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Why Most Moon Rovers *FAIL* This Simple Test

Our Icy Moon

Icy Moon There might be more ice on the Moon than previously thought. A previous study had already proved the existence of water ice on the Moon. However, due to large variations in surface temperature, this was only the case close to the surface in the lunar polar regions. Now, direct measurements taken by India’s Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lunar lander have likely confirmed the existence of ice a few centimeters beneath the satellite’s surface in regions away from the poles, Cosmos Magazine explained. In a new study, researchers analyzed temperatures measured to a depth of about four inches beneath the surface using the ChaSte probe on board the Chandrayaan-3 Vikram. The Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed on the lunar surface at 69 degrees south, the latitude that crosses Antarctica on Earth – a perfect location to study if water ice can exist away from the poles, researchers said. At the landing point – consisting of “a Sun-facing slope angled at six degrees” – the researchers found the highest temperatures to be about 180 degrees Fahrenheit and the lowest about -274 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Barely a meter away from the touching-down point – at a flat surface – the highest temperature was 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Data collected by the lander was used to develop a model of how slope angle can affect temperatures at polar latitudes on the Moon. The team found that if a slope is facing away from the Sun toward the Moon’s nearest pole and at an angle greater than 14 degrees, it might be cold enough for ice to accumulate closer to the surface. High-latitude regions are easier to explore compared to those closer to the poles, and they might be the place to look to find water ice in future long-term, crewed missions that will rely on local sources of water. “Water in liquid form cannot exist on the lunar surface because of (an) ultra-high vacuum,” said lead study author Durga Prasad Karanam in an interview with India’s Economic Times. “Therefore, ice cannot transform into liquid, but would rather sublimate to vapor form.” Karanam suggested that with the current information available, it is unlikely that the Moon had habitable conditions in the past. But Karanam added that more data is needed to develop techniques to extract and use ice for habitability on the Moon. Share this story

The Best Sci-Fi Movie! They found an ancient spaceship! | Adventure, Act...

Spy Satellites And The Ocean

PARCAE images Launch of an Improved PARCAE atop a Titan IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1993 ended in failure. The failure was reported to cost over $800 million, although it is unclear if this cost also included the Titan IV. (credit: Peter Hunter) Fate is in the stars: the PARCAE ocean surveillance satellites by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 31, 2025 On April 30, 1976, an Atlas F rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying a new type of satellite into space. Upon reaching its orbit of approximately 1,050 by 1,150 kilometers, the satellite dispenser ejected three suitcase-sized satellites that deployed solar panels and a boom that used gravity to orient them towards the Earth. They were placed into a triangular cluster separated by 30 to 240 kilometers from each other, and their orbits inclined 63 degrees to the Equator maximized their travel over the Earth’s oceans. The secret codename for the satellite program was PARCAE (pronounced “parsay”), although it also had an unclassified designation, “WHITE CLOUD,” picked because the program manager had been born in White Cloud, Kansas.[1] Together, the satellites and ground processing systems dramatically improved intelligence collection for the United States Navy, providing timely information on the locations of adversary, neutral, and friendly ships around the world. In late 2023, the National Reconnaissance Office, which managed the program, officially declassified the existence of PARCAE, and in recent weeks the NRO has released limited additional information about it.[2] PARCAE was comprised of multiple satellite clusters in different orbits around the Earth. Each PARCAE mission consisted of three satellites, and a full system consisted of three clusters, or nine operational satellites. The satellites, deployment system, and the CLASSIC WIZARD ground stations, were developed by the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. By the 1990s, an Improved PARCAE system was developed. The last of the satellites were launched in 1996, and the program operated until 2008, replaced by something better, but still secret. PARCAE images The PARCAE satellites were based on techniques developed by the Naval Research Laboratory throughout the 1960s and a key technology was precise clocks for determining the time of intercept of signals. First launched in 1976, the PARCAE system ceased operations in 2008. (credit: NRL) POPPY leads the way The Naval Research Laboratory’s first intelligence satellite program was named GRAB. Initiated soon after Sputnik, GRAB (sometimes referred to as “GREB”) was a small ball-shaped satellite equipped with a radar detector. The first successful mission was in summer 1960. As it flew over the Soviet Union, GRAB collected radar signals that it immediately re-transmitted to ground stations on the periphery of the Soviet Union. GRAB revealed that the Soviet Union had many more radars than US intelligence agencies suspected. The program was declassified in 1998. GRAB was revamped in 1962 and became POPPY.[3] POPPY was a multi-satellite system, employing new techniques such as measuring the difference in time that a signal reached one satellite compared to another and using this information to produce better data on the location of the emitter. Eventually POPPY consisted of four satellites launched together. Like GRAB, POPPY was focused on ground-based radars primarily in the Soviet Union. But by the later 1960s, the NRL began exploring using POPPY to locate ships at sea. Until the late stages of the program, it could take weeks or more to process the data: acceptable for fixed radar emitters, but a major impediment to using satellites to track moving targets. POPPY operated until 1977 and was partially declassified in 2004. [4] An official history of American signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites indicates that ocean surveillance became a major mission for the National Reconnaissance Office only a few years after becoming an approved intelligence collection goal. According to a declassified NRO history of signals intelligence satellites: “By 1975 the National Reconnaissance Office SIGINT satellite world consisted of an effective set of complementary space vehicles. The low-orbiting POPPYs were busy searching for new signals and using their elegant relay techniques to provide the Navy especially with up-to-date locations of radar-equipped ships anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Going through a constant evolution from launch to launch, POPPY proved to be the best system for intercepting ship-based radars, which were sometimes only on for a few fleeting moments as the commanders used special tactics to avoid detection. This same main-beam intercept capability was immensely powerful in determining the power and scan properties of any ground-based radar that happened to illuminate the POPPY satellites.”[5] The last POPPY launch, the ninth, took place in 1971. Whereas earlier satellites lasted in orbit for about two years, the POPPY 9 satellites lasted much longer. The program was finally terminated on September 30, 1977. By this time, POPPY had been replaced by PARCAE, designed from the start to hunt ships at sea. PARCAE images A PARCAE ocean surveillance satellite. First launched in 1976, three PARCAEs would fly in a cluster, detecting the radar emissions from ships at sea and geolocating their positions. (credit: NRL) PARCAE enters service The operation and purpose of the PARCAE space segment was consistent with the system’s codename—for just as WHITE CLOUD had not been a random unclassified designation, PARCAE had a hidden meaning as well. In Greek mythology the Parcae were three sisters, daughters of Zeus and Themida. One daughter spins the thread of fate for each mortal, while the second measures out the length of thread for each. Atropos (“the one who may not flee”) cuts the measured thread of life. It was a clever name for a trio of satellites intended to cut short the lives of Soviet warships. PARCAE images Three PARCAE satellites would be carried on a spinning Multi Satellite Dispenser which would deploy two of them, then move to a different position before deploying the third. The deployment sequence was complicated. (credit: NRL) PARCAE utilized a “multiple satellite dispenser” developed by Peter Wilhem and Frederick W. Raymond of NRL. The MSD had deployable thrusters on arms that folded out from the dispenser and spun it up after it was deployed from the Atlas. It was a complicated deployment system involving dozens of discrete events, each posing a single point of failure. The MSD ejected the first two satellites simultaneously while deploying a counterweight to keep spinning while carrying the third satellite to its position and ejecting it to form the triangle. Wilhelm became a legend at NRL, working for 60 years until his retirement in 2015, directing the development of more than 100 satellites.