A February report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) looked at China’s Digital Silk Road strategy, which includes technology investments, bilateral agreements for research, and funding for students to learn about Chinese technology. The IISS study found that at least 16 countries have signed memorandums of understanding with China on projects related to the Digital Silk Road. The projects range from Chinese technology transfer, China hosting education programs, or launching research programs together with these countries.

Beyond the formal agreements, the study found that Chinese technology infiltrations have been carried out in 137 countries. The governments were willing to entertain collaboration with China under the assumption that changing political winds would lead the U.S. to abandon its pressure campaign to urge countries to eschew Chinese technology. “The decision to exclude or limit the integration of Chinese technology by any of the governments analyzed was based purely on the hypothetical consequences of not doing so for defense and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. and allies,” the report said.

Examples include:

§ China’s Huawei has become embedded in Indonesia’s communications ecosystem, with smartphone users relying heavily on Chinese-designed localized apps. China also has a big role in the country’s AI research efforts.

§ South Korean technology imports to China have been integral to the Sino-U.S. silicon-chip war, and reveal “an intricate, complex and enormously lucrative national asset which the Korean establishment will apparently defend at some cost to the ROK-U.S. relations.”

§ In the United Arab Emirates, Huawei is providing surveillance cameras and facial recognition software to allow the UAE to police its own citizens.

§ In Poland, China poured money into training and education at a dozen Polish universities. Through prize programs, winners received a week of workshops at Huawei headquarters, a second week in Beijing, and a smartphone. IISS also found that Huawei had established an agreement with one major Polish university in June 2020, after the U.S. had ramped up efforts to turn allies away from the Chinese telecom giant and around the same time that Polish leaders learned they had failed to secure a permanent U.S. base in the country.

§ Even Israel, one of the U.S.’s closest security partners, has signed an R&D agreement with Beijing.

Technology Development

A demonstration program for networked, autonomous munitions by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is about to transition into a new phase with the establishment of a permanent virtual and live testing environment. Golden Horde, which harvested autonomous control systems developed under the Gray Wolf cruise missile project, will transition into the Colosseum program.

Instead of demonstrating swarming technologies on existing weapons as Golden Horde did, Colosseum will focus on creating a live virtual and constructive testing and demonstrating environment for the acquisition community.

The Colosseum environment “will be demonstrated by issuing a series of competitions to the research community to deliver component technology for networked, collaborative and autonomous weapons, AFRL indicated in a response to Aviation Week. “These technologies will be integrated, evaluated and progressed through software, hardware in the loop, and in flight-test demonstrations.”

With most global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) using medium Earth orbit, it is much harder for spacecraft at higher altitudes, including geostationary (GEO) and highly elliptical orbits, to use their Earth-facing signals provided by navigation satellites. But with growing activity in cislunar space and lunar orbit, there is growing interest in using the weak and intermittent signals that are available from existing GNSS constellations for positioning and timing.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japanese electronics giant NEC and NEC Space Technology have begun testing a GPS receiver on the first optical data-relay satellite, JDRS-1, launched in November 2020 and now operational in GEO. JAXA says the initial tests confirm stable GPS navigation can be achieved in GEO.

The receiver developed by JAXA and NEC, and being commercialized by NEC Space, enables the acquisition, tracking and decoding of these weak GPS signals. Transmissions from four or more GPS satellites are received and used for positioning and timing.

Sonic Stuff

Pratt & Whitney now confirms it is working on a secretive development program called Metacomet aimed at solving the problem of fielding high-speed, reusable propulsion systems at low cost. The effort, already at least two years old, marks the company’s return to Mach3-plus propulsion nearly a decade after selling its scramjet pioneer Rocketdyne arm to Aerojet in 2012.

With the intellectual property of the former Rocketdyne off limits, PW’s GatorWorks division launched Metacomet to focus on low-cost alternatives to ramjet and scramjet propulsion. The effort draws on the company’s expertise with gas turbine combat engines and in particular reaches back to the unique J58 engine developed for the Mach 3-plus Lockheed SR-71. The engine sustained flight above the Mach cutoff point of a normal turbojet by diverting inlet air from the compressor directly into the afterburner.

