Is The Lunar South Pole The Right Place For A Lunar Base?

Moon Base An illustration of NASA’s proposed lunar base at the south pole of the Moon. Some argue that the south pole is the wrong place for humans to go, at least for initial Artemis missions. (credit: NASA) Is the south pole the right place for a lunar base? by Jeff Foust Monday, November 2, 2026 This weekend, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center will host the Max Power (or, as the agency capitalizes it, MAX POWER) air show. Besides being an unintentional homage to an episode of “The Simpsons,” Max Power is, as NASA describes it, “America’s newest and most exciting aerospace technology expo and air show.” It will include flight demonstrations and static displays of aircraft and space technology. However, even as NASA intensifies its focus on the Moon’s south pole, there are those who argue that emphasis is unwise. NASA will also use the event to provide an update on Moon Base, its plans announced at Ignition to establish a lunar base near the south pole of the Moon. In late May, when NASA announced contracts for lunar rovers and landers, it promised monthly updates. But the agency has not done a major update since a briefing at the end of June when it announced additional lander contracts. Some expect NASA to use the Max Power briefing to make new awards of lander contracts, including the companies selected for the new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) 2.0 contract that will cover future robotic landers needed to develop the base. NASA has yet to announce where it will build the base beyond somewhere in the vicinity of the south pole. The agency has long emphasized the importance of going there, citing the likely presence of water ice and competition with China for the handful of locations that it considers optimal for a base. That interest in the lunar south pole long predates the announcement of Moon Base, when NASA was instead focusing a series of sortie landings in the south polar region that might eventually lead to a lunar base. However, even as NASA intensifies its focus on the Moon’s south pole, there are those who argue that emphasis is unwise. Those people, ranging from astronauts to scientists, say the risks of going to the south polar region on the first Artemis landings far outweigh the rewards. Glover Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover observes the Moon during the April mission.. (credit: NASA) “Go fast, go familiar” One person who wants NASA to look elsewhere for the first Artemis landing is someone who flew around the Moon earlier this year. Victor Glover, pilot of Artemis 2, was a surprise speaker in July at the NASA Exploration Science Forum at the Ames Research Center in California. He eschewed a traditional presentation about the mission and instead spent most of the hour in an extended question-and-answer session with the scientists in the room. They asked him questions about the mission and his career and more. “On behalf of all the geologists here, what is your favorite rock?” one asked. (“Can I just say Earth?” he responded.) Another attendee asked him where the first Artemis mission should land. That prompted a lengthy response from Glover that pushed against NASA’s longstanding plans to immediately go to the south polar region of the Moon. “If you’ve ever seen me speak, you’ve probably heard me say, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ There’s another thing I say all the time too: if you want to go fast, go familiar,” he said. “We want to get to the surface. If we want to land soon: familiar, daylight, equator.” Part of his concerns revolved around NASA’s plans at the time to stage the lunar landing from a near-rectilinear halo orbit. Once the lander touched down, it would have to stay for about a week before Orion would be in position again for the lander to dock with it. “If an appendix ruptures, the current plan we have right now, if it ruptures on landing day, you’re stuck for a week. That’s a big deal to me,” he said. “So, the equator gives me opportunity to save that person.” Another issue he had with a polar landing is that he felt it took too much risk on a single mission. “We’ve got to work our way towards the south pole, of course, but it doesn’t have to be first, right?” he said, calling upon his test pilot experience of gradually building up in speed and altitude. “You have a process for accepting risk more and more, but also retiring it right.” “We’ve got to work our way towards the south pole, of course, but it doesn’t have to be first, right?” Glover said. There are several reasons why the south polar region is such a challenging place to land, including rugged terrain and low sun elevation angles. “You think driving home into the sunset is challenging? Imagine being on another celestial body and going from this room to low sun angle in a suit,” he said. One of the scientists in the room for Glover’s talk was Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute. He shares those concerns about going immediately to the south pole of the Moon, not just because of the risks of operating there but also uncertainty about water ice thought to be there. “The south polar regions is really very hard to work in. You are setting yourself up for some unnecessary challenges,” he said at the Space Economy Summit last week in Orlando. “There is water at the south pole, but we don’t know how much exactly or where it is exactly.” He reiterated concerns about low sun angles. “The vast majority of the terrain doesn’t see much sun,” he said, beyond a few locations that are nearly permanently in sunlight. Similarly, the Earth is out of view for extended periods for many regions. “This is not great for human operations at all.” One issue that raises is low temperatures. While the lunar surface can get quite warm in equatorial regions during the two-week lunar day, it remains cold in the polar regions. In the day, temperatures range from 40 to 90 kelvins, well below even nighttime temperatures in equatorial regions. “Forty to 50 kelvin, that’s the temperature of the surface of Pluto,” he said. “We do not have robotic systems that operate at those temperatures.” As for the water ice, he noted that there is an estimated 600 billion kilograms of water at the south pole, which would fill 240,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. “That sounds like an attractive number, but the area over which this is spread out is huge,” he said. The best estimate is that regolith with the highest concentrations of water contains only 0.5% of water by mass. That means one metric ton of regolith would contain only five liters of water. “This is not screaming ‘resource’ to me. This is screaming ‘scientific curiosity,’” he concluded. “It is not clear to me to all at this minute that we should be rushing to the south pole.” Clavius Clavius crater was the site of the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and might be an ideal location for an actual lunar base. (credit: MGM) Where else to go? If the south pole isn’t the first place for humans to go when they return to the Moon, what are the alternatives? Last month, the National Academies released a report commissioned by NASA titled “Human Exploration Across the Moon.” The study examined potential sites beyond the lunar poles that could host individual sortie Artemis missions, complementing landings at the polar regions. “A broader exploration strategy that includes visiting sites globally distributed across the Moon offers access to enormous diversity of scientific and potential economic opportunities, including access to geology, resources, geographical and site characteristics not found at the poles,” said James Day, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego who co-chaired the study. “It will be highly beneficial to space exploration and complementary to a sustained polar presence on the lunar surface.” The report identified four specific regions the committee who worked on the study concluded were the most important locations for crewed visits. Topping that list was Bhabha Crater, located on the lunar farside in the middle of the sprawling South Pole-Aitken Basin. “It’s an amazing location to do all kinds of science,” he said, from lunar geology to determine the age of the basin to setting up radio telescopes shielded from terrestrial emissions. Water ice concentrations at the south pole of the Moon are no greater than 0.5%. “This is not screaming ‘resource’ to me. This is screaming ‘scientific curiosity,’” Lee concluded. Second on the list was Mons Hadley, which was visited by Apollo 15 in 1971. The report specifically recommended visiting the landing site by touching down two kilometers away from it, close enough for astronauts to walk to the site. (The report did not assume the sortie missions would have access to a rover but added that a simple unpressurized one “enhances and amplifies” what each mission could do.) A mission to Mons Hadley would not only allow astronauts to continue lunar science started by the Apollo 15 mission but also to study the landing site itself, from the lander’s descent stage