[6] Lee M. Hammarstrom at NRL developed the theoretical concept and was the program system integrator for PARCAE, leading the development of the PARCAE satellite. PARCAE images Three PARCAE satellites were carried on a Multi Satellite Dispenser atop an Atlas rocket. The MSD was responsible for placing them in their proper orbits. (credit: US Air Force) Whereas the existence of both POPPY and its predecessor GRAB remained classified for nearly four decades, PARCAE’s existence leaked to the press years before it was even launched. In August 1971, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that the US Navy was planning an ocean surveillance satellite. On May 10, 1976, the magazine reported that a late April launch of an Atlas F rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base carried the “Navy’s first experimental ocean surveillance satellite,” built by the Naval Research Laboratory under the code name WHITE CLOUD. A follow-up article in June indicated that a rocket had deployed three small sub-satellites into orbit, dispensing them into near-circular 700-mile (1,130-kilometer) orbits. The magazine also reported that each of the sub-satellites was “believed to carry an infrared/millimeter-wave sensor,” which was not correct. PARCAE images The second set of PARCAE satellites was launched in December 1977 on an Atlas F rocket, a converted ICBM. (credit: Peter Hunter) A second set of ocean surveillance satellites was launched on an Atlas F in December 1977 into a similar orbit. By July 1978, Aviation Week reported that there were three satellites in each constellation, dispensed by a carrier vehicle. Each of the satellites was separated from the others by approximately 27 miles (43 kilometers) and was capable of detecting signals from a ship’s radar up to 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away. According to the magazine, whereas the first two sets of satellites had been manufactured by NRL, production of the satellites had been turned over to Martin Marietta “under direction of USAF’s Space and Missile Systems Organization, with technical assistance provided by the Naval Research Laboratory.” The magazine scored another coup on May 24, 1976, when the editors published a line drawing of the satellite. The three individual satellites deployed long gravity gradient booms to correctly orient them towards the Earth. That technology had been developed for POPPY. On PARCAE it was possible that the satellites might orient themselves upside-down, with their boom pointing at the Earth and antennas pointed at the sky. If this happened, ground controllers pulled in the boom until the satellites rotated to the proper orientation and then re-deployed it. The satellites were equipped with highly precise, synchronized clocks, which NRL had also developed for navigation satellites, forming the basis for the GPS system. Tiny differences in time when each PARCAE satellite received the radar signals were used to triangulate the ship’s location.[7] The early PARCAE satellites were launched on converted Atlas ICBMs, which saved money at first, but eventually proved costly. An Atlas F successfully placed the third PARCAE cluster in orbit in March 1980, making the system operational. But a December 1980 launch of an Atlas F with three of the satellites ended in failure. The NRO began development of the Atlas H rocket, which was essentially the Atlas launch vehicle (not a converted ICBM) but with NRL’s Multiple Satellite Dispenser on top instead of a Centaur second stage. Atlas H was used to launch more PARCAE satellites in February and June 1983, February 1984, February 1986, and May 1987. But by the 1980s, the NRO had already begun work on a much-improved PARCAE that would require an even bigger launch vehicle. PARCAE images The Living Plume Shield (LIPS) was a communications system fitted to the plume shield mounted to the Multi Satellite Dispenser. It was used for relaying intelligence information to ships at sea. (credit: NRL) Adding a new mission: LIPS In the early 1980s, NRL engineers came up with an innovative solution to make use of part of the spacecraft that was normally thrown away. To protect the PARCAE satellites from the exhaust of the satellite dispenser while they were maneuvered to their final orbits, the spacecraft was equipped with a plume shield. This was then discarded after the mission. Pete Wilhelm proposed fitting it with a communications system and calling it LIPS, for Living Plume Shield. The engineers were given only six months to develop a flight version.[8] The initial LIPS proposal appears to have been intended as a proof of concept, to demonstrate that a ship at sea could receive a signal from a satellite in a highly inclined orbit traveling in the far north. The longer-term goal was to establish a communications system for sending secure data from multiple sources through a “bent pipe” that would send that data down to users at sea or deployed in the field. LIPS-1 was launched with the primary PARCAE payload in December 1980, but the launch failed and none of the payloads reached orbit. LIPS-2 reached orbit in February 1983, and LIPS-3 was carried in May 1987.[9] PARCAE images The LIPS payload, which was deployed off the back of the Multi Satellite Dispenser, used a gravity gradient stabilization system. The boom unfolded from the disc-shaped MSD plume shield, making it look like a lollipop in orbit. (credit: NRL) Exactly how LIPS was used is still unclear. PARCAE’s signals apparently had to be processed on the ground before being relayed to users, and LIPS may have been used to transmit the processed signals. But LIPS may have also been intended for the relay of signals directly from the PARCAE satellites to users. In 1984, LIPS-2 relayed data to a Spruance-class destroyer and later to the aircraft carrier USS Midway. The successful test made Navy leadership more interested in the tactical use of satellite intelligence data and LIPS-2 was designated as an operational tactical data relay system, serving for eight years.[10] LIPS was more than simply a relay system. The NRL led the development of a specialized broadcast format that became known as TADIXS-B (Tactical Data Information Exchange Subsystem B). TADIXS-B not only utilized the LIPS payloads but was also used on FLTSAT (“Fleetsat”) communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit. When fully operational, the system enabled any user with the proper terminal to receive electronic intelligence intercepts. By the early to mid-1990s, the system was further modified to become the Integrated Broadcast System.[11] The development of LIPS and TADIXS-B and the specialized terminals for receiving the information emphasizes that the development of many systems and techniques were necessary for fully using the data. The satellites launched atop Atlas rockets were simply one part. CLASSIC WIZARD Although the National Reconnaissance Office and the Naval Research Laboratory have only released a limited amount of information about the PARCAE program and the satellites, they have released substantial amounts of information on other programs that help provide a better picture of PARCAE. The satellites were not covered with dishes or large antennas, and some information on the previous POPPY system indicates that they primarily intercepted the “main beams” of radars, not the fainter “side lobes” that fanned far out from either side of radar emitters. Intercepting the side lobes required dishes that could collect more and fainter signals. This also tended to limit the utility of PARCAE—it was optimized for locating and tracking ships at sea, not for identifying new and unique radar signals. Other satellites, with names like RAQUEL and FARRAH, which had dishes and other antennas, were used for that purpose. Simultaneous detection of signals from different kinds of emitters from a single location made it possible to identify the class of ship doing the emitting and even the specific ship. This hull-to-emitter correlation was known as HULTEC.[12] PARCAE images A vandalized mural from the former Classic Wizard ground station in Adak, Alaska. Note the three crystal balls symbolizing satellite radomes as well as the three PARCAE satellites. The ground stations for PARCAE were all operated by the Naval Security Group Command, which had also operated the POPPY ground stations. They were located both in the United States and overseas.[13] Domestic sites had been established in Adak, Alaska, and Winter Harbor, Maine. In the Pacific, a Guam station was also part of the CLASSIC WIZARD network. Two further stations were established with the cooperation of the United Kingdom, one in Edzell, Scotland, and the other on Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory. Diego Garcia was the only station in the southern hemisphere, although it was still relatively close to the Equator. Data received at the stations could then be quickly transmitted to regional ocean surveillance centers and then, via satellite, to a main downlink at Blossom Point, Maryland.[14] The CLASSIC WIZARD ground stations were mostly located in the northern hemisphere, and the PARCAE satellites, at least initially, apparently did not have a record and playback capability, meaning that they could not provide timely data of any vessels detected in the southern hemisphere. For this reason, PARCAE was not useful for detecting Argentine warships during the 1982 Falklands War, although another satellite named RAQUEL 1A was used for this purpose.[15] According to several accounts of American naval intelligence, the US Navy’s ocean surveillance capabilities improved substantially during the 1970s, and satellites were a key part of that. Desmond Ball and Richard Tanger, in their 2015 essay “The Tools of Owatatsumi: Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities,” noted that a major US Navy satellite ground station was built in Japan in the early 1970s, speculating that it was connected to the new Navy Ocean Surveillance System, or NOSS. This was not a CLASSIC WIZARD station, although it may have received data collected by the PARCAE satellites and transmitted through other communications satellites as part of TADIXS-B. Sensor-to-Shooter via Outlaw Shark The PARCAE spacecraft launched in the latter half of the 1970s and into the 1980s would help monitor the extensive Soviet naval presence outside home waters. By 1983, Soviet deployments reached a record high of almost 60,000 ship-days, which was five percent higher than the previous peak.[16] But in addition to greater time at sea, the Soviets were also operating newer and more capable warships, like the nuclear-powered Kirov and a class of small aircraft carriers equipped with anti-ship missiles. The massive Oscar-class nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines, which began entering service in the early 1980s, were expressly developed to launch large missile salvoes at American aircraft carriers. A 1981 CIA report stated that between 1960 and 1970, the Soviet Union began construction of eight different classes of major surface combatants. By late 1980, 17 ships of eight different classes of major surface combatants were either under construction or fitting out at Soviet naval shipyards. These included guided missile frigates, guided missile vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered cruisers like the Kirov, guided missile cruisers like the Slava class, destroyers and a new type of frigate. The Soviet Union was increasing its numbers of surface combatants and submarines, and operating them farther from the motherland, increasing the demand for better ocean surveillance for the US Navy.