The engine marker believes its design approach is simpler and more affordable because it avoids the need for pure ramjet/scramjet cycles, or the complexities of mode transition to and from turbine power.

Metacomet appears to blur the normal distinction between high supersonic and hypersonic regimes with engine configurations that can approach or exceed the arbitrary speed definition of the hypersonic term but fall short of encountering the special aerodynamic and thermal effects at a system level. The work is focused on reusability and a scalable architecture that would be applied to suit varying mission priorities across a matrix of size, payload, range and speeds.

Two days after releasing a solicitation for the Screaming Arrow hypersonic cruise missile, the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research, cancelled the solicitation. An air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile called Screaming Arrow was envisioned to be both aircraft carrier compliant and Boeing F/A-18E/F \Super Hornet compatible.

Screaming Arrow had appeared to form a second option for the capability. The Joint Hypersonics Transition Office also is fudning Boeing to complete a preliminary design review of the HyFly2, a cruise missile demonstrator powered by a dual-combustion ramjet. Both would complement the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile program, which the air force is fudning to equip fighters with scramjet-powered weapons.

Defense Overview

The Lockheed Martin-Aerojet Rocketdyne acquisition proposal, Raytheon’s opposition, China’s rise and the new Biden administration are mixing as good cause for reconsideration of U.S. defense industrial base policy. With defense industry consolidation roaring ahead almost undisturbed despite decades of handwringing, the debate over how large to let big prime contractors get—and how much to let go of the rest of the industrial base— is coming to a head once again.

The bid by Lockheed to acquire Aerojet would eliminate the last major independent missile and rocket-propulsion provider. And it comes amid concerns from Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. John Hyten, about the health of the defense industrial base as a key missile-defense program nears a supplier downselect decision.

There are two levels to this debate. First are the intra-industrial base dynamics of allowing Lockheed, the largest Pentagon contractor by annual sales, to swallow one of its leading suppliers—which also supplies Lockheed’s competitors, in this case for the NGI, Boeing and Raytheon Technologies. Aerojet provides a divert and attitude control system for all three competitors.

While a Lockheed-Aerojet tie-up admittedly would bring near-term savings by cutting fee-on-fee profits, workforces and corporate costs, the long-term costs due to less innovation and competition could be more detrimental and significant. Critics of the deal dispute that a consent agreement for access to Aerojet products— like what Northrop Grumman promised when it bought Aerojet-rival Orbital ATK in 2018—means very much. As an example, Boeing later walked away from the U.S. Air Force's Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent competition, leaving Northrop the sole winner. Finally, as the years wear on and Aerojet melts into Lockheed, no firewalls would stop personnel from moving around internally and sharing the know-how they learned when teaming with Lockheed’s rivals.

Still, this also begs a bigger question: what does the U.S. want in its defense industrial base (DIB) and how does antitrust policy help us get there? If America has entered an era of peer rivals, would it not make sense to ditch quaint antitrust approaches that mostly failed anyway and in turn embrace the benefits of a far smaller but more secure, more state-aligned defense industrial base?

As part of the examination, the House Armed Services Committee has created a bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force to identify and analyze threats and vulnerabilities within the supply chain. The task force is chaired by Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.). Other members include Reps. Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Don Baon (R-Neb.), Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Neb.).

Military Autonomy Tech Advances

With the first flight of the Airpower Teaming System under its belt, Boeing Australia is producing more of the unmanned aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force’s Loyal Wingman demonstration program, the U.S. Force’s Skyborg autonomy initiative and other customers.

The turbofan-powered Aircrew Training System (ATS) made its autonomous first flight from Woomera Range in South Australia on Feb. 27, three years after the concept was unveiled. The second aircraft is complete and in ground testing in Australia, said Shane Arnott, ATS program director.

With completion of the first flight, Australia has awarded Boeing an A$15 million ($11.6 million) contract for three more aircraft for teaming flight tests planned under the next three-year phase of the program. In addition, the Royal Australian Air Force has added an unspecified number of aircraft to the program for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program, which seeks a core autonomy capability that can be transferred across a family of unmanned aircraft.