to even the bags of human waste left behind by the astronauts before they left. “This is a fantastic opportunity to be able to go there and have the astronauts review and assess the rover, descent stage, instrumentation packages and energy systems” left behind, said Dan Dumbacher, a professor of engineering practice in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University who was the other co-chair of the study. “It would be foundational information for how we need to engineer the systems for lunar bases.” Third on the list was Orientale Basin, a multi-ring impact basin on the limb of the lunar near side. Day called this a “pristine Moon and pristine solar system mission” that would be visited just once by astronauts, studying lunar geology and setting up a gravitational wave observatory. The latter, he said, would be a long-term experiment that needed to avoid disruption by frequent landings. The fourth and final site was Aristarchus Plateau. It offers a wide diversity of terrain for study, said Dumbacher. “There is much to learn from the diversity of volcanism on this plateau,” he said, and added the site could also be used for a space weather observatory. The study emphasizes that the four regions recommended for sortie missions were not meant to replace missions at the south pole but complement them by visiting regions of scientific interest beyond what’s accessible at the poles. “It will be highly beneficial to space exploration and complementary to a sustained polar presence on the lunar surface,” said Day. How these fit into NASA’s current strategy that emphasizes a south pole lunar base is not clear. NASA commissioned the study a year and a half ago, long before new Moon Base program emerged at Ignition. “We have provided them and the community what we believe is a solid case of science objectives and locations that NASA can factor into their planning,” Dumbacher said. It is up to NASA, he added, to determine “where do they go and when do they do it.” NASA has said little about the report since its October 21 release. Lee, speaking at the Space Economy Summit, had his own idea. He proposed setting up a lunar base at Clavius crater, at about 60 degrees south latitude on the near side of the Moon. It would allow astronauts to drive to the south pole “relatively easily,” drawing parallels to Antarctic exploration that started with bases on the coast that support expeditions towards the pole. Clavius itself, he said, is an interesting place for exploration, with features ranging from caves and volcanic mounds to small permanently shadowed regions that could serve as training for visiting larger such regions at the poles. From Clavius, it is about a 900-kilometer traverse to the south pole, something he argued is feasible with future pressurized rovers. “We have provided them and the community what we believe is a solid case of science objectives and locations that NASA can factor into their planning,” Dumbacher said. It is up to NASA, he added, to determine “where do they go and when do they do it.” If Clavius sounds familiar, it may be because it was the site of the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lee said his selection of the crater was not influenced by the film but is fortuitous nonetheless. “As it turns out, I think if we actually did this, it would drum up a huge amount of public support,” he said. “It would be a case of reality meeting fiction.” For now, though, NASA appears focused on its Moon Base program for the south pole, something that appeared to frustrate Glover. “I would go where we know. That’s just me, and nobody’s asking me those questions. I’ve tried to force that conversation,” he said in July. “So, if Jared listens to this recording,” he said later, referring to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, “I had this conversation with your predecessor, and we should talk.” Some of Glover’s concerns have been addressed by recent changes to the Artemis architecture. At an October 23 briefing, agency officials said they were no longer planning to use a near-rectilinear halo orbit for Artemis landings. For missions using SpaceX’s Starship lander, Starship will dock with Orion in Earth orbit and push Orion out to a low lunar orbit. For Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, Orion and the lander will dock in an elliptical polar orbit around Moon that would be closer than the halo orbit, although NASA did not reveal specifics about the orbit. NASA added that with the use of a stretched Centaur upper stage on the Space Launch System along with a kick stage—details of which the agency did not disclose at the briefing—Orion could travel directly to a low lunar orbit, helping resolve some of the landing site accessibility concerns Glover raised. However, the south pole of the Moon still has the rugged terrain and challenging lighting conditions that make landings difficult. At some point, NASA may need to weigh those technical risks with the political risks of seeing a Chinese crew land first. 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. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitt

How China Uses Culture To Build Its Soft Space Power

launch A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e-6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan Province on May 3, 2024. (credit: VCG) The space code: How China uses culture to build its space soft power by Krzysztof Karwowski Monday, November 2, 2026 The Chinese Space Program (CSP) developed from a secret, military-oriented project into a multi-domain venture in which the Communist Party leadership sees a new engine for the slowing economy. At the same time, the Chinese space nomenclature has pivoted away from narrow socialist rhetoric toward indigenous cosmology, myths, and local history of science. Today, the space missions bear their names of deities and ancient astronomers, instead of revolutionary slogans. Space programs are neither purely technological nor military domains. They offer a specific opportunity as vehicles of soft power projection. Beijing leverages the nomenclature of its space missions to legitimize the vision of the “great rejuvenation of the nation“ (Fùxīng) and cultivates the image of civilization-state of inventors and astronomers. While Western space exploration relied for decades on Greco-Roman traditions, China’s cultural codification offered an alternative pole in astropolitics, trying to export its original vision across the Global South especially. Space programs are neither purely technological nor military domains. They offer a specific opportunity as vehicles of soft power projection. Their functions as science diplomacy brands calibrated to generate domestic pride, influence the rising astropolitical order. Throughout the Cold War space race, both the United States and the Soviet Union drew from a shared Mediterranean heritage despite fundamental ideological division. Both superpowers utilized Greek and Roman mythology (Gemini, Apollo, Helios in the American case, Luna and Venera on the Soviet side). When the People’s Republic of China launched its first satellite in 1970, it was named Dong Fang Hong (“The East Is Red,” the title of the patriotic communist anthem), while its launch vehicles were named the Cháng Zhēng (the Long March, an important event of the history of Chinese communism and foundation of Mao Zedong’s path to power). This was classic, austere revolutionary language of space narrative. The death of Mao was a turning point. The zealous party campaigns were gradually withdrawn, and the fight against the legacy of the past was abandoned. Over the past decades, Beijing’s public diplomacy and visual statecraft have undergone a structural evolution. An examination of the nomenclature of Chinese space missions reveals an obvious departure from communist symbolism. Across the space endeavors, strictly political motifs comprise only a small fraction, whereas designations rooted in mythology and philosophy of nature predominate. Communism remained only in the matter of launching capabilities, where most of the payloads were still carried out by the Long March rocket family. In traditional Chinese religious thought, the Heavens (Tiān) served as the primary source of moral order, harmony, and political legitimacy. The sovereign derived the “Mandate of Heaven” (Tiānxia) as the Son of Heavens (Tiānzǐ). The modern Chinese authority undertakes a pragmatic secular transfer of these archetypes: technological milestones are applied to legitimize state competence and one-party rule, transposing traditional attributes of divinity into modern developmental statecraft. launch The family of Long March rockets on display at an exhibition at Beihang Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (credit: author) Mythological pantheon on the Moon Within the CSP, the selection of names is neither accidental nor a technical shorthand. It constitutes a cohesive framework of cultural narrative. The most prominent example is lunar exploration project known as the Cháng’é Program. This lunar research effort bears the name of the mythical goddess of harvest, friendship, and