The Economist 07Dec2019

The EconomistDecember 7th 2019 79

1

B

y shooting amissile into one of its

own satellites in March, India upped

the ante. The immediate intention, sug-

gests Jeffrey Caton, a retired American air-

force colonel who teaches at the Army War

College, was to fire “a shot across the bow”

of India’s rival China. The Chinese had,

after all, blown up one of their own satel-

lites in 2007, in a similar demonstration of

their ability to do such things. India’s test,

along with the wider profusion of anti-

satellite weapons, has lent credence to the

worries of defence chiefs around the world

who believe that future conflicts between

great powers will stretch into space.

Satellites are too militarily useful to

pretend that adversaries will consider

them off-limits, says William Roper, the air

force’s assistant secretary for technology

and acquisitions. America must therefore

ready itself for warfare in space. America is,

indeed, especially vulnerable. It has more

space assets than any other country and re-

lies on them more for its war-fighting capa-

bility. Moreover, as John Hyten, the vice-

chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff,

eloquently puts it, America’s kit in space

consists mainly of large, “exquisite” satel-

lites that make for “big, fat, juicy targets”.

First responders

One approach to reducing the risk this

poses is to make those targets less fat and

juicy. That is happening, as both civil and

military satellite users shrink their hard-

ware and scatter its functions over multi-

ple pieces of equipment. In particular, peo-

ple are deploying more of the modular

designs known as cubesats. Among other

things, that means individual satellites are

smaller and cheaper, and therefore easier

to stockpile in advance. But for this ap-

proach to be really useful, it must also be

possible to launch them quickly if, for

whatever reason (whether enemy action or

otherwise), an orbiting asset stops working

and needs replacing.

That concept is known as “responsive

space”, and, in today’s outsourced world, it

often means calling on the private sector to

do the actual launching. American officials

are therefore pleased that a firm called

Rocket Lab, whose services they often rely

on for lifting payloads of up to 150kg, has

quickened the tempo of cubesat launches

from its pad in New Zealand to once a

month. Rocket Lab hopes that, by early next

year, it will have improved this rate to once

a fortnight—an objective which will be as-

sisted by its construction of a second

launch pad in Virginia.

Rocket Lab is also a pioneer of the 3d

printing of rocket parts, such as the noz-

zles, valves, pumps and main combustion

chamber of the motor. That reduces the

number of components involved, and

greatly speeds up manufacture and assem-

bly. Rockets being expensive, no one wants

to carry a large inventory of them. Having a

“just in time” approach to launcher avail-

ability is therefore desirable.

Relativity Space, another American

firm, also plans to print its rocket, the Ter-

ran 1. This will carry a payload of 900kg. Its

first orbital launch is scheduled for next

year. Relativity Space’s biggest printers

Warfare in space

Quickening the countdown

Growing fears of conflict in space mean America’s officials are seeking faster

ways to launch satellites

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