The first ATS is fitted with a flight-test nose housing instrumentation, Arnott said, and will be used to validate the airframe, flight-control system and expand the flight envelope. But eventually all six RAAF aircraft will be fitted with the mission nose and be used for autonomous teaming flight tests. Additional payloads will be developed under the next phase of the program.

The next phase also includes support systems for the aircraft, including how the aircraft will be based and operators trained. The follow-on phase will then involve more complex flight testing and classified digital trials against future threats.

Skyborg flight testing is set to begin this summer during Orange Flag, a regular exercise hosted by the USAF Flight-Test Center. This will give the Air Force a first look at the Skyborg technology.

In December the lab selected Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. and Kratos Unmanned Systems to develop air vehicles for the program. Each aircraft will share an autonomous control system that will be integrated by Leidos, the Skyborg Design Agent. The algorithms in the control system will teach the aircraft to perform a mission.

Space-Based Defense

The U.S. Space Force is “another week or so away” from releasing its new acquisition and sustainment command blueprint. Space Systems Command is designed as a flat organization where authority is delegated down to the lower levels so that acquisition professionals can make a decision without having to go through the Pentagon for approval, according to Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond. The reorganization grouped similar focus areas into portfolios, which yielded a more enterprise-focused approach compared to the previously stovepiped structure.

Most existing space acquisition organizations, including SMC, will move into Space Systems Command. The Space Rapid Capabilities Office will be under Space Systems Command for administrative purposes but will remain independent. Additionally, Space Systems Command will have a governing authority over the Air Force Research Laboratory’s space programs, and the Space Development Agency is scheduled to transfer from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the Space Force on Oct. 1, 2022.

The new acquisition organization features three new directorates each run by a colonel: precision navigation and timing; space control; and launch and space logistics.

A key piece of the Space Force’s future satellite communications architecture was checked out quietly by tactical operators last September, according to a February statement from a top military official.

The Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW) was demonstrated successfully during the Advanced Battle Management System onramp event No. 2 in late August and early September, said Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center. The waveform delivered messages to tactical users in the presence of “significant jamming,” Thompson said.

The satellite radio being developed under the Protected Tactical Satellite Communications (PTS) program hasn’t been sent into space yet, so it’s likely the PTW was tested from an airborne platform during the onramp event. Northrop Grumman won a $254 million contract in February 2020 to develop the PTS payload with the PTW waveform.

All Things Space

With NASA’s newest Mars rover safely on the ground, the exploration effort has moved to surface operations, including closer examination of a porous-looking rock located at the edge of one of the rover’s wheels. “This is really interesting from a geological perspective,” said deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan. “There are a number of different geologic processes that can make holes in a rock like that, and so the science team is now thinking about what this might mean,” including determining if the rock represents a volcanic or sedimentary origin.

Perseverance’s primary mission is to scout for rocks that may hold fossilized remains of microbes and cache samples to be returned to Earth.

Not surprisingly, NASA awarded Northrop Grumman a sole-source contract worth up to $84.5 million to provide a two-stage ascent vehicle needed to return the samples from the surface of Mars into Mars’ orbit, where they can then be retrieved by a return ship and flown back to Earth. Northrop will provide the propulsion system, supporting equipment and logistics for the Mars Ascent Vehicle. Picking up the sample return capsule is the goal of a companion Earth Return Orbiter mission.

A distant cousin of Perseverance, the Human Lunar Lander is moving closer to reality as NASA reviews updated proposals for the Artemis program. Two of the three companies submitting proposals will be selected for follow-on contracts “within the next few weeks,” said Mark Kirasich, NASA deputy associate administrator.

NASA had hoped to downselect up to two contractors by Feb. 28, but in late January said it would extend the base Human Landing System (HLS) contracts held by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX and delay follow-on Option A awards to allow more time for the evaluations.

The agency also is grappling with an HLS budget for fiscal 2021 that is only 25% of its $3.3-billion request. Artemis is NASA's follow-on human exploration program to the International Space Station, extending human presence from low Earth orbit into deep space, including on and around the Moon and eventually to Mars.

Artemis I and II, slated for 2021 and 2023, are uncrewed and crewed flight tests around the Moon, to be followed by a lunar landing by two U.S. astronauts as early as 2024 on Artemis III.

