pointless penis enlargement for a president desperate to be known for something other than impeachment and incompetence, here it is. Way to go proving that the world would be no different if Space Force didn't exist.

    • The Space Force is pretty much the same as the Air Force. You remember them? Once upon a time, they were the Army Air Corps. Then, after WW2, someone thought it was a good idea to create a new seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and LO! A miracle! We suddenly had an Air Force.

      For a couple-three decades now, we've had the equivalent of the Space Force in existence, as a department of the Air Force.

      What Trump did was, basically, create a new office in the Department of Defense, with its own independent

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        And it was not necessarily a great idea to form the Air Force, because then you had things like interservice rivalry in coordinating strategy for things like nuclear deterrence and even ground support.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jythie ( 914043 )
          Yeah, over the years I've seen a lot of people wondering if creating the parallel structures within the military did more harm than good. It is a very open question.
          • You'd end up with it regardless. It's just a what level do you break it down at. Then there's all those "Joint commands". YMMV.

        • Interservice rivalry is a reason for the Space Force. Everybody had a bit of the pie with the AF having most of it, people screaming about who finds what, and they all had to coordinate. Now they can just go to Space Force.

      • The Space Force is pretty much the same as the Air Force.

        Yes, that's fundamentally my point. They bring nothing new to the table other than an attempt at a legacy.

    • I love it when smug morons like yourself try to talk about things you don't understand. It really shows you lack of intelligence.

      The Space Force had bipartisan support, its biggest champion was a democrat and the idea has been around for 20 years. The reason it was made has to do with the Air Force being content to merely launch GPS satellites and call it done when Russia and China are rapidly expanding their capabilities in Milspace. Congress saw this as negligent on the part of the Air Force and decided t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        Don't you know, Trump is a time traveler. He went back in time and set this all up!

      • I love it when smug morons like yourself try to talk about things you don't understand. It really shows you lack of intelligence.

        That's hilarious given the rest of your post.

        The reason it was made has to do with the Air Force being content to merely launch GPS satellites and call it done when Russia and China are rapidly expanding their capabilities in Milspace.

        So you're saying Space Force is lying and this is the first satellite? Or are you talking out of your arse and this is in fact a perfect example of Space Force doing absolutely nothing differently to what the Air Force was already doing, and slapping a silly logo on an Air Force satellite.

        Congress saw this as negligent on the part of the Air Force and decided to split Milspace off into its own branch.

        Lol. I'm curious. Coffeeshops are closed in Amsterdam so where do you get your weed from?

        • So you're saying Space Force is lying and this is the first satellite? Or are you talking out of your arse and this is in fact a perfect example of Space Force doing absolutely nothing differently to what the Air Force was already doing, and slapping a silly logo on an Air Force satellite.

          What kind of fantasy world do you live in where a new branch of the armed forces can be fully stood up in three months? That's absurd.

          This also isn't the first time its happened. Congress has created a new branch before and understands how long it takes. They have a roadmap in place with regular progress reports Gen Raymond. All of this information has been released publicly. It's not a secret and its all well structure. The Air Force took several months last year actually developing the roadmap for congre

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      To Insanity and Beyond...

  • Here's [youtube.com] one fitting for something like this.

  • Couldn't just use SpaceX or some other rocket? I forgot: Republican live in a dangerous fantasy world.

  • Space needed a good dose of covid-19.

  • Step 1) Spy satellites
    Step 2) Sharks with fricken lasers

  • Space force, making America Great Again one Russian-built RD-180 at a time.

  • Ironically, this ain't the war we are fighting right now.

  • There is a reason the Chinese only have a couple air craft carriers - they understand that AC carriers are obsolete when even a simple kinetic weapon dropped from orbit is all but unstoppable.

    Space is the ultimate high ground. Any moron should be able to understand that.

    • Then why are they throwing money at new carriers? They realize the use of them. We've been able to nuke carriers for several decades a lot cheaper than putting something in orbit, but we keep building them.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by BECoole ( 558920 )

        I wouldn't call 2 new carriers exactly a spending spree. At the rate they are building them, they might catch up with us in 30 years. We have 15 of them. The addition of 2 more like a diversion for them than an actual fighting strategy.

        You don't seem to be familiar with kinetic weapons. You should at least get some cursory information about them. They aren't as useless as you seem to think.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Also, why would you think a simple kinetic weapon from orbit is unstoppable? That kinetic weapon would have to have enough mass that it would show up on the radars, even a ship's radar. Should be able to design a weapon that would take that thing out rather easily. They already demonstrated you can take out ballistic missiles, why should this be any more dangerous? Besides, punching a hole through a ship, unless lucky, probably isn't going to do much beyond making a mess. So now you're talking explosives,

  • "Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) is a series of communications satellites operated by the United States Space Force. They will be used to relay secure communications for the Armed Forces of the United States, the British Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces and the Australian Defence Force. " -wikipedia

    What if your leadership opts out of the $5 zillion dollar secure satellite communications and just uses Sprint pay-as-you-go and hotmail ?

  • ..a satellite they didn't have anygthing to do with on a rocket they had nothing to do with, and since they have only been in charge for a short time a launch hey have very little to do with

    The people organizing are mostly the same ones doing this before, the people actually doing the work are precisely the same ones

    Adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to an existing system, whilst giving them no say in the process is not an achievement

  • Wow. Way to stoke our imaginations, by doing something that nearly every country with a modern infrastructure has already done. Maybe they will launch a new taco stand next. Nothing I love more than a good taco.

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