Pentagon’s New Satellite Constellation Part of Plan to Link Everything on the Battlefield
April 7th, 2020The Pentagon is already planning to use Starlink, Air Force laying groundwork for future military use of commercial megaconstellations:
The Air Force Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation office in December awarded SpaceX a $28 million contract to test over the next three years different ways in which the military might use the company’s Starlink broadband services.
Via: DefenseOne:
The U.S. military’s push to link every object on the battlefield leaped forward Thursday with the release of a request for proposals to build 20 tactical-communications satellites by 2022.
The year-old Space Development Agency, or SDA, hosted an industry day to tell satellite makers about its plans for “transport layer”: essentially, orbiting communications nodes to transfer data related to intelligence, battle management, navigation and timing; and more.
The transport layer won’t replace the military’s existing communications satellites or the commercial ones whose services it rents, SDA director Derek Tournear told reporters. Instead the new layer will focus on “tactical data points that need to be given to a weapon system.” It will ferry very-time-sensitive data from drones, satellites in low Earth orbit, and other sensors. Pentagon officials received $25 million to develop and flight-test the satellites in the 2020 budget, and have asked for just under $100 million in 2021, said Tournear.
If things really escalated, could a few EMP weapons take these down? Or do these satellites have hardened secondary systems ready to go online after they’ve taken down everyone else’s satellites?
On June 26 2021 the first quantum computer went online at 1:04 am. Eleven minutes and 6 seconds later it had connected all terrestrial computers plus Starlink. By daybreak, many power grids were already down. Starlink was commandeering and commanding military movements across the planet. That’s when the situation deteriorated…