Artemis’ ride to space experienced yet another delay. NASA delayed the Space Launch System’s hot-fire test planned for late February due to a faulty valve in the system that supplies liquid oxygen to one of the vehicle’s four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines. Once the hot fire is completed, the booster heads to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a prepared launch on the Artemis I mission.

NASA has been working toward the launch of Artemis I in November. The agency and lead SLS contractor Boeing have not yet rescheduled the core stage hot fire. “I think we have a reasonable opportunity to launch this year,” said Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA Headquarters. “We do know there will be some things that occur and take slightly longer than anticipated. We have some time available to deal with some of these uncertainties.”

Meanwhile, Russia intends to speed launch trials for its new Angara rockets. Roscosmos plans to launch a heavy Angara (A5) and two launches of the light Angara 1.2 this year. This will be the third test launch for the heavy Angara that previously flew in 2014 and 2020. The light version will fly for the first time since the initial launch in 2014. All these launches took place from the Plesetsk military spaceport.

Angara has a modular design based on universal rocket modules (URM). Angara 1.2 has one URM-1 first-stage booster and one URM-2 as a second stage. It has a launch mass of 171 tons and can carry up to 3.5 tons to low Earth orbit.

Angara A5 is designed to replace Soviet-era Proton heavy-lift launch vehicles. It has a launch mass of about 773 tons and can deliver 24 tons of payload to low Earth orbit. This version uses four URM-1s as first-stage boosters and another URM-1 as a second stage. The third stage includes one URM-2 and an Energia Briz-M booster.

Launch Updates

Blue Origin: Blue Origin is targeting the fourth quarter of 2022 for the first flight of its reusable orbital New Glenn launch system, a delay of about one year. Blue Origin has invested more than $2.5 billion in facilities and infrastructure in Florida, Washington, Alabama and Texas, including $1 billion to rebuild Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for New Glenn, a two-stage reusable launch system capable of placing about 44 tons into low Earth orbit.

At Launch Complex 36, KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station have been repaving roads, widening turn lanes, moving overhead road signals and lifting up power lines. In the coming weeks, work will begin to move the first-stage simulator down the road and to practice getting it out to the launchpad. LC36 also now sports a 350-ft tall, 750,000-gal. water tower—the world’s tallest water tower. On launch days, the water will be released in about 22 sec. to suppress acoustic vibration and cool the flame deflector and pad base.

Blue Origin’s workforce has grown to more than 3,500 employees. In addition to its Kent, Washington headquarters and Cape Canaveral, Florida manufacturing, test and launch site, the company has facilities in Van Horn, Texas, Hunstville, Alabama and Arlington, Virginia. It also operates an engine test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Boeing: NASA is bumping the re-flight of Boeing’s uncrewed CST-100 Starliner spacecraft until sometime after the arrival of four astronauts aboard SpaceX’s second operational Crew Dragon taxi flight to the International Space Station (ISS). The delay will allow time for technicians to finish replacing and testing avionics boxes following a Feb. 10 power surge at the processing facility at Kennedy Space Center. Further delay resulted from work shutdowns in Houston due to power outages from a severe winter storm.

SpaceX: The full-scale Starship prototype launched March 3 for a high-altitude flight test, to successfully demonstrate ascent, controlled unpowered horizontal descent, engine restart and a dramatic flip-up maneuver for a tail-first landing attempt. The vehicle managed a soft landing, marred by a fire erupting at touchdown, and followed five min. later with the spacecraft bursting into a giant fireball.

Regardless, SpaceX counts the third flight of the full-size Starship test vehicles as a success.

SpaceX is testing 164-ft. tall, 30-ft. diameter prototypes of the reusable upper stage for a deep-space transportation system for crew and cargo. The Starship upper stage also could fly separately as a suborbital point-to-point transport. As currently envisioned, Starship will consist of a 230-ft.-tall "Super Heavy” first stage outfitted with 28-30 Raptor engines to generate more than 15 million lb. of thrust at liftoff—more than twice as much as NASA’s Saturn V Moon rocket. The 164-ft. second stage will use six Raptors. SpaceX estimates the system, which is fully reusable, will be able to deliver about 220,000 lb. of payload into low Earth orbit, more than three times the lift capacity of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.