[17] Whereas the early years of the PARCAE satellites gave the US Navy the ability to track Soviet warships on the open ocean, by the 1980s, the goal became to use the satellites to enable the Navy to directly target ships with weapons. The 2010 NRL book From the Sea to the Stars:A Chronicle of the U.S. Navy's Space and Space-related Activities, 1944-2009 described how the US Navy in the early 1980s sought to integrate satellites directly into their warfighting. According to the book, the Naval Ocean Surveillance Information Center (NOSIC) located at Suitland, Maryland, gathered and correlated intelligence information from all sources that would be useful to the fleet. Shore-based Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Centers or Facilities were located in each theater where naval forces operated. Information collected at these locations was then transmitted as classified messages to submarines, surface ships, and aircraft. By 1983, the US Navy was facing a dilemma because its Harpoon and Tomahawk anti-ship missiles could reach beyond the sensor range of their launching ships. At the time, the PARCAE satellites were providing data to Regional Reporting Centers (RRCs), which then sent it to ships at sea as messages known as SELORs, for Ships Emitter Locating Reports. Early in the PARCAE program, the locations of potentially hostile ships were plotted on naval charts with pencils. Ed Mashman, a contracted engineer who worked on PARCAE, said that in the early years, “Much of the data that had been coming in from CLASSIC WIZARD just went into the burn bag, because they could not keep up with the high volume.”[18] The Navy sought to use the satellite data much more directly, sending it straight to shipboard computer systems. Although the details remain classified, the Navy soon adopted a new approach called the “sensor-to-shooter” concept. Instead of the PARCAE satellite data being sent to the RRCs and then to the ships, the information would be made automatically available to the weapons control stations in ships, subs, and aircraft. Navy ships and aircraft were already exchanging tactical data in near-real-time. This approach meant that more data could be delivered in useable form. The data would also go to the intelligence nodes on land to be combined with other intelligence data.[19] This new concept required that the satellite systems collect, process, and automatically report the information. The initial plan was that space-based radar would be an additional component, but this was never developed. Captain Arthur “Art” Collier was the NRO program manager for PARCAE for six years. According to Collier, the “intercept-to-report” period had to be less than the time it took to fry an egg.[20] The new approach required direct communications from satellites to the ships and aircraft via communications satellites. This was implemented as the Tactical Data Information Exchange System-Broadcast (TADIXS-B). It was later replaced by the Tactical Receive Equipment (TRE) and Related Applications (TRAP) Broadcast. Eventually this evolved into the Integrated Broadcast Service Simplex (IBS-S). The Ships Emitter Locating Report “evolved from crude teletype printouts derived from raw intercept data to more user-friendly forms such as automatically displayed maps.”[21] Initially, prototype terminals known as Outlaw Shark were developed, but eventually this capability was incorporated into standard shipboard equipment upgrades. The Prototype Ocean Surveillance Terminal (POST) was also a stand-alone display system.[22] Some participants came to think of the satellites as “orbiting peripherals,” or simply “the beginning of a complex system of complex systems.”[23] One problem with understanding PARCAE based upon the limited information released about it is that the satellites are floating in a sea of acronyms of all the associated processing and communications systems. As the official NRL history From the Sea to the Stars has noted, this was more than just new equipment, it also required “revolutionary changes in the cultural traditions of professional communities. The fleet warfighters would have to learn to work with the satellite-generated contact reports—on occasions and under conditions selectable by individual users—as ‘tactical data’ rather than as ‘intelligence’ reports. Conversely, the national and naval intelligence communities would have to accept that, in many cases, timeliness of reporting can be more critical to tactical operators than information value added by evaluation prior to reporting. Moreover, the intelligence communities would have to recognize that Navy operators routinely evaluate tactical-data reports received, correlating these reports with information from organic sensor systems and other sources locally available.” Ships at sea had their own radars and sonars and data networks for precisely locating hostile threats, and the satellite data was one more input, albeit one that could cover huge areas of the ocean. PARCAE images The Shuttle Launch Dispenser at bottom was designed to carry three Improved PARCAE satellites to their operational orbits. It would be mounted to a large barrel that would swing the payloads out of the shuttle bay. The shuttle's tail would be located at the top of this photo. The 1986 Challenger accident led to Improved PARCAE being moved to the Titan IV rocket, and the SLD was redesigned as the Titan Launch Dispenser. (credit: NRL) Improved PARCAE Even as PARCAE was switching from the Atlas F to the Atlas H in the early 1980s, the NRL began development of an Improved PARCAE system intended for launch aboard the Space Shuttle. The new satellites were to take advantage of the shuttle’s greater lifting capability. Although no details have been declassified yet, according to somebody who worked on the program, they were squat cylinders, “tuna-can” shaped. They would be mounted atop the Shuttle Launch Dispenser, or SLD. The SLD apparently had propulsion engines mounted to the ends of two deployable arms that folded out horizontally from the satellite body and used bipropellant fuel and oxidizer. Based upon the design, it was spin-stabilized. Inside the shuttle bay, the SLD and its three satellites would be mounted atop a large barrel structure that was apparently necessary to maintain the center of gravity in launch configuration so that the heavy payload was located near the center of the shuttle’s payload bay. The combination of SLD and three satellites was the largest spacecraft the NRL had ever built, too big to fit in its test facilities. To test the balance of the system and simulate how fuel would slosh about in the tanks, NRL engineers built a sub-scale model of the barrel, SLD and satellites. The Improved PARCAE satellites were to be co-manifested with Advanced FARRAH signals intelligence satellites that were managed by the NRO’s Air Force Special Projects office in Los Angeles. The FARRAH I and II satellites were launched in the early 1980s and were box-like. They too were also enlarged to tuna-can shapes when the program was transitioned to the shuttle. To launch both the Improved PARCAE triplets and the FARRAH satellites in a single shuttle launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base required upgrades to the basic shuttle design. A lightweight external tank and filament-wound solid rocket boosters (SRBs) would increase the shuttle’s lifting capabilities. But the head of the program that included the FARRAH satellites realized that these improvements were unlikely to be funded in time for the first launch, if at all, and that his satellite would be short-changed. He arranged to launch FARRAHs III-V on refurbished Titan II ICBMs.[24] It is possible that after the FARRAH was removed from the shuttle, this required NRL to add the barrel below the SLD and satellites. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in early 1986 led to the Air Force deciding to cancel the West Coast shuttle launch capability. This also forced the Improved PARCAE program off the shuttle. Because PARCAE was too heavy to launch on the Titan II, it had to use the more powerful, and much more expensive Titan IV rocket. It was the second time that a launch vehicle problem for PARCAE had proved costly to the NRO. PARCAE images The Titan Launch Dispenser was developed from the Shuttle Launch Dispenser after the Improved PARCAE was moved off the shuttle after the Challenger accident. A key difference was that the arms that held the propulsion engines folded down vertically on the TLD, vs horizontally on the SLD. (credit: NRL) The launch dispenser that NRL designed for the shuttle had to be redesigned for the Titan IV. Like the MSD developed for the earlier Atlas-launched PARCAE satellites, it too had deployable arms with thrusters on the end for spinning up the satellite stack. For the SLD version, the arms folded out horizontally. For the Titan IV version (designated the TLD), they folded out vertically. In addition to detecting radar signals, the Improved PARCAE added collection and recognition of selected foreign communications systems. The data was provided to, processed, and reported by the National Security Agency.[25] Although other details remain classified, the satellites almost certainly were designed to have longer lifetimes than their predecessors, probably five to seven years. The first launch of an Improved PARCAE satellite constellation atop a Titan IV rocket took place in June 1990 from Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. The second launch was in November 1991, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The third launch, in August 1993, also from Vandenberg, ended in failure when the rocket did not achieve orbital velocity. According to a New York Times article, this failure cost the National Reconnaissance Office over $800 million and was particularly aggravating to members of Congress who had just cut $700 million from the intelligence community budget. In their view, the loss of the ocean reconnaissance satellites wiped out their cost cutting. However, the NRO was already procuring a new set of Improved PARCAE satellites.[26] PARCAE images The first launch of an Improved PARCAE satellite in 1990 from Florida atop a Titan IV rocket. (credit: Peter Hunter) The fourth and final Improved PARCAE launch took place in May 1996. The satellites, like their predecessors, were placed into orbits of approximately 1,071 by 1,046 kilometers at 64.3 degrees inclination. The 1996 launch included a new On-Board Processor (OBP) that “provided real-time situational awareness information to military units located throughout the world.” It achieved this by enabling the receipt of the data by Navy, Army, and Air Force terminals—apparently without going through a ground station first. According to one Navy officer, “The satellites were so prolific in the amount of data they gathered that the fleet just wouldn’t be able to handle it,” without augmenting the system with new tools that could process and parse the data into actionable information.