longing. According to legend, beautiful Cháng’é, after consuming the elixir of immortality, ascended to reside on the Moon. Her name was given to the space probes exploring the Moon, while she herself became a broader patroness of the entire Chinese space program. The surface rovers deployed by the Cháng’é landers, were designated Yùtù (Jade Rabbit), the loyal companion of the goddess. In turn, the relay satellites enabling communication with the lunar far side were named Quèqiáo (Magpie Bridge), drawing on the folklore tale of separated lovers for whom a flock of magpies forms an annual celestial bridge across the Milky Way. Gods, poems and stars The China interplanetary program takes its name from Qu Yuan’s classical poem from the fourth century BCE titled Tiānwèn (“Questions to Heaven”), which contemplates the origins of the universe and the search for truth. Tiānwèn 1 was the flagship mission sent to orbit Mars in 2020 and land on its surface. The accompanying rover was named Zhùróng, after the mythical god of fire and war, mirroring the traditional Chinese designation for Red Planet. It is worth recalling that prior to the Tiānwèn launch, China attempted to send another Martian probe in cooperation with Russia. The failed Fobos-Grunt mission was intended to deliver the Chinese orbiter Yínghuǒ (“Firefly”) as part of the broader scientific project called Huǒxīng (Fire Star or Fire Planet). Why the Chinese decided to incorporate its ancient culture into a cutting-edge strategic research and technology effort? The identity and international perception, in line with soft-hard power conceptualization popularized by Joseph Nye, are not fixed. Another important example is China’s orbital infrastructure and its crown jewel, the space station. The literal meaning of Tiāngōng is the “Heavenly Palace”. Its science laboratory modules are named Wèntiān (Quest for the Heavens) and Mèngtiān (Dreaming of the Heavens), uniting ancient poetics with technological pragmatism. The core module, Tiānhé (Celestial Harmony), also received its sky-inspired connotation. Moreover, Chinese crews reach their orbital outpost aboard Shénzhōu (Divine Vessel) spacecrafts. The designation of these crewed vehicles carries a profound, layered cultural resonance readily understood across Chinese society. Beyond its literal meaning, Shénzhōu (神舟) is a homophone word for Shénzhōu (神州), the “Divine Land” or “Celestial Realm”, one of the historic honorifics for imperial China. Above the Middle Kingdom shines yet another symbol. It is the Běidǒu satellite system. China’s indigenous alternative to GPS takes its name from the Little Bear (Ursa Minor) constellation utilized by Chinese sailors for navigation. The function was the same, the name was completely different but domestically renowned. Other examples of the culture-rooted names for the space missions (alphabetic). Source: author’s individual research. Mission name Source Translation Mission description Gān Dé Astronomy Ancient Chinese official and astronomer born in the State of Qi Planned Tiānwèn 3 name to the Jupiter and its moon system Fēng Yún Meteorology Wind and Clouds Weather-forcasting satellite series Lóng Jiāng Geography Dragon River, Chinese name of Amur (Heilongjiang River), North China Lunar extreme wavelength satellite Mengzhōu Space inspiration Dream Boat, vessel from the dreams Designed crewed capsule Nüwa Mythology Goddess and creator of humankind Satellite measuring the anthropocentric CO2 emissions Tiānyǎn Space inspiration Sky Eye FAST; China 500-meter radiotelescope Wukōng Ming era novel “Journey to the West” Understanding the Void; referring to the elusive nature of dark matter; the name of the novel’s main character – Monkey King DAMPE – “Dark Matter Particle Explorer” orbital observatory Xī hé Tang era poem “Suffering from the Shortness of Days” Goddess of the Sun Chinese Hα Solar Explorer – sunwind monitoring mission Crucially, Beijing has institutionalized public engagement in the naming process. Since 2021, designations for aerospace hardware (landers, rovers, and spacesuits) have frequently been selected through nationwide public polls coordinated by the China National Space Administration. The celestial symbolism in this manner, became actively internalized by society, serving as a pillar of national cohesion and great-power identity. Mobilizing culture for geopolitics Why the Chinese decided to incorporate its ancient culture into a cutting-edge strategic research and technology effort? The identity and international perception, in line with soft-hard power conceptualization popularized by Joseph Nye, are not fixed. They are negotiated and constructed through social interactions and narrated symbolism. China has operationalized this dynamic that can be characterized as an achievement-branding loop. First, the technological achievements take place, when the CSP performs the pioneering missions (e.g., soft-landing on the far side of the Moon or the space station assembly). Next, the propaganda services run a carefully deliberated media branding. The discourse frames these breakthroughs within a civilizational narrative that spans millennia, casting China as a distinct technological civilization with its own epistemological paradigm. This is the main goal of leaving the socialist slogans and avoid image of a socialist imitator of the West. The Chinese nomenclature, culturally distinct to Western audiences, projects its own aura of technological autonomy and also an independent civilizational agency. Even the diplomatic efforts act to transform the space program into a political capital. Space missions elevated to the role of international prestige source, fueled by aerospace experts and vivid graphic messaging, incentivize international partners to join Chinese multilateral astronautic initiatives such as the launching campaign advertised by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, or the format of the International Lunar Research Station, or ILRS. This trajectory mirrors the strategic directives set in state documents: “China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective“ and the White Paper on Diplomacy: “(2023) Global Community of Shared Future“. Both emphasize that external messaging must anchor itself in “deep cultural heritage interconnected with the unique experience of Chinese modernization.” The connection of ancient and new, cultural and technological, takes place. Strategic takeaways and implications For generations, the dominant narrative of space exploration relied almost exclusively on Western legends and historic milestones: the Artemis program named after the twin sister of Apollo is not an exception here. Beijing’s space expansion introduces an alternative symbolic lexicon. The Chinese nomenclature, culturally distinct to Western audiences, projects its own aura of technological autonomy and also an independent civilizational agency. The CSP became a bridge connecting millennial traditions with technological development in the information age. China systematically and globally communicates its concept of a “community with a shared future for mankind,” presenting itself as an inclusive architect of an alternative institutional architecture in counterpoint to American dominance. Promoting critical assets such as the BeiDou navigation network across the Global South, China reinforces long-term technological interoperability and geopolitical alignment. Western policymakers cannot afford to assess the Chinese space machine only through rocket payloads and number of launches. The competitive trajectory of CSP is driven as much by narrative diplomacy, carefully engineered strategic culture, and identity formation. Neglecting the civilizational dimensions of China’s space strategy risks underestimating both its appeal across emerging markets (Africa, Southeastern and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans) and its mobilizational capacity at home. Krzysztof Karwowski is a PhD Candidate at SGH Warsaw School of Economics. Editor of the “Technological Race” column in Polish “Układ Sił” magazine. He conducted research in China (SCUT), Korea (KAIST), and Italy (University of Salerno). Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

A Reuseable Rocket Alone Is Not a Resilient Launch System

