TECH

Delta IV launch to help detect threats to satellites

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

Update: Liftoff! Delta IV successfully blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 37 at 12:52 a.m. Eastern time on Friday.

For most of the public, space represents a peaceful expanse where astronauts push humanity’s boundaries, science probes explore the solar system and great observatories peer back in time.

U.S. military officials, however, are increasingly worried about the potential for conflict in space.

The Air Force's AFSPC-6 payload, encapsulated inside a 4-meter diameter payload fairing, was mated to a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 37. The mission will deliver the second pair of Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites to near-geo­synchronous orbit. The twin GSSAP spacecraft, built by Orbital ATK, will support U.S. Strategic Command space enhanced awareness operations.

As the nation and its allies have grown more dependent on intelligence, communications and navigation satellites, military leaders fear those spacecraft are vulnerable to attack.

“Space has been, until recently, a ‘sanctuary’ from intentional attack, but that sanctuary status has now eroded or vanished,” reads a National Academies report released this week titled, “National Security Space Defense and Protection.”

A launch early Friday by a Delta IV rocket is part of Air Force efforts to deter any aggressive action against national security and commercial satellites flying high above the globe.

Boeing Starliner access arm installed at Cape Canaveral

The United Launch Alliance rocket is targeting a 12:47 a.m. Friday liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with a second pair of satellites described as providing a “neighborhood watch” more than 22,000 miles up.

Artwork on the 206-foot rocket’s nose cone features an owl alighting on the Latin motto “Videmus Omnia,” or "We see all."

The mission is the second for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, of GSSAP, which Air Force Space Command declassified months before the first pair of spacecraft launched two years ago.

“Geosynchronous” satellites fly 22,300 miles above the equator, where they match the speed of Earth’s rotation and appear to stay in fixed positions over the ground.

Official United Launch Alliance poster for the mission labeled AFSPC-6.

The U.S. maintains satellites worth billions of dollars there that provide early warnings of missile and rocket launches, surveillance and secure communications. Dozens of commercial satellites, some sharing resources with the Department of Defense, also operate in the “GEO belt.”

The satellites launching Friday will join two others patrolling that area. By flying slightly above and below the belt, the spacecraft will circle it at different rates and drift from side to side, affording them up-close views of whatever’s up there.

Those views should be more frequent and detailed than what ground-based telescopes can provide. And if an object of interest is spotted, one of the satellites could adjust its orbit to move in for a closer look.

SpaceX booster back in Port Canaveral

In public remarks last year, Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, said the spacecraft have returned “truly eye-watering” pictures.

But the Air Force has said little else besides disclosing the program’s existence, which it said was done as a deterrent to let potential bad guys know they could be seen.

The Air Force has not detailed what sensors are on the spacecraft built by Orbital ATK, and does not publish their whereabouts.

Brian Weeden, technical advisor at the Secure World Foundation, suspects the U.S. is concerned about the potential for small spacecraft that could move close to a large national security satellite and detonate like a mine.

Artist rendering of two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program spacecraft, which were built by Orbital ATK.

“It could explode or do a range of other things to disable or destroy the satellite,” he said.

There’s been no confirmation that such “space mines” have been developed or deployed.

“But the Soviets certainly thought about it during the Cold War, and there's evidence that the Russians are restarting some of the (anti-satellite) programs that had gone fallow with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s,” he said.

The National Academies report, a public summary of two classified reports requested by Director of National Intelligence and Secretary of Defense, cites efforts by Russia and China to develop "counter-space capabilities" that could disrupt U.S. systems.

The report encourages more open dialogue about potential threats in orbit — including consideration of whether the U.S. should develop systems to attack an adversary's satellites — to inform the public’s “somewhat romanticized vision of activities in space.”

“There is an urgent need to address the increasing threat to vital U.S. space systems,” the report warns.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.

Launch details

Mission: Second Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) launch; officially labeled Air Force Space Command-6, or AFSPC-6

Rocket: United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium+ (4,2)

Launch Time: 12:47 a.m. Friday

Launch Window: Open until 1:52 a.m. Friday 

Launch Complex: 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Weather: 80 percent "go" 

Join floridatoday.com for countdown chat and updates starting at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, including streaming of ULA's launch Webcast starting at 12:27 a.m. Friday.