[27] Up until that point, there was so much information coming in from the satellites that it was starting to overwhelm the users. The new system was necessary to make it manageable and useful. As the Navy put this capability into the fleet in the form of smaller, appliance-sized electronics racks, it attracted the interests of other potential users. The Navy then began working on smaller and more rugged units that could be installed in aircraft.[28] Although details on OBP remain limited, there is sufficient information on the operations of the FARRAH low Earth orbit signals intelligence satellites to make it possible to speculate about the incorporation of OBP into the 1996 Improved PARCAE as well as later systems. FARRAH and several of its predecessors had a “direct downlink” capability that involved processing data onboard the satellite and then downlinking it to smaller, mobile “tactical” terminals operated by the Army and Air Force, as well as terminals on some US Navy warships (illustrations depict aircraft carriers, which often served as fleet flagships.) For FARRAH, that data was coming from only a single satellite. This capability may not have been available for much of PARCAE’s lifetime because a key aspect of PARCAE’s operation involved the processing and integration of signals from multiple satellites, possibly requiring multiple ground-based dishes and substantial computer power, which were beyond the capabilities of relatively simple, mobile terminals. According to one person who was involved in the negotiations with the NRO in the late 1980s about merging the ocean surveillance and low Earth orbit signals intelligence systems, a senior Army official insisted that direct downlink be included in any merged system or the Army would not support it. The OBP that flew on the last Improved PARCAE was probably the prototype for this capability for future systems. PARCAE images Patches showing the PARCAE satellites. These existed before the program was declassified in 2023. (credit: JB) TALON TOUCH/SLDCOM The larger launch dispenser required to put Improved PARCAE satellites into orbit enabled NRL engineers to develop a new capability called Satellite Launch Dispenser Communications, or SLDCOM, which had the unclassified designation of TALON TOUCH. This was an evolution of the LIPS payload that was added to PARCAE after the first several launches. The TALON TOUCH mission was apparently initially experimental and intended to provide secure transmission of intelligence products to high-latitude regions beyond the line of sight of geosynchronous communications satellites. NRL developed SLDCOM for the Navy Space and Warfare Command (SPAWAR). It consisted of a communications payload attached to each Satellite Launch Dispenser. A normal constellation consisted of three satellites placed into higher orbits of 1,100 by 9,000 kilometers with a period of four hours. Users could expect four passes from most sites each day, with each pass being as high as 110 minutes. Uplink frequencies were 345–355 megahertz, and downlink frequencies were 250–258 megahertz. The transmission modes included digital data and FM voice, as well as multisignal and spread spectrum. SLDCOM I had a single channel UHF transponder similar to the Navy’s Fleetsat communications satellites. SLDCOM IV was planned to have a dual channel UHF transponder, but with one channel enhanced with on-board processing store and forward. PARCAE images The Soviet heavy guided missile cruiser Kirov imaged by a US reconnaissance satellite in 1980. The Kirov was designed to attack US Navy aircraft carriers. PARCAE and other systems were used to track Soviet ships like the Kirov. (credit: Henry Stranger) Declining threats, satellite consolidation Thirteen PARCAE missions launched from 1976 until 1996, including failures in December 1980 and August 1993. The last PARCAE launch was in 1996. The satellites continued to operate until 2008.[19] By this time, the Soviet Union had dissolved and the Cold War ended. The former Soviet Navy fell into disarray: some ships such as the powerful Kirov and Slava cruisers were stuck at pierside for much of the 1990s. One Slava-class cruiser, Ukrayina, was launched in 1990 in Ukraine and sat unfinished at dockside, where it continues to rust away to this day. (Another one, Moskva, was later sunk in the Black Sea in 2022.) Naval deployments of Russian ships and submarines decreased to the point where they were almost nonexistent. The US Navy had far fewer adversaries to track.[30] The underwater SOSUS sonar listening arrays were decommissioned. The satellites, however, continued to fly. By the early 1990s, the separate Improved PARCAE ocean surveillance and FARRAH electronic intelligence low Earth orbiting satellites were merged into a new program. The details of that program remain classified, although independent observers have noted multiple launches over the past decades, and clusters of only two satellites rather than PARCAE’s three.[31] Changes in the satellites probably coincided with a new Improved Ocean Surveillance System, which From the Sea to the Stars described as “the first U.S. satellite surveillance system specifically designed for the tactical requirements of Navy and other users.” The IOSS provided “surveillance and processing of contacts everywhere in the world, reported automatically to all U.S. users, routinely, without the need to be specifically tasked (compared to the "intelligence" and "reconnaissance" systems that are focused on geographic areas based on detailed requests and tasking for collection and reporting).” It also included “all friendly, neutral, unknown, and potentially hostile contacts (compared to only the "hostile and potentially hostile" targets that comprise the defined charter of the Intelligence Community).” Ship commanders needed to know the presence and movements of all ships in an operating area to differentiate between hostiles, neutrals, and friendlies. Data had to be updated frequently, and it also had to be provided at a classification level that could be processed by the Navy and its tactical-data systems, since not everybody who used the data would have a top secret clearance or a need to know that the data was coming from satellites. Finally, the data had to be presented in a format so that each tactical user could manipulate it based upon their own needs and local conditions. As the threat evolved and changed, the NRO and NRL worked to provide new products that could take the intelligence data and provide it in a form that was useful and current. For instance, a new system was developed to aid in the tracking of pirates in areas where they increasingly attacked commercial shipping. [32] For over half a century, the United States has fielded increasingly capable systems for surveilling the oceans, bringing the data they collect directly down to the captains of the ships that most need it, and into the electronic brains of the missiles they fire. References “Navy Ocean Surveillance Satellite Depicted,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, May 24, 1976, p. 22; “Expanded Ocean Surveillance Effort Set,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 10, 1978, pp. 22-23; Mark Hewish, “Satellites Show Their Warlike Face,” New Scientist, October 1, 1981, pp. 36-40. Ivan Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War,” IEEE Spectrum, February, 2025; National Reconnaissance Office Release #9-23, “NRO declassifies early ELINT satellite program, Announcement at Naval Research Lab Centennial celebrates historic partnership, September 28, 2023; National Reconnaissance Office, “America’s Ears in Space,” September 2023. Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” Ibid. National Reconnaissance Office, “The SIGINT Satellite Story,” 1994, p. 255. Dwayne A. Day, “Above the clouds: the White Cloud Ocean surveillance satellites,” The Space Review, April 13, 2009; D.G. King-Hele, J.A. Pilkington, H. Hiller and D.M.C. Walker, The R.A.E. Table of Earth Satellites, 1957-1980 (New York: Facts on File, 1981), p. 444. Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” Ibid. Ivan Amato, Taking Technology Higher – The Naval Center for Space Technology and the Making of the Space Age, Naval Research Laboratory, 2022, pp. 108-110. Amato, Taking Technology Higher, p. 313. Ibid., p. 314. Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” Ibid. Paul Stares, Space and National Security (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 188. Ibid. Central Intelligence Agency, Soviet Naval Activity Outside Home Waters During 1983, August 1984, p. 1, CREST. “STATUS OF SOVIET CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS FOR MAJOR SURFACE COMBATANTS, DECEMBER 1980,” February 1, 1981, CIA-RDP81T00380R000100500001-7 Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. The Applied Research Laboratory and The Pennsylvania State University, From the Sea to the Stars: A Chronicle of the U.S. Navy’s Space and Space-Related Activities, 1944-2009, 2010, p. 128 Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” In 1993, three additional Titan II rockets that had been assigned to “classified payloads” were made available for other programs. It is likely that these three were originally allocated to FARRAHs VI-VIII. See Jeffrey Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, 4th Ed. 1999, pp. 195-186. C.J. Scolese, Director, National Reconnaissance Office, Memorandum for Director of National Intelligence Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, “Limited Declassification of PARCAE as a Signals Collection Satellite,” July 25, 2023. Tim Weiner, “Titan Lost Payload: Spy-Satellite System Worth $800 Million,” The New York Times, August 4, 1994, p. 1. Amato, Taking Technology Higher, p. 314. Ibid., p. 315. Amato, “A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War.” Innovations and Innovators of the National Reconnaissance Office, 1961-2021, National Reconnaissance Office, 2023, p. 82. See Jeffrey Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, 4th Ed. 1999, pp. 195-186. Amato, Taking Technology Higher, p. 314; Innovations and Innovators of the National Reconnaissance Office, 1961-2021, p. 82. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net. Note: we are now moderating comments. 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The European Launch Challenge