launch A Falcon 9 lifted off April 21 carrying a GPS 3 satellite, weeks after the Space Force reassigned the launch from ULA’s Vulcan. (credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Gwendolyn Kurzen) A reusable rocket alone is not a resilient launch system by Burak Oktenli Monday, November 2, 2026 SpaceX wants to attempt something extraordinary on Starship’s next flight: recover both the Super Heavy booster and the orbital spacecraft. Elon Musk said on October 20 that the company would try catching both stages on a flight planned for November. A successful demonstration would be a historic step toward fully reusable orbital transportation. It would not, by itself, establish how cheaply the system can turn around or how reliably a customer can reach orbit when it cannot fly. Months earlier, the US Space Force had answered a different launch question by moving a GPS satellite from one provider’s rocket to another and successfully launching it within seven weeks of the switch. One development advanced vehicle recovery; the other demonstrated access recovery. Reuse reduces the number of replacement vehicles a factory needs to build. That saves hardware, but it can also slow production learning and leave a specialized workforce dependent on a smaller annual build. Inna Galinger recently argued in The Space Review that Starship’s impact will depend on the economic activity enabled by its capacity, not simply on the advertised launch price (see “Starship’s real test may begin after launch,” The Space Review, October 12, 2026). That is right. The next layer of analysis concerns going from a promising vehicle to a dependable transportation service: refurbishment, manufacturing, launch pads, mission integration, spare capacity, and the ability to switch when a preferred rocket is unavailable. Reuse starts between flights A returning booster and a returning orbital stage face very different engineering burdens. The first stage separates well below orbital speed; an upper stage must endure the much greater thermal and structural demands of reentry from orbit. Recovery hardware and propellant also consume mass that could otherwise contribute to payload. These are familiar tradeoffs, not arguments that upper-stage reuse is impossible. The business case depends on what happens after landing. How many labor hours are spent inspecting thermal protection? How many components need replacement? How often does an engine or structural finding force an extended standdown? How many launches can the pad and its ground crews support while repairs and vehicle production proceed? A beautiful catch is a milestone in recovery, but alone is not proof of affordable reuse. Cadence matters for another reason. The development, manufacturing, and fixed costs of a reusable fleet must be spread across its completed missions. High demand can make those fixed costs easier to absorb, while frequent refurbishment can eat away at the advantage. A rocket flown ten times a year belongs to a different economic proposition from one flown many times that often, even with the same hardware. There is a less obvious manufacturing consequence. Reuse reduces the number of replacement vehicles a factory needs to build. That saves hardware, but it can also slow production learning and leave a specialized workforce dependent on a smaller annual build. There is no universal launch-rate threshold at which reuse becomes economical. The answer changes with the mission, factory economics, recovery approach, maintenance burden and accounting treatment. Cost itself needs precision. The price paid by a satellite customer is not SpaceX’s internal recurring cost; neither is the full program cost after development and infrastructure, or the customer’s cost of delay if a mission misses a narrow operational window. A provider can cut its own costs without passing the full savings to buyers. What a launch swap proved On March 20, the Space Force announced that its GPS 3-8 mission would move from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 while an anomaly investigation on Vulcan continued. On April 21, the GPS satellite reached orbit. The government reported completing the provider change in under seven weeks. The episode is a more revealing measure of launch resilience than a count of rockets on contract: a mission with a real payload and destination could move between two operational systems in time to preserve its delivery. That result is encouraging, but it should not be romanticized. A GPS satellite is not a shipping container that can be placed on any available rocket. A switch can require new compatibility work on interfaces, loads, environments, mission software, range arrangements, integration schedules, and assurance. Some missions, especially very large or unusual spacecraft, have no near-term replacement vehicle. An alternative matters only if the payload can actually fly on it, the new provider is qualified for the task, and a launch opportunity exists. The episode is a more revealing measure of launch resilience than a count of rockets on contract: a mission with a real payload and destination could move between two operational systems in time to preserve its delivery. The Space Force already recognizes the value of multiple providers. Its National Security Space Launch Phase 3 program uses different lanes for missions with different demands. In July it expanded its Lane 1 pool to seven contract holders. This increases competitive possibilities, but contract eligibility is not equivalent to immediately available flight capacity; some providers still must complete qualifying flights and mission-specific work. Resilience must be counted in actual transfers of payloads among vehicles, not just names on an award list. The practical next step is a recurring launch-substitution exercise. Select a representative satellite and ask how quickly it could shift to a second qualified vehicle if the original vehicle was grounded. Include the engineering effort, available slots, price of the change, approvals that cannot be waived, and the chance of missing the customer’s actual deadline. A 30-day target could be a useful stretch goal for suitable missions, but it should be treated as a goal to test rather than a capability it assumes the industry already possesses. A constellation does not stop aging during a grounding The consequence of dependence grows as satellites become more numerous and less individually expensive. A proliferated constellation can withstand the loss of several satellites, but keeping it healthy requires an ongoing replacement stream. Losing that stream may be less dramatic than a launch failure and more consequential than it first appears. Consider a deliberately simplified 240-satellite constellation whose spacecraft reach the end of their service lives at an even rate over five years. It needs about four replacements per month. If the sole launcher is unavailable for a year, roughly one-fifth of the fleet could age out before replenishment resumes. If a prequalified second provider starts after a one-month delay and can cover three-quarters of normal replacement demand, the remaining fleet would be about 94% of the original size after that year instead of about 80%. These numbers are an illustrative inventory exercise, not a prediction of Starlink or of any real constellation. Actual satellites have different ages, lifetimes, reserves, and failure rates; on-orbit spares and coverage design matter. The example, though, illustrates one fact: recovery time and replacement capacity can dominate the consequences of a launcher grounding. chart Illustrative calculation only. Assumes 240 satellites, four retirements per month, and a backup replacing three per month starting after month one. This is not flight performance or an actual constellation forecast. Graphic by the author. Measure access recovery as carefully as vehicle recovery The next generation of launch services needs two scorecards, not one. The first belongs to the operator: repeated flights of recovered hardware, inspection labor, replaced parts, pad turnaround, mission success, and fully burdened costs for specified missions. The second belongs to the customer: how many days a grounding would delay a critical launch, how fast another provider could accept the payload, what the switch would cost, and whether the mission could still meet its deadline. The more space infrastructure depends on fast, cheap replenishment, the more important a tested recovery path becomes when the system that normally provides it cannot operate. Those measurements serve different markets. A broadband operator with a flexible replacement manifest may prize the lowest sustainable price per satellite. A national security customer replacing an aging asset may pay more for a qualified second path. A lunar program may care most about a sequence of tankers and a propellant-transfer operation succeeding in the correct order. No single dollars-per-kilogram figure can answer all three. SpaceX is right to pursue full reuse aggressively. The effort can increase launch capacity and lower costs that once made entire missions uneconomic. But that success does not remove the need for independent providers, adaptable payload interfaces, and rehearsed alternatives. Indeed, the more space infrastructure depends on fast, cheap replenishment, the more important a tested recovery path becomes when the system that normally provides it cannot operate. The next Starship catch, if successful, will make headlines for good reason. However, the seven-week GPS launch switch deserved more attention than it received. One shows that a vehicle can be recovered and potentially reused; the other shows that a mission need not be lost with its assigned vehicle. The mature launch economy will need both. Burak Oktenli holds an MBA and is pursuing a Master of Professional Studies in Applied Intelligence at Georgetown University, where his research focuses on the governance of autonomous and AI-enabled military systems.

