Pentagon and NASA break down barriers to joint space projects

Actions by Moscow and Beijing to challenge US space interests with anti-satellite weapons, jamming capabilities and other potentially hostile technologies are driving the changes. According to a series of reports from the Pentagon, the White House National Space Council and industry study groups, these covert systems, often exploited by specially trained forces focused on space domination, threaten to both US military and private assets in orbit. As a result, the Pentagon intends to harness civilian expertise and programs to help gain an advantage in this emerging area of ​​warfare.

The Space Force is at the center of the action. General John Raymond, chief of operations of the nascent military branch, recently unveiled a research partnership with NASA to protect satellites from lasers or cyberattacks. Finally, according to government and industry officials informed on the matter, civil-military cooperation should extend to the defense of NASA’s planned bases on the lunar surface, as well as the protection of US commercial operations planned to extract there. water or minerals.

Entrepreneurs large and small alike are maneuvering to take advantage of opportunities to merge military and non-military technologies. They include established military vendors who already have a foothold in both camps, such as Northrop Grumman Corp.

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, the Dynetic unit of Leidos Holdings Inc.

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and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Elon Musk. Smaller companies such as Maxar Technologies Holdings Inc., tightly-owned robotic lander maker Astrobotic Technology Inc., and small satellite producer Blue Canyon Technologies, recently acquired by Raytheon Technologies Corp.

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, are also seeking to diversify in the same way.

Building on initial NASA and military technology, Northrop Grumman demonstrated the commercial utility of connecting a new propulsion system to an aging satellite with depleted fuel reserves, in order to keep this spacecraft in orbit. beyond its expected lifespan. “We’re very excited to see where this is going” in terms of government acceptance of in-orbit refueling and assembly options, said Tom Wilson, vice president of strategic space systems at Northrop.

“We have a lot of conversations,” he said, “with the Department of Defense, the national security community, and NASA.”

The most dramatic evidence of the evolution of American politics is “to see the barriers collapsing between the civil, military and commercial space in terms of an integrated strategy for our country”, declared Pam Melroy, a former -astronaut and former head of the Pentagon and industry. tank conference in january.

“Things are moving from ideas to actual programs,” said Joel Sercel, a space entrepreneur who previously worked for the Pentagon and NASA.

Industry and government officials have said they expect the trend to accelerate under President Biden, mainly because lawmakers and the military appear strongly behind such an integrated approach in a military arena. contested.

“We now have these potential adversaries who seek to deny our use of space” for military and commercial purposes, General David Thompson, Pentagon vice chief of space operations, said at an industry conference Last year.

When President Dwight Eisenhower established NASA as an independent agency in 1958, he resisted strong military and Congressional pressure to integrate it into the Pentagon, said historian Susan Eisenhower, who has written books on the leadership style of his grandfather. Instead, he “wanted a firewall between them” to allow countries to share science, she said in a conference late last year.

For more than six decades, the U.S. government has followed this principle despite steps taken by Beijing and Moscow to merge military and civilian efforts. The US Astronaut Corps has always included many military officers, some former NASA scientists quietly shared data with their military counterparts, and the now-retired NASA space shuttle fleet was supposed to launch Pentagon satellites. . But today, veteran industry and government experts describe the cooperation as much more extensive, covering burgeoning capabilities such as repairing and reusing satellites in orbit, or moving them with nuclear propulsion. Intelligence agencies are more involved than ever in the exploitation of civil technology, including artificial intelligence, robotic capabilities, and production know-how.

“Yes, we do science and exploration and discovery,” then NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said at a government and industry meeting in September. He emphasized how the Pentagon and NASA are working together. “What I hope people will take away from this discussion,” Bridenstine said, referring to NASA, “is that” we are an instrument of national power.

George Stafford, co-founder of Blue Canyon, sees NASA and the Pentagon using the same common small satellite cores for a range of applications. Military leaders need the knowledge of NASA to accomplish some of their goals. For example, they “have to look to NASA for the expertise they need” to operate near the moon, Stafford said in an interview. “It has to be that kind of relationship,” he added, as “our adversaries are expanding their scope” to try to control the space around the moon.

Steve Cook, vice president of the Dynetics group, considers supercooled fuel orbital transfer, 3D imaging of the moon’s surface, and nuclear propulsion as core technologies covering future military and NASA missions. The political guidelines of the White House and the Space Force, he said, are aimed at leveraging the country’s best technical capabilities to establish human outposts on the moon and, ultimately, project power. American deeper into space. Others see a priority in identifying benign foreign satellites from potential weapons.

Some veteran space experts remain skeptical of how quickly tangible changes will materialize. There are a lot of “very interesting and interesting theoretical arguments” about this interagency teamwork, said Doug Loverro, who has held senior positions at NASA and the Pentagon. “But the world is not here yet.”

For Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Maxar, more mundane goals like assembling telescopes and reusing vehicles in space open up huge possibilities for different parts of the US government. Howard McCurdy, a space historian who teaches at the American University, sees the inevitable blurring of once-clear distinctions between civilian and military initiatives in France, Japan and other countries.

“You’re going to see more dual-use civilian and military technologies” by nations around the world, he said.

Some goals are more ambitious than immediately realistic. NASA and Space Force are ultimately planning joint programs to protect Earth from potentially cataclysmic collisions with asteroids. The Pentagon hired a contractor to design a mini space station to research manufacturing and training in orbit.

Write to Andy Pasztor at [email protected]