Spectrum liftoff Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum lifts off on its inaugural flight March 30. (credit: Brady Kenniston/Isar Aerospace) Europe’s launch challenge by Jeff Foust Monday, March 31, 2025 On Sunday at 12:30pm local time, a rocket lifted off from a seaside pad called Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway into blue skies. With a snow-covered mountain in the background, the Spectrum rocket developed by Isar Aerospace slowly ascended. The launch appeared to be going well enough one could take a second to appreciate a scenic view far different than Cape Canaveral or Baikonur. So far, so good. “We never expected that we would get to orbit,” Metzler said. “We set out to gather data primarily, and that is something that we have successfully achieved.” But as is often the case with first launches of new rockets, things did not stay good for long. About 25 seconds after liftoff (the clock on the company’s webcast having inexplicably frozen at T+18 seconds), the rocket began to sway, just after the webcast host said the vehicle was performing a planned pitchover maneuver to gain speed as well as altitude. Several seconds later, the vehicle had pitched over, turning 90 degrees and more, its engines appearing to extinguish. The webcast cut away from the dying rocket, but the audio remained live: about 10 seconds later, viewers could hear, but not see, an explosion. Spectrum failed to reach orbit, but Isar Aerospace spun the launch as a success nonetheless, saying it became “the first European commercial space company to launch an orbital rocket from Continental Europe.” The launch was a test flight only, with no satellite payloads on board and a goal to simply collect as much flight data as possible. “We never expected that we would get to orbit,” Daniel Metzler, CEO of Munich-based Isar, said in a call with reporters about four hours after the launch. “We set out to gather data primarily, and that is something that we have successfully achieved. We gathered tons of data, terabytes of data, that we can now analyze.” Neither he nor Alexandre Dalloneau, the company’s vice president of mission and launch operations, offered any details about what might have gone wrong with the launch, saying they needed to go through the voluminous data first. They did state that the rocket’s flight termination system, which shuts down the engines, worked as planned, allowing the rocket to fall into waters near the pad without any damage to the pad itself (a better outcome than some other first flights of new rockets.) “Even if I would say the end of the mission was spectacular, I would say—and I insist on that due to my previous experience—it was still a success,” said Dalloneau, who previously handled launches from French Guiana. The first flight of Spectrum comes as a critical time for Europe and its space industry. Several startups are working on vehicles that would give the continent additional means to get to space, particularly for smaller satellites, but operating in a market dominated by American companies like Rocket Lab and SpaceX. Shifting geopolitics, though, is giving a new urgency for those companies and European governments. Launch like it’s 2015 Isar Aerospace is part of a class of European startups looking to reach orbit with their launch vehicles in the coming years. Another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), was on track to be the first to do so last year, but it lost the first stage of its RFA ONE rocket in a fire during a static-fire test at SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands last August. It’s hoping to try again later this year. PLD Space, based in Spain, performed a suborbital test of its Miura 1 rocket in October 2023 and is working on the Miura 5 small launch vehicle that could be ready by the end of the year. Germany company HyImpulse also has plans for suborbital launches as precursors for orbital launches. Other launch startups include Orbex and Skyrora in the United Kingdom and Latitude, MaiaSpace, and Sirius Space Services in France. “It feels like Europe thinks it’s 2015 with respect to launch,” Beck said. They are entering a market for launching smallsats, with capacities of a couple hundred kilograms up to about a metric ton. That is a market many other companies in the United States and elsewhere have been pursuing, only to suffer technical or financial problems. They also faced competition from Rocket Lab’s Electron, which has become the major small launch vehicle outside of China (which has a vibrant launch ecosystem that is largely isolated from the rest of the world), as well as the low-cost rideshare launches offered by SpaceX. For Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck, Europe’s pursuit of small launch, among other things, puts the continent behind the times. “It feels like Europe thinks it’s 2015 with respect to launch,” he said in a talk delivered by video at the Smallsat Symposium in Silicon Valley in February. That included the large number of small launchers in development as well as a “reluctance” to attempt reusability and a domain dominated by governments. “It we roll the clock back to 2015, it feels the same,” he said. “It’s not meant to be a criticism by any stretch, but whenever I go to Europe and talk to colleagues over there, it really feels like I’ve gone back to 2015.” In a panel later in the day at the conference, executives of European launch companies did interpret Beck’s comment as criticism, but one that was not necessarily off the mark. “Europe is behind, for sure,” said Stella Guillen, chief commercial officer of Isar Aerospace. “It is behind. C’mon, that’s reality.” “It hasn’t been easy for Europeans to grasp on to the changes to the market, and I think this is the whole reason why Isar exists,” she continued. “We’re trying to catch up.” “Launch changes rapidly,” said Robert Sproles, CEO of Exolaunch, a Berlin-based company that arranges launches on small launch vehicles and rideshare missions. He noted Europe dominated the commercial launch market for decades with the Ariane family of vehicles before the rise of SpaceX. “Is Europe stuck? No. I’m an optimist. Are we in a little bit of a dip? Perhaps.” Marino Fragnito, chief commercial officer and launch services director at Avio, which produces and is taking over launch operations of the Vega C, suggested Europe’s large crop of small launch companies will inevitably shrink. “We have now in Europe a lot of microlauncher programs, and this was the case in 2015 in the US. If we look at what do we have today in the US, the only microlauncher or small launcher is Rocket Lab,” he said. He added the only company that had really changed the launch market worldwide is SpaceX. “Elon Musk and SpaceX could not have happened in Europe,” he argued, citing an unwillingness by European companies and investors to tolerate many years of losses. “Investors would have killed us after two years.” Fragnito said on the panel that the current wave of small launch vehicle companies in Europe is linked to government interest in stimulating competition with Arianespace on the large end of the market and Avio at the smaller end. “Probably, and I’m sorry to say that, no one will survive,” he predicted of European microlauncher companies. “Maybe there will be just partnerships, alliances merging; maybe one player will survive. But not three, four, five microlaunchers.” A new competition Europe’s effort to stimulate competition is finally taking shape. At the European Space Summit in Spain in November 2023, ESA announced its intent to hold a competition, or challenge, to support small launch vehicles, while also agreeing to purchase a number of Ariane 6 and Vega C launches to provide a guarantee of government, or institutional demand for those vehicles. In March 24, the European Space Agency finally released its call for proposals, known as an Invitation To Tender (ITT), for the European Launcher Challenge. The competition will offer two components: one to purchase launch services on small launch vehicles and another to back a “launch service capacity upgrade demonstration” for vehicles. “Probably, and I’m sorry to say that, no one will survive,” Fragnito predicted of European microlauncher companies. “Maybe one player will survive. But not three, four, five microlaunchers.” ESA will provide up to €169 million ($183 million) to each company, but with a catch. While responses to the ITT are due to ESA in early May, what vehicles will be funded won’t be clear until after ESA’s “CM25” ministerial conference in late November in Germany, where representatives of the agency’s member states meet to agree on what programs to fund and at what level. A key reason for that is that ESA is using the completion to test an alternative to its “georeturn” policies where countries are guaranteed contracts to their companies in proportion to the size of their financial contribution to them. Instead, ESA will first evaluate the proposals it receives from companies based on their technical merits and business plans. “Then we will have a bouquet of eligible companies, and we will enter into a dialogue with the member states,” said Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA’s director of space transportation, at a March 20 briefing, allowing countries to contribute, or subscribe, to the program based on the companies eligible for awards. “We will prepare, based on these proposals, who will be subscribed at CM25.” He said at the European Space Conference in late January that he expected two or three companies to win funding through the challenge, with the expectation that the selected companies match the ESA award with private funding “in the same order of magnitude.” While the European Launcher Challenge has been in development for more than a year, shifting geopolitics has brought new attention to the effort. The challenge started when Europe was still grappling with what ESA’s leader, Josef Aschbacher, called a “launcher crisis” that forced his agency and the European Commission to turn to SpaceX for Falcon 9 launches of key science and navigation spacecraft. That launcher crisis has subsided with the first flights of Ariane 6 and the return to flight of Vega C, but the idea of turning to SpaceX looks even more unpalatable now given worsening relations between the US and Europe, with European perceptions that the US will not always be the staunch ally it had been for decades. At the March 20 briefing after an ESA Council meeting, ESA announced that its member states had approved a document called Strategy 2040 that included five overarching goals for ESA over the next 15 years, one of which was to strengthen European autonomy and resilience. “The agency is dedicated to strengthening Europe by addressing the key societal needs of autonomy and resilience,” the document states. “A first key pillar in this regard is having guaranteed autonomous and competitive access to and mobility in space, free from external dependencies.” Aschbacher said at the briefing that there was a “long discussion” at the ESA Council meeting on “geopolitical aspects that are requiring Europe to be stronger and also more independent.” That discussion, and the goal of autonomy in the strategy, could reshape the package of programs ESA seeks funding for at CM25 in November. In the call with reporters after the first flight of Spectrum, Isar CEO Metzler also mentioned the need for sovereign European space access. “We’re addressing a critical need for sovereignty and also for flexible access to space out of Europe.” Isar and the other European startups may benefit from these shifting geopolitics, but ultimately must demonstrate they can reach orbit on a regular basis. They are not there yet, but Metzler believes that they have made progress even with this failure to reach orbit on Sunday. “The team is happy,” he said after the launch. “We cleared the pad, we've gotten about 30 seconds of flight data, so that’s super, super successful.” He said Isar would hold a big party that night to celebrate the first launch. “It’s a time for people to be proud of, for Europe, frankly, also to be proud of.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