A Long Distance Look At Space Hab

SPACEHAB SPACEHAB concept in the shuttle. (credit: SPACEHAB Inc.) A long-distance look at SPACEHAB by James Behling Monday, November 2, 2026 In the 1990s, I worked in ground operations in the SPACEHAB Payload Processing Facility at Port Canaveral, Florida, for the SPACEHAB program while employed by McDonnell Douglas, SPACEHAB Inc.’s prime contractor. SPACEHAB was a commercial program that provided small, pressurized modules to fly in the Space Shuttle. The idea was to fly the modules in the forward quarter of the payload bay, leaving the remaining volume for other payloads. The modules expanded the pressurized volume available for small crew-tended experiments and other payloads, with accommodations similar to those on the shuttle middeck. The modules had a flat top to allow for astronauts to see over the top of the module to the rest of the payload bay and to allow EVA astronauts to return to the airlock after dealing with various payload-bay door contingencies. They also had flat bulkheads to reduce the length. The entire SPACEHAB module was covered in white multilayer insulation (MLI). As the view panned across the module’s aft bulkhead, I noticed a large gray area near the right-hand edge. Although originally designed to support small-scale experiments, SPACEHAB ultimately found its primary role as a pressurized logistics carrier for space stations. It supported seven logistics flights to Mir, five logistics flights to the International Space Station (ISS), and six dedicated science missions. Overall, SPACEHAB modules flew on 18 shuttle missions, compared with 16 missions for the NASA/European Space Agency's Spacelab modules. In 1990, SPACEHAB received a NASA contract to provide 200 lockers over six missions, while reserving the remaining capacity for commercial customers. Its first mission was STS-57 in June 1993. The second mission, STS-60, focused on science and carried Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a US spacecraft. In 1995, after SPACEHAB’s third mission carried another cosmonaut and rendezvoused with Mir, the company received a contract to support seven Shuttle-Mir missions. I was hired in 1992 and was responsible for experiment and payload ground operations. I created and managed the plans and schedules for when the experimenter/payload owner was to hand over their hardware and when it would be installed in the module. Additionally, I provided lab space and instruments to the experimenters. Our busiest times were once the shuttle was at the pad, when we loaded experiments and payloads in the module during the countdown. After launch, we had a lull until landing, as the Florida team had little involvement in on-orbit operations. Those were the responsibility of our Huntsville headquarters, which sent personnel to Houston to support each mission. Consequently, the period between launch and landing was our slowest time, and we often used it to perform facility work. On Saturday night, March 23, 1996, Atlantis was on Flight Day 2 of STS-76, SPACEHAB’s first Mir logistics mission. We needed to recoat the surface of the floor in the transporter airlock so that it met cleanroom requirements and was compatible with air bearings. We scheduled the work for the weekend after the launch. Since somebody had to be in the facility with the contractors and I was single at the time, I volunteered for the Saturday night shift and the overtime. It was boring, since it was pre-Internet days and the TV system in the building was set up only to get NASA TV and a few blurry over-the-air broadcast stations. I walked around the building and watched the contractors. I decided to check on the mission and went to turn on NASA TV in the break room. The crew was asleep, so the video downlink was just from the orbiter's payload bay cameras. Typically, the cameras were used for observations of Earth or lightning, or for surveys of the payload bay. In this case, most of the views were of Earth. Mission Control was panning the cameras around. At one point, the view from the aft starboard camera swept across the aft bulkhead of the SPACEHAB module. SPACEHAB The orbiter’s aft starboard payload-bay camera is visible at left. (credit: NASA) I watched with interest because it was our hardware. The entire SPACEHAB module was covered in white multilayer insulation (MLI). As the view panned across the module’s aft bulkhead, I noticed a large gray area near the right-hand edge. “Uh-oh,” I thought. Perhaps one of the MLI blankets had come loose during launch. I wondered whether the exposed area might raise the module’s cabin temperature or create a localized hot spot in the structure. SPACEHAB TView of SPACEHAB module aft bulkhead (credit: NASA) I pondered what to do. We had a call tree for the mission, so I decided to call a counterpart in experiment operations, who was then supporting the mission from Houston. He answered the phone from his console in mission control (in one of the support rooms). I described what I had seen, but there were two problems: the camera view had changed, and their monitors were not tuned to NASA TV. This made it harder to explain what I had seen. He took the information and thanked me for it. I went about trying to relieve my boredom and watched the contractor spread the floor sealant. Half an hour later, I was paged by the security guard. I went to see him, and he gave me a Houston phone number to call. The call reached our SPACEHAB Operations Director in mission control. He told me to get in front of a TV and to call back on another number, which I did. To my surprise, I was talking to the Instrumentation and Communications Officer (INCO) in Mission Control. Soon afterward, the television returned to a payload bay view. The INCO then said if I told him which way to point the camera to find the area I saw, he would move the camera. I proceeded to watch the TV as the camera panned and tilted in response to my directions (with a delay, of course). I got the same view of the module that started the whole thing, and we both saw the gray area. The INCO zoomed the camera in on the gray area. As the image came into focus, the mysterious gray area proved to be an EVA foot restraint that was attached to the payload bay sill, just in front of the aft bulkhead. SPACEHAB Example of an EVA foot restraint. (credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum) Here is a still from the aft port camera from a different point in the mission. SPACEHAB Still from STS-76 Flight Day 2 at 3:21 (credit: NASA) There was a collective sigh, and I was then thanked by the INCO for my sharp eye. I returned to my uneventful night shift smiling, knowing that, from a television in Port Canaveral, I had helped direct a camera aboard Atlantis. James Behling is a 40-year retired veteran of military, commercial, and civil space programs. He is currently docent and researcher for the Cape Canaveral Space Force Space Museum and a volunteer at the American Space Museum. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

Susan Kilrain's Unconventional Astronaut Career

book cover Slaying snakes, claiming freedom: Susan Still Kilrain’s unconventional astronaut career by Emily Carney Monday, November 2, 2026 Slaying Snakes in the Cockpit: Life Lessons from an Unlikely Astronaut by Susan Kilrain BookPress Publishing, 2026 hardcover, 200 pp. ISBN 978-1-960259-53-0 US$24.95 Astronaut Susan Still’s (now Kilrain) aerospace career is a catalog of incredible accomplishments: with an impeccable academic and military service record, she was the first in her astronaut class to fly, flew the same mission twice due to the first mission being cut short, and was the youngest person to pilot the Space Shuttle. So why did she never command a shuttle mission, and why was her astronaut career shorter than those of many of her colleagues? She answers those questions and more in her recently released autobiography, Slaying Snakes in the Cockpit: Life Lessons from An Unlikely Astronaut, written with support from space historian Francis French. In April 1997, her STS-83 Columbia mission was cut short due to a fuel cell failure, the first such failure since the orbiter’s second mission, STS-2, flown in late 1981. Her book gains its title from the concept of calmly “slaying snakes,” or problems, during a flight or mission. While the ground hinted that the crew would repeat the mission, I gather no one expected it to be flown again as quickly as July that year. And the crew indeed did: the “redo” mission, STS-94, spent more than two weeks in space, and proved to be a wildly successful Microgravity Science Laboratory mission. And