Posted on 06/27/2021 8:27:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate has released a report detailing how the U.S. military is preparing to develop spacecraft and concepts of operations for missions beyond traditional orbits that could span all the way to the space surrounding the Moon...
The report, titled “A Primer on Cislunar Space,” was written as a guide for military space professionals to help them better understand what cislunar space actually is and how they can better develop operating concepts and relevant capabilities for this relatively new area of operations...
Cislunar space is generally defined as the area between Earth’s atmosphere and the Moon, which orbits the Earth at an average of 238,855 miles away in a slightly elliptical, or oval-shaped orbit. Cislunar space covers some 1,728 times more volume than what is found within one geosynchronous orbit radius, or 1 GEO. As the report notes, expanding from orbits closer to the Earth into this much larger region of space means that military and civilian space agencies have to alter their “intuition and sense of distance and time” and “further expand the volume of space [they] consider when discussing cislunar topics.”
It’s not just trajectory calculations that are vastly different in cislunar space as opposed to in geosynchronous orbit...Because the motions and locations of the Sun, Earth, and Moon create gaps in coverage for both electro-optical (EO) and radiofrequency (RF) sensor systems, AFRL identified the need for a “collaborative network of sensors” to ensure continuous coverage in cislunar space.
To attempt to better understand this space and how to operate within it, AFRL has previously developed spaceflight experiments known as the Cislunar Highway Patrol System, or CHPS, designed to demonstrate “foundational space domain awareness capabilities in the cislunar regime” by testing object detection and tracking in this new frontier....
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
Those idiots can’t even handle what they have. They are too busy studying CRT communism and firing Lohmier.
Somebody is going to have to patrol out to Mars due to SpaceX’s colony. If they build a fueling Station in Mars Orbit, then you can put sensors out past Jupiter to catch inbound objects. Plus, once SpaceX gets a station in Orbit, people are going to the asteroid belts to get shiny rocks.
We are not that far away from having permanent bases off planet. There will be a SpaceX flag on Mars in 5 years, there might be graves around it but it will be there.
Clearly they don’t know their mission.
The government wants more. Film at eleven.
Nobody “needs” to patrol anything.
Musk said he did not want any earth interference in his mars government, and I don’t blame him
Interesting timing with the pending release of the UFO report in July.
” Cislunar space “
As differentiated from Gay Lunar Space, Nonbinary Lunar Space, Queer Lunar Space, I-Only-Get-Aroused-By-My-Pregnant-Cat-and-My-Uncomfortably-Large-Methfreak-Sister-While-I’m-Wearing-Rubber-Pants Lunar Space...
Shielding during transits of Van Allen radiation zones? Same issue for solar flares—how to cope.
Need more sensors near sun looking outbound. Might see some rocks with more notice than 24 hours. Set up around Mercury orbit. In theory, we already know how to build solar pumped lasers gravitationally tethered to the planet as statites.
From what I understood, the real purpose of space force is to try and deal with that gigantic rock that will be here in April 2029
< Musk said he did not want any earth interference in his mars government, and I don’t blame him
china announced their mars exploration plan this past week. imho musk will need to protect his mars project from chinese aggression sooner or later.
Finding and tracking stuff in orbits above LEO and out to GEO is already harder than most laymen (and even some "experts") understand. You have to be looking for objects only a few meters wide (at best) in millions of cubic kilometers of space.
By contrast, a Navy warship with an Aegis Combat System (and SPY-1 radar) has to search only out to ranges of hundreds of kilometers--not tens of thousands of kilometers.
Asteroid 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid more than 1000 feet (over 300 meters) in size that will harmlessly pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029. When it was discovered in 2004, the asteroid caused a stir because initial calculations indicated a small possibility it would impact Earth in 2029.
Its a small one. Even if it seems large to us, large ones begin at 1 mile in diameter, such as the 100 year long rain of comet debris that hit Earth in 10800BC, wiping out the mega fauna, burning off all vegetation in North America, ushering in the last major climate change: the Younger Dryas Event.
transit through the Van Allen Belts is to rapid to cause any damage - see Apollo Program.
Clearly they don’t know their mission.
—
And you do?
Everything of value will be contested for.
There are special, unique points in space that are strategically important. The Lagrangian Points of the Earth/Moon system are among them. I hope Musk is planning to park a few dozen ships at them.
The Oberth Maneuver will be employed to conserve propulsion reserves, thus two transits through the high radiation zones of a planet. This does not consider time spent outside the magnetospheres protective effect.
Earth facing Lunar surface installations, and craft between Earth and Luna will gain some protection over about one-quarter of a Lunar orbit about the Earth. That’s about the extent of Earth’s magnetosphere at an extended distance.
Electromagnetic sail propulsion might alleviate the radiation of charged particles.
They already do, so this is a curious report.
Space is large; that is their mission, in my opinion.
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