Preparing For The EU Space Act And Its Potential Influence On The Future of Space Traffic Management

The Moonwalkers The European Commission, including Andrius Kubilius (second from left), commissioned for defense and space, plan to pushing an EU Space Act in the coming weeks. (credit: EC - Audiovisual Service) Preparing for the EU Space Act and its potential influence on the future of space traffic management by Michael P. Gleason Monday, March 31, 2025 The European Union (EU) expects to release the first EU Space Act in the second quarter of 2025.[1] It will likely require non-EU commercial space companies providing satellite services within the EU marketplace, including US companies, to comply with the law and regulations it will impose.[2] When the EU Space Act goes into effect, the law will change the trajectory of the global conversation about how to protect the sustainability of space from an emphasis on voluntary approaches—favored by the United States—to more consideration of mandated solutions, and the best balance between those two approaches. While the draft law is being closely held by the EU, analysis of its foundational documents and senior EU leader statements makes it possible to anticipate its objectives and priorities and to make a reasonable prediction of the types of requirements the law will impose on European, US, and other commercial space operators. For example, the 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management notes the critical importance of space traffic management (STM) for space safety, security, and sustainability. The approach calls for the EU’s European Commission (EC) to develop enabling legislation for STM-related binding obligations and nonbinding measures on satellite operators while proposing several potential areas for binding regulations. Second, the inaugural EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence, released in March 2023, builds directly on the 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management, calls for the EC to propose an EU space law, and suggests several additional areas in which binding regulation is needed. Highlighted herein, the release of the EU Space Act may represent a significant inflection point in global space sustainability and space traffic management approaches. The EU has multiple purposes for the emerging EU Space Act. First, the EU’s overarching goal for its space-related ambitions is strategic autonomy.[3] The EU considers its ability to influence hard international space law, rules, and regulations as well as voluntary international standards, best practices, and norms—so they align with EU interests—as a key component of strategic autonomy.[4] Next, in alignment with the EU’s traditional role in creating a single market among its member states, the law will remove fragmentation among 12 different EU member state national-level space laws and will safeguard and improve the functioning of the EU internal market for space activities.[5] The EU expects the law to provide a stable, predictable, and competitive business environment within Europe.[6] Moreover, the law will provide a common framework that ensures a consistent EU-wide approach to space safety and sustainability issues while addressing the growing space debris problem and the environmental impact of space activities. The EU is a large stakeholder in space safety and sustainability due to it owning and operating the Galileo satellite constellation, the Copernicus space system with its Sentinel satellites, and its future large constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellites called IRIS².[7] Finally, paraphrasing an EU official’s remarks, the EU is emphasizing hard law, rules, and regulations because they want to be able to tell their grandchildren that they did everything they could to protect the sustainability and usability of the space environment when there was still a chance. Given current trends, there is no time to dither and hope voluntary measures are sufficient to address growing space sustainability and safety issues.[8] “Smart regulation and competitiveness go hand in hand.”[9] – Andrius Kubilius, February 14, 2025. The EU understands the risk that the EU’s more regulatory, legally binding approach may create obstacles for emerging enterprises and motivate commercial space companies to take their business elsewhere. The EU hopes to avoid creating such obstacles and reactions.[10] To that end, the EU Space Act also will apply to any space system operating in the EU (whether EU or non-EU) or providing services there, ensuring a level playing field for the EU in the global marketplace for space, and discouraging space companies from moving their activities to another country. Indeed, the EU Space Act is expected to require US commercial space companies providing satellite services within the EU market to comply with the law and regulations it will impose.[11] The law and its emphasis on legal requirements, regulations, and obligatory standards may not align well with the United States’ preferred space traffic management approach that emphasizes voluntary standards, best practices, guidelines, and norms. When the EU Space Act goes into effect, the law will change the trajectory of the global conversation about how to protect the sustainability of space from an emphasis on voluntary approaches—favored by the United States—to more consideration of mandated solutions, and the best balance between those two approaches. More broadly, the EU Space Act could have implications for how global space governance evolves in the coming years and for the United States’ ability to shape that process and its outcomes. Introducing the European space sector The EU Space Act is coming from the European Commission, the EU executive branch equivalent. Ever since the EU began pursuing its space ambitions in the 1990s, space activities within Europe have been framed as existing at three distinct levels: (1) European, (2) intergovernmental organization, and (3) national (individual countries). It is important to understand the differences among these levels to fully grasp the source of the EU Space Act and its likely impact within the EU and around the world. This brief uses this framework to reference associated activities at the various levels. As shown in Table 1, the European level refers to the space activities that come under two areas of the EU. (A note on nomenclature: It is important to understand the difference between “European” or “Europe’s” general space activities and the specific space activities of the European Union as a distinct governmental entity.) First are the space activities conducted under the auspices of the EU’s executive arm, i.e., the European Commission (EC). The EC is a supranational organization that, based on the Treaty of Lisbon, is empowered to make political decisions and act in specifically identified areas (e.g., EU internal market regulations, tariffs, and space activities, among others) without additional EU member state approval. In effect, the EC is an independent European political power with a standalone budget. Checks and balances (as thought of in US government nomenclature) on EC activities and expenditures are provided by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Table 1: A Framework for Understanding Space Activities in Europe Level Description European European Commission – The EU executive arm that funds and operates EU space capabilities, and develops and oversees EU space policy, strategy, and law* Possesses political decisionmaking authority. Common Foreign and Security Policy – The EU arm focused on security and defense with direct oversight by EU Member States. Makes decisions and acts based on consensus among Member State heads of governments. Intergovernmental organization (IGO) European Space Agency – A multi-state space organization that is not part of the EU European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) – A multi-state space organization that is not part of the EU. Do not possess political decisionmaking authority. National State’s individual civil and defense space activities and agencies Examples include Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, and so forth. *The EU Space Act is expected to be finalized in the second quarter of 2025. In addition, some EU space activities with more direct security and defense purposes (such as the EU Satellite Center which provides geospatial intelligence) fall under the auspices of a separate EU arm called the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In contrast with EC activities, EU member states maintain a more direct role in CFSP decisions and funding. The Intergovernmental Organization level (IGO level) is inhabited by two different organizations: ESA and European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). In these IGOs, each of the organizations’ member states has an equal voice in decisions. ESA and EUMETSAT are not empowered to make political decisions. While ESA provides first-class space technology and capabilities and runs sophisticated, large-scale space projects, ESA can embark on individual space projects only within narrow limits or if specifically approved and funded by ESA Member States. Importantly, ESA is not part of the European Union and is not subject to EU law.