Still finally got to experience the benefits of a full spaceflight, including incredible views of Earth. Her description of the Andes viewed from orbit is nothing short of spectacular: “Snowcapped peaks reached up to me, valleys sank away, and nestled in the high plateau was Lake Titicaca, gleaming like a sapphire in a setting of ochre stone.” book cover STS-94 Pilot Susan Leigh Still arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility aboard a T-38 jet in preparation for the reflight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory-1 mission. (credit: NASA) But Still’s autobiography also resonates in how it discusses the before-and-after of her space missions. Full disclosure: I am a Navy veteran, and I joined in April 1997, the time STS-83 also launched. While Still joined in 1985, not much had changed between when she joined and when I enlisted, and she discusses some of the struggles she encountered as she broke barrier after barrier before, during, and after United States Naval Test Pilot School. While she excelled as a pilot and in the academics required to complete such a challenging school, she still faced indignities such as unwelcome verbal barbs from male colleagues and even one disturbing instance of physical harassment. Still also discusses why she didn’t go on to command a second mission, which has nothing to do with her excellence and fidelity as an astronaut. Indeed, the 1990s were a tumultuous time for women in the Navy, but Still’s approach to these unpleasant realities didn’t involve protesting. Instead, she proved her mettle by showing she was more than capable of operating complex, unforgiving high-speed aircraft. When you work with frankly dangerous machines, the machines don’t care about whether you’re a woman or not. They care if you know how to operate them without killing others and yourself. Still also discusses why she didn’t go on to command a second mission, which has nothing to do with her excellence and fidelity as an astronaut; indeed, her mission commander stated in a pre-flight interview, “While on orbit, Susan is second in command… she was assigned because she’s the best pilot.” (It bears mentioning that Still, ever humble, states in the book, “I’m only just coming to realize that perhaps I really had deserved to fly first.”) Still went on to start a family with her husband, a Navy SEAL, and wrote, “Every astronaut, male or female, has to decide what matters most at any given time… Life has a way of charting a better course than the one we plan.” The “busyness” of astronaut and Navy life, alongside having small children to raise and a husband in a combat zone, no longer appealed to Still as much. book cover "Astronaut Susan L. Still, pilot, floats into the Spacelab Module in the early phases of its activation. Still, a member of the 1995 astronaut class, joined four other NASA astronauts and two scientist payload specialists for the Microgravity Science Laboratory 1 (MSL-1) mission aboard the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Columbia. (credit: NASA) Still relates that some still ask her why she didn’t have a more prolific astronaut career (personally, I think flying two spaceflights is impressive enough, but I suppose the public can be fickle.) Slaying Snakes answers this beautifully and, in a genius way, lays out Still’s own feminist manifesto. Some might be tempted to criticize her for not loudly protesting some of the indignities she encountered in the Navy, and some might want to do the same given that she chose to raise a family rather than continue flying in space. But, to me, her decisions exemplify a powerful type of feminism and feminine freedom. Still realized that to be respected and “seen” in a highly male-coded environment, she first had to excel on what men viewed as their turf: the flight deck. And this she did. In addition, there’s no “rule book” that says a woman must have a “set” career and life, no matter who came before or after her, and her career is still an incredible template for any young woman pilot to aspire to. You can easily “slay snakes” at home and at work. The feminist Germaine Greer once wrote, “Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.” At the conclusion of Slaying Snakes, you’re not at all sad for Susan Still Kilrain, or feel like she got “cheated.” You realize she achieved perfect freedom. Slaying Snakes in the Cockpit is available at all major booksellers and through BookPress’ website. Emily Carney is a space historian and lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida. She is the author of Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between, along with Bruce McCandless III. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

Book Review: Apollo 9 In Photographs

book cover Review: Apollo 9 in Photographs by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 2, 2026 Apollo 9 in Photographs: The Apollo Photo Archive by J.L. Pickering and John Bisney with Ed Hengeveld Schiffer Military History, 2026 hardcover, 368 pp., illus. ISBN 978-0-7643-7198-1 US$44.96 If things go to plan, next year NASA will conduct a complicated and difficult ballet in Earth orbit, testing out the lunar landers during the Artemis 3 mission. This complex mission has been compared by many to NASA’s mostly forgotten Apollo 9 mission of March 1969, when astronauts for the first time tested out an entirely new kind of flying vehicle, the first true spaceship. Now a new book of photographs has been published, and it probably devotes more attention to Apollo 9 than this mission has ever received before. Apollo 9 in Photographs is by J.L. Pickering, John Bisney, with Ed Hengeveld. It follows three previous books on Apollos 1, 7 and 8, and the authors intend to keep producing them as long as they sell. We can only hope so. They’re great books (see “Apollos anew,” The Space Review, January 19, 2026.) book pages Apollo 9 carried astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell “Rusty” Schweickart into orbit atop a Saturn V rocket less than four months after Apollo 8’s famous Christmas mission orbiting the Moon. Apollo 9 seemed to lack much of that excitement and symbolism. What Apollo 9 did have was a Lunar Module to test out, the first astronaut-piloted vehicle designed to operate only in space, never in the atmosphere. The crew put it through an extensive test program in Earth orbit. book pages That testing resulted in a lot of spectacular photographs as the astronauts maneuvered the two craft together and apart, often against the blue backdrop of the Earth. The book has more than 800 photographs, many of them taken during the mission. But like the earlier books, the majority of the images are rare or previously unpublished photos of pre- and post-launch activities, like crew training, vehicle assembly, launch operations, and the recovery at sea. One of my favorites is a photo of the third stages of both Apollos 8 and 9 sitting vertically next to each other in the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building. It’s photos like this that remind us of the work that went on every day leading up to the missions, before everybody started paying attention just before launch. The book is once again a reminder that while the public back in 1969 may have seen the same photo published in different newspapers and magazines, the photographer who took that photo probably took dozens or maybe hundreds more at the time that never got printed and were immediately filed away and forgotten. book pages After the tragedy of Apollo 1, Apollos 7 and 8 had worked out any remaining issues with the heavily redesigned Apollo Command Module. What made Apollo 9 unique was the Lunar Module. The LM was not ready for Apollo 8. Several early versions, which were incomplete and too heavy, were tested in Earth orbit without crews. Apollo 9 took an LM to space and ran it through its paces. The book has many photographs showing early artwork depicting Lunar Module concepts and prototypes, as well as the hardware that was eventually built for the mission. Several surprising photos show the LM mockups used for fit checks and ground crew training. They almost look like paper models. book pages Both the Apollo 9 Lunar Module, nicknamed “Spider,” and the later Apollo 10 Lunar Module, were still too heavy for an actual lunar landing. The stories of how Grumman engineers shaved off every ounce of weight on the Lunar Module have now been well-documented in books such as the 1989 Apollo: Missions to the Moon, and more comically in the 1990s HBO TV series From the Earth to the Moon. The first things to go in the early design were the fifth