Void. How to defend space and lunar installations

As US companies venture far from Earth, the question arises Whether or not the US Space Force will have to protect them.

Earlier this month, US-based OrbitFab signed its first deal to provide a “service station in space” that will help satellites and spacecraft move forward after they ran out of fuel they brought into orbit. It’s yet another sign of the infrastructure being built to help companies and countries get back to the moon and beyond.

This fact generates a political debate directly related to serving the Space Force. We’re already starting to see a lot of private industries moving into lunar space and lunar projects. So this gas station, which is now open, is a requirement that you can travel far beyond just the fuel you can take with you. “Think about how limited our flights would be if we could go anywhere with just one tank of gas,” said Leslie Kuhn, director of the Space Foundation. one defense. It allows US interests to advance and other national interests. It also raises the specter that, as US companies expand into space, how will the US Space Force and other nations seek to enhance and expand their defense responsibilities in the same environment? “

There is still no political answer, and the Biden administration is still considering what the United States wants the US military’s role in space to be. Chief of Space Operations Major General. That role is still in the making, said John Raymond, “As the nation moves more and more away, as the world moves more and more off the ground, I think there will be a requirement to be at least, at least so much,” Raymond said at a seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “A definite awareness of controlling that environment.”

Raymond and other military leaders have suggested that space should, in fact, be a top priority for national defense, citing Russia’s recent anti-satellite test that sent a large batch of debris to the International Space Station, and China’s hypersonic launch. A missile that traveled around the world.

US policymakers have not yet decided how to respond, for example, to an attack on an American satellite: “National policy had to respond to this new environment in which we find ourselves in space,” General Stephen Whiting said. space operations command; “Countries are publicly displaying the threats they are building to try to show that they can deprive us of the space capabilities that we have spent many decades developing and that are critical not only to the defense of this country, but also to our society and economy.

In 2020, the Space Force and NASA have agreed to work together to help ensure the safety of spaceflight as NASA prepares to launch the Artemis mission to return to the Moon. The United States is a signatory to the 1967 United Nations treaty banning military activity on the Moon, and China is not.

Tommaso Dal Paso