[12] ESA also has its own unique funding mechanisms, and, while there is overlap among EU member states and ESA member states, not all ESA member states are members of the EU, such as the United Kingdom and Canada.[13] The relationship between the EU and ESA is defined in the 2004 EU-ESA Framework Agreement.[14] Observers must not make the mistake of conflating the European level and IGO level, the organizations at each level, and their respective space activities. In fact, significant friction often exists between the EC and ESA even though they share the same industrial base and work closely together to advance European space activities. The National level is where European countries’ individual space programs and space agencies—funded by national budgets—reside in this framework, with France, Germany, and Italy representing the largest national space programs in Europe. The EU spends about $3 billion a year on space activities. Some observers forecast the EU will more than double that investment soon, making space safety and sustainability an imperative. Returning the discussion to the European level, the EC Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) oversees the EU space policy, strategy, and law. DG DEFIS also manages the development, deployment, and use of EU space assets, including Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) programs; the Copernicus space-based Earth observation program; the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) Partnership; and the GOVSATCOM and IRIS² communication satellite programs. As the overall program manager, DG DEFIS implements the EU Space Programme through the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA).[15] The EU Space Programme’s three flagship satellite programs, operated by EUSPA, are (1) Galileo, a global satellite navigation and positioning system similar to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS); (2) Copernicus, an Earth observation system; and (3) the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, a regional satellite-based PNT augmentation system similar to the US Wide Area Augmentation System. In early 2022, the European Commission (EC) proposed two new flagship programs related to space. The first new initiative is the development of IRIS², an EU funded, developed, and operated large low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation to enable secure, high-speed broadband everywhere in Europe (and implicitly around the globe). The second program is to establish an EU space traffic management (STM) approach with the ambition to “be at the forefront of the development of STM guidelines and standards.”[16] Altogether, the EU spends about $3 billion a year on the space activities outlined above, making them a major stakeholder in space and providing them the motivation to develop the EU Space Act.[17] Some observers forecast the EU will more than double that investment soon, making space safety and sustainability an imperative and illuminating their high interest in space traffic management Sources and drivers The February 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management and the March 2023 EU Space Strategy for Security and Defense are driving and shaping the EU Space Act. The EU Approach for Space Traffic Management emphasizes the critical importance of STM for space safety, security, and sustainability. The approach calls for the EC to develop enabling legislation for STM-related nonbinding measures and binding obligations on satellite operators. Most interestingly, the approach includes the possibility of imposing future EU STM legal requirements and mandatory standards on any satellite operator providing services within the EU.[18] The EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence followed a year later, recognizing space threats to EU and member state space assets and the importance of resilient space systems. Building directly on the EU STM approach, the strategy calls for the EC to propose an EU space law that provides a common framework within the EU for security, safety, and sustainability in space. The strategy’s goal is to enable the EU to deter hostile activities in space, to protect its space assets, defend its interests, and strengthen its strategic posture and autonomy.[19] The EU Space Strategy for Security and Defense explains that a standard approach across the EU is needed to share information across EU Member States to enable EU-wide cooperation during space security incidents. More recently, in September 2024, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EC, directed the newly designated EC commissioner for Defense and Space, Andrius Kubilius, to “lead the work on a future proposal for an EU Space Law. In this context, as proposed in the Draghi report, you will work to introduce common EU standards and rules for space activities and harmonise licensing requirements.”[20] The so-called Draghi report, The Future of European Competitiveness, released earlier in September 2024, proposed the EU “establish a functioning Single Market for space, through a common EU legislative framework. Introduce common standards and harmonise licensing requirements in Member States, so that products and solutions comply with the same requirements (i.e. in line with the planned EU Space Law). Necessary EU legislation should ensure EU sovereignty concerning standards and norm-setting in this strategic policy field.” In November 2024, during a EU Parliamentary hearing—in the context of a question regarding the EU space law—Andrius Kubilius expressed, “we hope that, with our initiative, we can start to be again in some way standard setters globally in trying to really push forward for some kind of international agreements on the space rules.”[21] He predicted the EU space law would come in the first half of 2025. That time frame was confirmed in the EC’s January 2025, A Competitiveness Compass for the EU, which renamed the “EU Space Law” to the “EU Space Act” and specified the EU Space Act should come in the second quarter 2025.”[22] After a year of delay caused by the 2024 EU elections, the selection of new EU leadership, and perhaps some internal EU debate, the EU Space Act may soon be at hand. In the meantime, the draft law is being closely held by the EC with few details publicly revealed. However, close examination of the 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management and the 2023 EU Space Strategy for Security and Defense, as well as statements from senior EU officials and the press, provide a general sense of the areas the law may cover and what the law may include regarding space safety, sustainability, and STM. From this analysis, observers may anticipate that the EU Space Act will rebalance the international conversation about how to best address growing space sustainability and space traffic management issues somewhat away from an almost exclusive focus on nonbinding measures toward more consideration of binding measures. Analysis and key findings The analysis found several potential STM-related, top-level, legally binding measures and standards that may be mandated by the EU Space Act. The list combines statements from the 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management, the EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence, senior EU leaders’ statements, and predictions from media and other observers. While the list reflects only top-level STM-related areas, each of the potential areas identified below implies numerous material investments and potentially a list of several hundred binding STM-related sub-measures. In short, each top-level measure listed below could indicate areas in which satellite operators may need to expend resources broadly and deeply to align with the law. Such a detailed list would be exceedingly speculative, however, and beyond the scope of this analysis. The list does not present these potential binding measures in any chronological order but organizes them into six bins. From a synthesis of the information extracted from the sources, we can forecast that the EU Space Act could require the following STM-related compulsory rules: Collision avoidance binding measures: (The EU considers collision avoidance services to be a government responsibility) Establishment of minimum requirements for collision avoidance. For example: Mandating use of active tracking devices on satellites. Systemized notifications and warnings of any major incident or reentry. Commercial satellite operators subscribe to a collision avoidance service at least to a similar level of performance as current EU Space Surveillance and Tracking partnership. Standardized EU criteria for launch, collision avoidance, and reentry licensing. Commercial entities that provide collision avoidance services for satellite operators maintain communication mechanisms and contacts (i.e., operators’ directory) for managing conjunction events with satellite operators and other collision avoidance service providers. Manufacturers and operators prove compliance with the technical standards and guidelines developed by European standardization organizations, including EU-level STM standards and guidelines such as guidelines for special cases of STM (for instance, non-maneuverable satellites or constellations). Information-sharing binding measures: Mandatory information-sharing regarding anomalies and security incidents that signal a space threat. Mandatory warning of any major incident or reentry. Cybersecurity mandated measures as part of the design of all space systems delivering essential services: Specific cybersecurity standards and procedures in the space domain. Cybersecurity hardening requirements and standards across the supply chain. Cyber incident monitoring, assessment, information sharing, and reporting. Security and resilience mandated requirements: All space systems delivering critical space services will include security considerations in their systems design. All space systems delivering critical space services will have a minimum level of security, including cybersecurity, and a minimum level of resilience. Require companies to mitigate risks by conducting assessments and evaluating potential events threatening their infrastructure. EU Member States could be required to: Identify their essential space systems and services. Establish security monitoring centers to allow for the notification of security incidents in a systematic