Rocket Lab: Rocket Lab soon will be able to compete with SpaceX for launching mega-constellations of satellites.

Its new booster, called Neutron, is being designed to carry 8 tons into low Earth orbit, about the lift capacity of a Russian Soyuz rocket or Northrop Grumman’s Antares. The 40-meter Neutron will be built to human-rating standards, although crewed spaceflight is not in Rocket Lab’s immediate plans.

Rocket Lab intends to directly incorporate avionics, flight computers and other technology developed for Electron into Neutron, which is expected to debut in 2024. Rather than battery-powered Rutherford engines, Rocket Lab is developing a new propulsion system—details of which have not yet been shared. Neutron also will be designed for reusability from the start, a technology Rocket Lab is currently evolving for its Electron vehicles.

Ultimately, Rocket Lab envisions a future where it is not just a launch company, or a satellite builder and operator, but a vertically integrated company providing a wide array of space services.

SpaceShipTwo: Virgin Galactic does not expect to resume flight tests of its suborbital passenger vehicle until May due to potential electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues from a new flight-control computer, CEO Michael Colglazier said. The computer was upgraded following an aborted Dec. 12 flight test of Virgin SpaceShip (VSS) Unity from the company’s new base at Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

During that flight, Unity’s hybrid rocket motor halted as it began the ignition sequence. Engineers later determined the shutdown was due to the rocket motor computer losing its connection due to an EMI-triggered reboot.

Following additional modifications, the new flight-control computer will be tested on the ground, both in lab equipment and aboard Unity, prior to the spaceship’s next flight, now targeted for May. Virgin Galactic plans to follow that with two more flight tests this summer, the latter of which will include Virgin founder and CEO Richard Branson as a passenger.

Avio Vega C: After delays due to a launch failure and the COVID-19 crisis, Avio is proceeding with the development of an upgraded version of its light launcher, Vega C, planning on a three-year transition over 2021- 24. Vega C's first launch is scheduled for an unspecified date this year.

Vega C is targeting the market segment for satellites in low Earth orbit, offering 50% greater capacity than its predecessor. Dedicated missions, as well as rideshare flights with a recently inaugurated dispenser, will be offered to both institutional and commercial customers.

Avio is also proceeding with studies on other Vega versions. Vega E, planned for first launch as early as 2025, is aiming at higher performance at lower prices. It will use a liquid oxygen-methane engine, dubbed M10, developed in-house for the upper stage. In parallel, Avio is working on the feasibility of Vega C Light, a derivative capable of carrying a 300-kg payload.

Satellites

Nine hours after SpaceX landed a full-scale Starship prototype, colleagues in Florida launched a Falcon 9 rocket with 60 more satellites for the company’s high-speed internet service system. After checkouts, the Starlinks will fire their ion krypton thrusters and begin climbing to 341-mi.-high orbits, joining a constellation that currently includes more than 1,000 operational spacecraft.

Beta trials of the high-speed internet service are currently underway in the northern U.S., Canada and the UK. When the constellation reaches about 1,500 satellites, expected this year, SpaceX plans to roll out commercial service in the U.S.

Additional tranches of satellites will then be launched into other orbital planes for global coverage, boosting the network to about 4,400 spacecraft. SpaceX currently has authorization from the Federal Communications Commission to operate as many as 12,000 Starlink satellites.

Weather service startup ClimaCell plans to launch and operate a constellation of small satellites in coming years to power its aspiration of becoming the “largest weather enterprise in the world.” The satellites, each the size of a mini-fridge, would offer comparable performance to NASA’s global Precipitation Measurement Mission to measure Earth’s rain and snowfall.

ClimaCell’s system would be operational in 2022, the company said, and represent a 95% reduction in both size and cost from existing, ground-based active scanning radars. More details were not provided. Founded in 2015, ClimaCell began by offering “hyperlocal” weather insight and counts Delta Air Lines, Uber and National Grid among its 1,000-plus customers. Investors and business partners include JetBlue Technology Ventures, SoftBank, the Harvard Innovation Lab and Ford.

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