landing leg, the crews’ chairs, and the big windows. That was the easy stuff. By the mid-later 1960s, Grumman engineers were cutting even tiny parts out of the spacecraft with tin snips and weighing them on a scale—every gram counted. book pages Apollo 9’s mission lasted ten days and the Command Module “Gumdrop” splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, near the helicopter carrier USS Guadalcanal. The mission was successful in testing both spacecraft and their joint operation, allowing NASA to cancel a planned additional high-Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module. The next mission, Apollo 10, would take everything to lunar orbit and run through a simulated landing mission. That is the subject of a future book. book pages Dave Scott would go on to command Apollo 15, but neither McDivitt or Schweickart flew again. McDivitt expected to be given command of the Apollo 17 mission, but that job went to Gene Cernan instead. In one of many twists of fate, if Gene Cernan’s flying shenanigans had been better known, McDivitt probably would have commanded Apollo 17 and gained the title of “last man on the Moon.” book pages Apollo 9 in Photographs is a fine addition to the series, and stands by itself as a fascinating and insightful look into a mission that will be echoed again soon when Artemis 3 flies next year—fingers crossed. book pages Note: Special thanks to Steve Schultz for the gift. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

The Myth Of A Space Pearl Harbor

Iceye-X36 A Russian satellite that made close approaches to an Iceye commercial radar-imaging satellite (above) illustrates the emerging threats to space systems. (credit: Iceye) The myth of the space Pearl Harbor: why space superiority requires staying power by Matt Isler, Alex Gilbert, Morgan Bazilian, and Jahara Matisek Monday, October 26, 2026 On September 14, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced that the United States has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” He declined to say what kind of weapons they are or how many are in orbit. The disclosure sharpens a question US strategy has yet to answer: what using such weapons would actually achieve in a war. US spacepower rests on a consolidated industrial base and slow acquisition, and future advantage in orbit will turn on building a space industrial base that can sustain launches through a long fight. In mid-October, the Russian satellite Cosmos 2612 spent several days shadowing ICEYE-X36, a radar-imaging satellite owned by the US arm of the Finnish firm ICEYE, at times closing to within a few kilometers. ICEYE has been a major supplier of imagery to Ukraine’s military, although it is unclear whether this particular satellite supports Ukrainian operations, and LeoLabs, which tracked the approach, said its data did not establish hostile intent. Read alongside earlier Russian proximity operations near Western satellites and Chinese satellites practicing “dogfighting” in orbit, the episode shows how hard it is to deter or coerce an adversary that can shadow critical systems at little cost. For a quarter century, since a 2001 congressional commission warned of a “Space Pearl Harbor,” US thinking about space war has centered on a surprise blow that wipes out American space assets and, with them, the US edge in every other domain. That framing misreads how control of space is won. No single kinetic salvo can secure it, because destroying a distributed constellation costs the attacker a great deal and buys only modest military gains. Debris from such strikes could also set off a Kessler cascade, in which fragments from one collision cause others and damage satellites far from the original target. Lasting space superiority depends on staying power, beginning with an industrial base deep enough to absorb and replace losses and the tactical skill to conduct active defensive counterspace (DCS) operations. It also requires launch infrastructure that is resilient and spread across allied territory, along with the diplomatic skill to manage escalation that crosses domains. Analysts have warned that US spacepower rests on a consolidated industrial base and slow acquisition, and future advantage in orbit will turn on building a space industrial base that can sustain launches through a long fight. Why the preemptive strike model fails The case for offensive counterspace holds that preemptive strikes on an adversary’s main space architecture offer the cleanest route to victory. Chinese planners, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency, reason along similar lines and see US dependence on satellites as a weakness to exploit. That logic held when a small cluster of satellites carried most of the load. Proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) constellations now spread capability across thousands of spacecraft, so each interceptor imposes a high marginal cost on the attacker while barely denting the network as a whole. Orbits also cannot be partitioned, since debris from a kinetic strike endangers every spacecraft at that altitude, including the attacker’s own, and narrows its later freedom to maneuver. A space war is therefore more likely to be a drawn-out contest of jamming, countermeasures, and replacement launches than a single exchange of fire. In a long fight, finite interceptor stocks would run down early, as the United States found when it reportedly used about a quarter of its upper-tier missile defense interceptors in a 12-day conflict with Iran, and the side that struck first would be left exposed. An “Orbital SEAD” campaign uses jamming, cyber operations and, where needed, lasers that temporarily dazzle imaging sensors to blind parts of an adversary’s kill chain during a strike without creating debris. The pursuit of total orbital dominance follows the same logic as Golden Dome, the proposed homeland missile shield whose space-based interceptor layer would cost too much and could not stop a major attack, two missile defense experts recently argued. Trying to make US satellites invulnerable, or to shut every other actor out of the domain, runs into the same limits of cost and physics. The real target in a space war is a military service, and any single satellite is only one part of the system that service relies on. That system runs from spacecraft through ground stations and data links to the terminals in users’ hands. The Space Force’s 2025 planning framework reflects this by treating attacks on the orbital, link and terrestrial segments as distinct options. Orbital suppression and adversary adaptation Counterspace operations are changing because the architectures they target have spread out. Navigation constellations such as Russia’s GLONASS (24 satellites) and China’s BeiDou (37 in service) concentrate capability in a few dozen expensive spacecraft, most of them in medium Earth orbit (MEO) and, in BeiDou’s case, some in geosynchronous orbits. Against systems like these, direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missiles offered a plausible way to degrade service over a region, and the Defense Intelligence Agency assesses that China probably intends to field ASAT weapons able to reach as high as geosynchronous orbit. Megaconstellations pose a far harder problem, since SpaceX had more than 11,000 working Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) as of mid-October 2026, according to Jonathan McDowell’s tracking. Spending millions of dollars per kinetic kill vehicle against a network built to route data around lost nodes buys little military effect. As launch grows more responsive, destroyed satellites can be replaced in days or weeks instead of months or years, which makes interceptors a poor investment. A better historical parallel is the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. SEAD is judged by the aircraft it keeps alive more than by the radars it destroys, and knocking a radar off the air for a short time was often enough to open a window for a strike package. In space, the equivalent would be an “Orbital SEAD” campaign that uses jamming, cyber operations and, where needed, lasers that temporarily dazzle imaging sensors to blind parts of an adversary’s kill chain during a strike without creating debris. The Space Force’s Meadowlands jammer, accepted for operational use in June 2026, is one tool built for this kind of work. In practice, Orbital SEAD would go after ground-station downlinks, uplinks, and crosslink relays with jamming and cyber intrusion. Because nothing breaks apart in orbit, the United States and its partners keep the use of the same altitudes once the fighting