manner. Identify major supply chain actors. Define and implement a common minimum level of resilience for critical space services. Develop coordinated national preparedness and resilience plans and emergency protocols. Launch, collision avoidance, and reentry licensing requirements: Standardized EU criteria for launch, collision avoidance, and reentry licensing. Mandatory minimum deorbiting standards. Environmental standards: Standards to curb light pollution or optical interference caused by growing satellite constellations. Limit greenhouse gas emissions and pollution caused by rocket launches. Why it matters Even if only a handful of the above binding measures are adopted in the final EU Space Act, it will mark and accelerate a shift in the direction of the global conversation about how to best protect the sustainability of the space domain and manage space traffic. For the last couple of decades, the discussion has been dominated almost exclusively with initiatives that focused on voluntary, nonbinding standards, guidelines, best practices, and norms of responsible behavior, like the failed International Code of Conduct and the slow implementation of the United Nations (UN) Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. These strategies are driven by the fear that binding regulation will crush emerging, innovative, space companies and drive them offshore to countries that impose fewer legal burdens, which has been an effective threat during an era of low trade barriers. In such an environment, incentivizing compliance with voluntary measures has involved developing international norms of behavior by which compliance would win praise and deviant behavior would be shamed. Other incentives to comply include such measures as “space sustainability” ratings.[23] In addition, a variety of organizations have been formed to focus on identifying safe and sustainable practices in orbit and encouraging their members to voluntarily follow agreed upon best practices and guidelines. These factors combined to cause the quick dismissal of proposals and deter consideration of concepts for space safety and sustainability that go outside the bounds of voluntary measures. Binding measures to protect space sustainability are not unprecedented, however. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires that non-US licensed systems meet the same orbital debris mitigation standards as US licensed systems and imposed its first-ever penalty for noncompliance with the standards in October 2023 when it fined DISH (a US company) $150,000. The EU Space Act’s imposition of more binding regulations across a broad spectrum of space activity, with potentially significant penalties for non-compliance, will rebalance the scale and make hard law options previously considered untenable more available to governments. While voluntary constraints will continue to be important, the EU Space Act will increase the range of plausible solutions for addressing space safety and operational sustainability challenges. Standard setting EU ambitions include demonstrating leadership in global STM standards development and promoting standards internationally that reflect EU values.[24] The 2023 EU Space Strategy for Security and Defense says better EU representation is crucial in international standardization organizations. The 2022 EU Approach for Space Traffic Management calls for the EU to be proactive and at the forefront of setting international STM standards. To enable this ambition, the EU has established a forum called “The STM Stakeholder Mechanism,” which aggregates EU member state and other stakeholder requirements, synthesizes stakeholder views, coordinates external engagement, and promotes the EU STM approach internationally.[25] The forthcoming EU Space Act likely will contain provisions to further enable these ambitions. Combined with rising trade barriers, which will lower incentives for space companies moving offshore and defang threats to do so, policymakers around the world may become more openminded toward legally binding space sustainability and safety measures. International stakeholders recognize that often a fruitful path for safeguarding space safety and sustainability involves a three-step process. First, that the expert community, including heavy governmental representation, develop voluntary, technical, and operational standards for specific space activities. As the voluntary standards gain traction among stakeholders over time, governments around the world begin to incorporate the standards into domestic law, regulation, and licensing criteria. Eventually, internationally congruent domestic law and customary practices emerge, creating favorable conditions for a binding international agreement or precluding the need for such an agreement altogether. For example, the United States and 13 other nations that are major space actors, as well as European Space Agency (ESA) member states, have incorporated space debris mitigation standards into their domestic regulation and law based on voluntary UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) space debris mitigation guidelines and related International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, specifically ISO Standard 24113.[26] In this way, voluntary standards can morph into binding, domestic legal requirements. The EU Space Act will likely contain provisions that seek to leverage this process—influencing the voluntary STM-related standards approved by international standard setting organizations—recognizing that shaping the standards process from the beginning begets the ability to lead development of additional concrete global STM approaches.[27] As the EU grows more experienced in aggregating the preferred standards of the EU member states and those of other European stakeholders, shaping international standards provides an avenue for the EU to protect space safety and sustainability beyond voluntary approaches. Conclusion Combined with rising trade barriers, which will lower incentives for space companies moving offshore and defang threats to do so, policymakers around the world may become more openminded toward legally binding space sustainability and safety measures, and the best balance between voluntary measures and binding measures. Even if the EU Space Act does not include every measure identified in the analysis of the source documents and senior leader statements above, just the fact that the EU Space Act establishes some binding measures regarding collision avoidance, information sharing, cybersecurity, and other space activities will break with past reluctance to go down that path and establish a new model. The United States and other stakeholders will find new challenges to their preference for laissez faire-driven space traffic management and space sustainability policies. References European Commission, “A Competitiveness Compass for the EU,” January 29, 2025. Michael Gleason and Catrina Melograna, Anticipating the New European Space Law, The Aerospace Corporation, October 2024. Daniel Fiott, “The European Space Sector as an Enabler of EU Strategic Autonomy,” European Parliament. Belgium: EU Institute for Security Studies, December 2020, 7. Daniel Fiott, “The European Space Sector as an Enabler of EU Strategic Autonomy,” European Parliament. Belgium: EU Institute for Security Studies, December 2020, 10. EC, “A Competitiveness Compass for the EU,” Jan 29, 2025. EC, Commission work programme 2025 , February 11, 2025. European Union Agency for the Space Program, “About EUSPA.” European Commission, “Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council, An EU Approach for Space Traffic Management,” JOIN (2022), 4 final. (February 15, 2022). European Commission, “Speech by Commissioner Kubilius at the official Munich Security Conference Space Night Munich,” February 14, 2025. Hearing of Andrius Kubilius – Commissioner-Designate – Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (Defence and Space), November 6, 2024.. Michael Gleason and Catrina Melograna, Anticipating the New European Space Law, The Aerospace Corporation, October 2024. “Regulation (EU) 2021/696 of the European Parliament and of the council of 28 April 2021 establishing the Union Space Programme and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme,” Official Journal of the European Union, L 170/77, 8. “Member States and Cooperating States,” The European Space Agency. 20th Anniversary of the EU/ESA Framework Agreement, ESA, May 20, 2024. Mission Letter from Ursula Von der Leyen to Andrius Kubilius Commissioner-designate for Defence and Space September 17, 2024. Michael Gleason and Catrina Melograna, Anticipating the New European Space Law, The Aerospace Corporation, October 2024, 3. Mario Draghi, The Future of European Competitiveness, Part B, Section 1, Chapter 8, Space, September 2024, 179. European Commission, “Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council, An EU Approach for Space Traffic Management,” JOIN (2022), 4 final. (February 15, 2022.) European Commission, “Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council, European Union Space Strategy for Security and Defence, JOIN (2023), 9 final. (March 10, 2023). Mission Letter from Ursula Von der Leyen to Andrius Kubilius Commissioner-designate for Defence and Space, September 17, 2024. Hearing of Andrius Kubilius – Commissioner-Designate – Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (Defence and Space), November 6, 2024. EC, “A Competitiveness Compass for the EU,” January 29, 2025, 8. Space Sustainability Rating, https://spacesustainabilityrating.org/. European Commission, “Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council, An EU Approach for Space Traffic Management,” JOIN (2022), 4 final. (February 15, 2022). 10. STM Stakeholder Mechanism. Michael Gleason, Establishing Space Traffic Management Standards, Guidelines and Best Practices, The Aerospace Corporation, September 2, 2019, 4. Ibid. Dr. Michael P. Gleason is a national security senior project engineer in The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy. Prior to joining Aerospace, he supported the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment as a senior strategic space analyst. He served 29 years in the Air Force and is an accomplished national security space expert with experience in space policy, strategy, satellite operations, and international affairs. While in the Air Force, he served for five years at the Pentagon and for two years at the Department of State. He is the lead author of the 2013 Air Force Space Policy and co-author of NASA’s congressionally directed 2016 Space Traffic Management Study.