“Jay” Raymond, left, chief of space operations, speaks with Brig. In an interview with SpaceNews, Raymond noted that responsive space is far from a new concept, but it is now more achievable because of the technology and business practices introduced by the commercial industry. Space Force, has been a long-time proponent of using commercial systems to speed up the military’s much slower development cycles. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations of the U.S. The name change emphasizes that launch is just one piece of what it takes to accelerate space missions. The Space Force has since renamed the program Tactically Responsive Space, so Victus Nox will be TacRS-3. Northrop Grumman was given 21 days’ notice to get ready to launch a small surveillance satellite to low Earth orbit. The letter to appropriators said, “robust investment in tactically responsive small launch in 2022 will help accelerate this emerging industry’s efforts to lower launch costs.”Īmid congressional pressure to accelerate responsive launch demonstrations, the Space Force, in June 2021, conducted the Tactically Responsive Launch-2 (TacRL-2) mission on a Northrop Grumman air-launched Pegasus XL rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Small-satellite launch companies like Virgin Orbit and Rocket Lab have lobbied for this funding, arguing that the Defense Department should create a program of record with long-term budgets for tactically responsive launch. Meanwhile, the United States is “not currently positioned with an operational capability to rapidly replace assets in orbit that are degraded, disabled, or destroyed or to rapidly launch satellites for urgent new missions,” the letter said. “As vividly demonstrated by Russia’s 2021 destructive anti-satellite test, threats to our critical national security space assets continue to increase, both from adversary on-orbit and terrestrial counter-space capabilities and from space debris,” a bipartisan group of 25 lawmakers wrote in a letter sent in January to appropriators.
For 2023, the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee are proposing $100 million, although the final amount has yet to be negotiated. The idea of responsive space launch has been talked about for years but is now gaining attention due to congressional and industry advocacy, as well as world events that have shown the strategic value of satellites, making them more attractive targets.Ĭongress has criticized the Pentagon for not moving more quickly in this area and, over the past two years, inserted $65 million into the defense budget for tactically responsive spaceflight demonstrations.
20 at the Air & Space Forces Association annual conference.Ī 24-hour call-up is “almost unobtainium right now,” he said. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force’s program executive officer for assured access to space, said Sept. “We need to be able to get to the point where we can go launch a rocket, a mission in 24 hours and get that data flowing,” Brig.
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