stops. Ukraine already offers a preview, with Reuters reporting in July 2026 that Russian units had begun fielding jammers against the Starlink terminals Ukrainian crews use to steer long-range drones. Mitigating reconstitution bottlenecks through allied integration The line between offensive counterspace (OCS), which seeks to degrade or destroy an adversary’s space capabilities, and active defensive counterspace (DCS), which maneuvers to protect and shield friendly spacecraft, is blurring. A credible US posture should shift investment away from destructive OCS interceptors and toward active DCS and orbital resilience. Deeper cooperation with European and Asian commercial launch providers would spread the supply chain across many countries, complicate adversary targeting, and ensure that an adversary cannot freeze US reconstitution simply by threatening Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg. Kinetic counterspace stockpiles would also run into hard industrial limits, with solid rocket motor (SRM) production already a well-documented bottleneck. Consolidation between 1995 and 2017 shrank the US SRM base from six firms to two, now Northrop Grumman and L3Harris (through Aerojet Rocketdyne). Newer entrants such as Anduril, Ursa Major, and X-Bow are trying to scale up, but the two incumbents remain stretched by simultaneous demand from tactical missile lines and the Sentinel ICBM program. Every kinetic interceptor would compete for the same casting lines, specialized tooling and propellant chemicals, including ammonium perchlorate, for which American Pacific Corporation is the only US source. A military cannot claim space superiority if it cannot replace orbital losses under fire, and launch timing works against fast replacement. We call this constraint the “space tyranny of distance.” A rocket headed for a particular orbital plane has to wait until Earth’s rotation carries the launch site under that plane, which can hold a mission on the ground for hours. American launch also hinges on a single provider, with SpaceX accounting for roughly 90% of all Western launch mass to orbit, according to Ars Technica. Falcon 9 was grounded twice in the summer of 2024 alone, and any fleet-wide grounding would stall the American launch pipeline. The alternatives are in no position to absorb a surge. The Space Force has kept ULA’s Vulcan off national security missions since a solid rocket booster anomaly in February 2026, and a May 2026 explosion destroyed a New Glenn rocket and wrecked Blue Origin’s only operational pad. A 2025 Government Accountability Office report found federal range infrastructure strained by the rising launch rate, and slow pad turnaround at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force Base, would further limit how quickly the United States could recover in a crisis. A further option lies in what one of us has defined as the “space littoral,” the band of near-space and very low Earth orbit (VLEO) between roughly 20 and 450 kilometers. In the most recent batch of national security launch orders, SpaceX’s missions averaged about $143 million each and ULA’s about $214 million. Sounding rockets flown from ranges such as Poker Flat in Alaska, White Sands in New Mexico, and Wallops in Virginia can lift sensors through the lower littoral, though each flight is suborbital and lasts only minutes. Higher in the band, small launchers can place inexpensive, short-lived satellites into low orbits on short notice, as the Space Force showed in 2023 when it put its Victus Nox satellite into orbit 27 hours after issuing launch orders. Neither option replaces heavy lift, but both offer a way to restore some sensing and communications while the main ranges are congested. That logjam makes allied launch integration a strategic necessity, since allied ranges such as Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, SaxaVord in Scotland and, for suborbital flights, South Australia’s Koonibba Test Range would let the US military work around the geographic limits on launch timing. Deeper cooperation with European and Asian commercial launch providers would spread the supply chain across many countries, complicate adversary targeting, and ensure that an adversary cannot freeze US reconstitution simply by threatening Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg. The commons, attribution, and strategic action Outer space is a shared global commons, and reckless behavior there has lasting consequences. China’s 2007 SC-19 test against its own Fengyun-1C weather satellite produced more than 3,000 tracked fragments, and spacecraft including the International Space Station have had to maneuver around the remnants, with US military satellites still dodging them years later. Operating in a domain this crowded requires high-fidelity space domain awareness (SDA), because hostile acts can be disguised as space weather, hardware faults, or accidental collisions. Without fast and reliable attribution, deterrence fails, since an adversary that expects to mask or deny its aggression has little reason to hold back. If Washington stays fixated on an orbital Pearl Harbor, it will keep over-investing in fragile offensive counterspace systems at the expense of staying power. Deterrence in space depends on clear thresholds and reliable attribution, backed by a mix of denial and punishment capabilities. Reported Russian work on an orbital nuclear anti-satellite weapon shows what is at stake. A nuclear detonation in orbit would damage unhardened satellites in direct line of sight and pump up the Van Allen radiation belts for months, degrading commercial, scientific and neutral countries’ satellites along with military ones. A strike of this kind could trigger a global economic shock without causing a single casualty on Earth. The United States and its partners need clear norms for maneuvering in orbit, especially as countries including France, Japan, and India develop “bodyguard” satellites that can shield other spacecraft and respond to threats. Any US escorts used for active DCS would need transparency and pre-announced operating thresholds. By convening open talks on reducing space threats, Washington could shape the rules for future conflict in orbit. Clear norms would make it less likely that defensive maneuvers are mistaken for preemptive attacks, lowering the risk of accidental escalation while making it easier to hold aggressive actors publicly accountable. The first step is for Space Systems Command to diversify its launch partnerships by speeding certification of alternative heavy- and medium-lift providers, including allied international sites, so that no single provider accounts for more than 65 percent of surge capacity by the end of 2028. Second, the Space Force must move research and development funding away from destructive kinetic counterspace projects and toward orbital maneuver, defensive shielding, and on-orbit servicing, with the aim of flying active DCS escorts alongside high-value assets by 2027. Third, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment must invest in domestic SRM production, qualifying a second US source of ammonium perchlorate and expanding automated propellant casting capacity by 2028. Finally, Congress must appropriate dedicated funds to upgrade and automate national launch ranges, cutting pad refurbishment and turnaround times for reconstitution payloads to under 48 hours. America’s acknowledgment of weapons in orbit makes the quality of its strategy more consequential. The value of those weapons will depend on whether they open real military opportunities while the United States and its allies keep their own ability to operate. If Washington stays fixated on an orbital Pearl Harbor, it will keep over-investing in fragile offensive counterspace systems at the expense of staying power. Space control in practice will come from Orbital SEAD that suppresses adversary systems long enough to open windows of advantage, because permanent ownership of the domain is out of reach. The side that can absorb losses and put new satellites in orbit fastest will hold space superiority, whatever happens in the opening salvo. Matt Isler is a retired Air Force general who works for Northrop Gruman and is a Fellow at the Payne Institute of Public Policy. Alex Gilbert is a fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy and principal at Rocinante Fieldworks. Morgan Bazilian is a professor and director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. Lt. Colonel Jahara Matisek is a fellow at the National Defense University and the Payne Institute. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.