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Infographic by Sean Parsonsan infrared imaging satellite. “I
showed up there and I didn’t even
know what the parts of a satellite
were,” she says. “I learned as much as
I possibly could as fast as humanly
possible because I was supposed
to be the technical expert.” Once
airmen join the Space Aggressors,
they go through several weeks of
training before they’re ready to take
part in missions. Today, Kohake
can detail not only the many com-
plicated parts of a satellite, but also
explain the orbits in which they
live and why. She’s the rare kind of
technician who can break down the
science for the uninitiated.
Kohake isn’t at the Barn tonight,
but many of her experienced reserv-
ists are. A handful of them are
gathered around the Barn’s bar, per-
haps one of the last informal bars
on Schriever Air Force Base. Some
scoop popcorn out of the movie-theater-style machine behind it. here’s no booze this
evening, though; the Aggressors gathered in the Barn are taking part in a large-scale Air
Force mock battle known as Red Flag.
hroughout the year, the Air Force carries out several weekslong Red Flag exer-
cises. he series of simulated battles largely take place at the Nevada Test and Training
Range at Nellis Air Force Base. Often the United States invites its most trusted allies
to take part in what it calls its Super Bowl. Because air—and land and sea—combat-
ants rely heavily on space-based assets, the Space Aggressors play an important role in
the event. Tonight, the Aggressors in the Barn will work to jam, disrupt, and distort
satellite communications—using tactics U.S. intelligence analysts have determined
our adversaries are likely to try—to confuse the American forces, their “training audi-
ence,” 820 miles away in Nevada. “Hopefully we lose tonight,” Rodriguez says. “When
we lose, America wins.”
When he’s not answering to “Lieutenant Colonel Rodriguez” or “sir,” Anibal
Rodriguez also goes by “Slowpoke,” a nickname he earned during his advanced weap-
ons training. It’s a funny moniker for someone who, as a young man growing up in
Florida, wanted only to be a test pilot lying faster than the speed of sound. “I knew I
needed a technical degree to do that and that Embry-Riddle [Aeronautical Univer-
sity] had one of the largest Air Force ROTC detachments outside of the Air Force
Academy,” Rodriguez says. So he enrolled in the university’s aerospace engineering
program, where he admits he struggled initially. Little wonder. Embry-Riddle has
one of the most challenging aerospace curricula in the country and one of the high-
est tuitions, a cost Rodriguez was footing himself. As a noncitizen—he’d moved to
Florida from Bogotá, Colombia, when he was a teen—he wasn’t eligible for ROTC
scholarship money.
By his junior year at Embry-Riddle, Rodriguez had earned his citizenship and was
close to completing the degree that would help him take the irst steps toward the
cockpit. hen, in his inal months as a student, his nearly 20/20 vision deteriorated—
and with it, his dreams of becoming a pilot. He searched for a new career path, and
the Air Force gave him a choice: intelligence or space and missiles. “I had no idea the
Air Force even did anything in space, but I thought, At least it’s operationally relevant,”
Rodriguez says. About a year after graduation, he was sent to Montana where he spent
four-and-a-half years in an underground silo, watching over intercontinental ballistic
missiles. At the end of his tour, he moved above ground into space operations in Colo-
rado. “I’d joined the military to see the world,” Rodriguez says, “and I’d just spent about
ive years stuck underground.”
In January 2008, he landed at Schriever, which—together with nearby Peterson
Air Force Base—plays an important role in the Air Force’s space operations. As the
headquarters of Air Force Space
Command, Peterson is home
not only to the units that track
deep space objects, but also those
tasked with providing detection
and warnings about ballistic mis-
siles as well as electromagnetic
interference. hirteen miles up the
road, Schriever’s units are respon-
sible for operating and protecting
many of the United States’ deep
space communication satellites
and the constellation of around 30
satellites that provide GPS to the
entire country—including to your
smartphone. It was at Schriever
that Rodriguez irst realized how
fragile and vulnerable GPS, the
underpinning of much of modern
American infrastructure, was. “It’s
not just about the military,” he says.
“In some ways, with GPS, what’s
at stake is a national treasure.”THE U.S. MILITARY LAUNCHED its irst GPS satel-
lite in 1978. he third generation of GPS satellites
are set to begin launching later this year and will
improve GPS accuracy from about 20 feet to about
two. he Air Force opened the network fully to the
public for free in 2000, and today, American society
leans heavily upon GPS, which does a lot more than
just get you from Wash Park to LoHi. Everything
from the stock market to banking to the power grid
is dependent, in some way, upon GPS because of
its precise timing capabilities. In fact, despite the
“positioning” part of the moniker, GPS’ timing
function is arguably the system’s more essential use.
Understanding why requires a rudimentary com-
prehension of how GPS—and satellite orbits in
general—work.
he satellites that make up America’s GPS orbit
roughly 12,000 miles above the Earth, lapping
the planet once every 12 hours in what’s called a
medium Earth orbit, or MEO. his distance gives
the satellites the ability to view a larger swath of the
planet than the lower Earth orbit (LEO, between
about 100 and 1,200 miles above the ground).
here’s also geostationary Earth orbit (GEO),
around 20,000 to 40,000 miles above the Earth,
and the highly elliptical polar orbit known as Mol-
niya, in which satellites essentially slingshot around
the poles, going slower over the North Pole before
whipping around the southern one. hese diferent
orbits are like shipping lanes in space, where satel-
lites with diferent purposes travel. After all, there
are more than 3,000 satellites orbiting Earth right
now, the majority of which are operated by private
groups, not nations. Weather and other imagery
satellites typically hang out in LEO, where they go
around the Earth every 90 to 130 minutes; GNSS’
domain is usually in MEO; and way out in GEO,MEO
LEO
GEO
SHIPPING LANES IN SPACE
Many satellites follow either a low, medium, or geostationary
Earth orbit. GPS satellites can be found in MEO, while many
communication satellites exist in GEO.