Life On Mars Discovered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY-k9jo78rM

The Dominance Of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg

Cape launch Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and neighboring Kennedy Space Center hosted 109 launches in 2025, a record. (credit: Airman 1st Class Samuel Becker) The dominance of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg by Jeff Foust Monday, February 9, 2026 Around 2018, the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing announced an initiative dubbed “Drive for 48” intended to support an increased launch rate at the Eastern Range, which includes the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The goal, as the name suggested, was to support 48 launches a year: one per week, with two two-week maintenance periods. It was an audacious goal at a time when the range was hosting only a couple launches a month. The initiative took on an auto racing theme, including an illustration of a stock car emblazoned with the number 48. When we’re looking at the analysis out there, in 2035, we’re seeing numbers upwards of 500 launches a year off the Space Coast,” said Chatman. In 2025, the Eastern Range lapped the field. There were 109 launches from KSC and the rechristened Cape Canaveral Space Force Station that year, more than double a goal that seven years earlier seemed difficult to achieve. That was largely achieved by SpaceX, which accounted for 101 of those launches with its workhorse Falcon 9, with Atlas 5, New Glenn, and Vulcan accounting for the rest. Not long ago, that launch rate would have been considered impossible from the Space Coast: too much demand on spaceport infrastructure. But the leadership of the Eastern Range expects launch activity to continue to grow. “When we’re looking at the analysis out there, in 2035, we’re seeing numbers upwards of 500 launches a year off the Space Coast,” said Col. Brian Chatman, commander of Space Launch Delta 45, the Space Force successor to the 45th Space Wing, during a panel discussion at the Space Mobility conference in Orlando January 27. He said nearly $1 billion is going into spaceport infrastructure development at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station through the “Spaceport of the Future” initiative. The goal is to be able to accommodate that 500 or more launches a year as soon as 2030. “We’re redoing the landscape from a launch base perspective to maximize efficiency out at the range, to maximize throughput,” he said, “to help partner with the launch service providers to meet the number of launches, the cadence they anticipate in the future.” The same is true at the other major American spaceport, Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Once a relatively quiet launch site, there were 71 launches there in 2025, a figure that includes both orbital launches and suborbital missile tests. Like the Eastern Range, the vast majority of those launches were by SpaceX: the only orbital launch attempt from Vandenberg last year not performed by SpaceX was a Firefly Alpha launch that failed to reach orbit. “A busy year at Vandenberg,” recalled Col. Jim Horne, commander of Space Launch Delta 30, which oversees the Western Range, “used to be nine, ten launches a year.” Speaking at the Space Mobility panel, he said Vandenberg now was where Cape Canaveral was two years ago. “A lot of the lessons we’ve learned from SLD 45 as they leaned into the capacity surge are really starting to pay off.” Like the Cape, the Vandenberg is investing in infrastructure improvements to the tune of more than $800 million over five years. Much of that is going towards “retiring tech debt” that has accumulated over the years there. “We’re essentially modernizing the infrastructure we built in the first space race to get ready for the second space race.” “We anticipate upwards of 150 to 200 launches over the next couple of years,” he said. “I think we’re pretty close to getting there.” “There is a provider that the way they get into our harbor is that they hired a surfer. He stands on the edge of the barge. He waits for the tides to optimize and says, “Ready, ready, go!’ And then the boat harbor guy guns it and they ride the wave into the harbor,” Horne said. Traditionally, the focus on spaceport infrastructure has been on the launch pads themselves, and there have been recent efforts to create new launch facilities. Last fall, the Department of the Air Force approved plans by SpaceX to convert the Cape’s Space Launch Complex 37, a former Delta 4 pad, into a Starship launch facility with two pads. At the end of January, the FAA approved Starship launches from a pad under construction at KSC’s Launch Complex 39A, allowing up to 44 launches a year along with 44 landings each of the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage. SpaceX plans to use LC-39A almost exclusively for Falcon Heavy and Starship launches, with Falcon 9 launches, including crewed missions, flying from nearby SLC-40. In December, Vandenberg issued a request for information about potential uses of Space Launch Complex 14, an undeveloped site on the south side of the base that the Space Force would like to offer to an operator of a heavy-lift or superheavy-lift launch vehicle, like Starship or New Glenn. At the same time, the Eastern Range is considering redeveloping Space Launch Complex 46, a rarely used pad, for large vehicles as well. But the bottlenecks to that projected launch growth are not the launch sites themselves. On the panel, both Chatman and Horne discussed challenges ranging from roads to pipelines that pose the biggest potential challenges to growth. “Today I’ve got one main artery to drive on and off Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,” said Chatman. “I need a booster transport lane. I need the ability to deconflict how men and women get to work day-to-day from how we transport upper stages and boosters back over to the processing facilities.” Another issue, he said, is propellants. Methane is increasingly used by launch vehicles: New Glenn and Vulcan now, with Starship to follow. Right now, methane is brought to the launch sites by truck. “That’s thousands of trucks coming through my vehicle inspection stations each and every day,” he said. “Things like a methane pipeline are things we didn’t account for two years ago when we laid in requirements for Spaceport of the Future,” he said, adding that he was working with Space Florida, the state’s space economic development agency, to help fund infrastructure upgrades like a pipeline. Horne raised similar concerns about truck traffic at Vandenberg. “In the past we’ve said each to his own” about getting commodities to their pads,” he said. That truck traffic for bringing in those commodities affects roads as well as traffic on the base. Then there’s the issue of Vandenberg’s modest harbor. “There is a provider that the way they get into our harbor is that they hired a surfer. He stands on the edge of the barge. He waits for the tides to optimize and says, “Ready, ready, go!’ And then the boat harbor guy guns it and they ride the wave into the harbor,” he said. Improving the harbor is a priority, he said, with the goal of making it available 90% of the time versus 30% now. “We have to invest in our harbor in a way that makes it like any other normal port and opens up capacity,” he said. Vandneberg A Falcon 9 lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2024. (credit: Airman 1st Class Olga Houtsma) Other spaceports In 2025, the Eastern and Western Ranges accounted for all but one orbital launch from the United States. The exception was a single Rocket Lab Electron launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia. (Other sites hosted suborbital launches, such as New Shepard missions from Blue Origin’s West Texas facility and Starship test flights from Starbase in Texas.) “If there was a launch and something were to go wrong, we’re fortunate that all the folks underneath us are, probably, cows,” said Spaceport America’s Pallares. The perceived congestion at the Cape seemed to be an opportunity for other spaceports to attract customers. Rocket Lab decided to set up operations at Wallops for Electron and, soon, Neutron, avoiding the Cape, while Northrop Grumman has used that site for Antares launches. Northrop’s partnership with Firefly Aerospace will allow for Alpha and Eclipse launches from there. But there are still far more spaceports than demand. The day before Space Mobility, the Global Spaceport Alliance gathered in the same convention center for its annual Spaceport Summit, attracting a record audience despite a winter storm that kept some people away. Dozens of spaceports, most from the United States but some from Australia, Europe, Japan and Latin America, attended. Most of the spaceports had one thing in common: they had yet to host a launch. One reason why is that many of the facilities are located inland, ruling out orbital launches—at least in the US—under current regulations. Some hope to be able to change that. “I think the biggest value proposition for inland spaceports is being able to hold schedule,” said Francisco Pallares, director of business development for Spaceport America in New Mexico, during one conference panel. That facility, best known for hosting Virgin Galactic suborbital launches, has shown an interest in supporting orbital launches. The lack of congestion today at inland launch sites, he argued, could provide customers with the schedule assurance that is harder to come by at major launch sites today. “They need the certainty that they will be able to launch.” The maturation of launch vehicles starts to make inland orbital launch an option at some sites, like Spaceport America. “The companies can more easily approach this accuracy that is so necessary,” he said. Spaceport America has 18,000 acres of land that is surrounded by much larger territory owned by the state of New Mexico and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as nearby White Sands Missile Range. “If there was a launch and something were to go wrong, we’re fortunate that all the folks underneath us are, probably, cows,” he said. Another panelist advocated for the opposite of inland launch: offshore launches from floating platforms. “A misconception that is associated with sea launch is that sea launch has to be very costly,” said Michael Anderson, CEO of Seagate Space, which is developing ships that can serve as mobile launch platforms. That perception is rooted in the experience from Sea Launch, the multinational venture that, in the 1990s, converted an oil rig into a launch platform the Zenit-3SL rocket, along with a large ship that accompanies it to launches on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. The model he envisions is what China is doing today with barges that host launches of smaller vehicles, taking place not far offshore from Chinese cities. Seagate, he said, is working on a “very cost-efficient asset that actually provides more capability than attempts to retrofit assets built for a totally different purpose.” “There is availability at the major spaceports in the United States that is the ‘easy button,’” said Hoffman One advantage of ocean launch, he said, is there is no need to acquire large amounts of land for a launch site. The average launch pad, he said, requires about 1,000 acres of land; one for Starship might eventually support daily launches putting 100 to 150 tons each into orbit. He contrasted that to the Port of Miami, which covers 500 acres but handles 25,000 tons of cargo a day. “Space has a space problem,” he concluded. There are few signs, though, of a shift towards inland or ocean spaceports. “There is availability at the major spaceports in the United States that is the ‘easy button,’” said Eric Hoffman, a vice president at Booz Allen, during another panel at the spaceport summit. Companies can leverage government infrastructure at the Cape and Vandenberg. “It’s just easier.” “The SpaceX’s and Blue Origin’s of the world have made their investments in those facilities,” said Mike Kuchler, senior manager at Deloitte. “You can’t recreate superheavy launch at a state or local spaceport and reach the same economies of scale.” Both Hoffman and Kuchler urged new spaceports to find other niches rather than try to serve the same customers that the Cape and Vandenberg are supporting. One example they gave was Oklahoma’s announcement last year it would bring in Dawn Aerospace’s Aurora Mark 2 suborbital spaceplane to the state’s spaceport, a former air force base in Burns Flat. That vehicle is expected to start flying from that spaceport next year. “For the other, newer spaceports, you have to focus on something that is a niche that isn’t necessarily being serviced,” Hoffman said. Proponents of other spaceports have tried to make other arguments for diversifying launch beyond the Cape and Vandenberg, such as the risk those sites could be taken offline by a natural disaster or an attack. So far, those arguments have not been convincing. As long as the Eastern and Western Ranges remain the “easy button” for launch companies and can accommodate continued growth, other spaceports in the US will need to find another lane to race in. 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 submitted comments will b

The 70-Meter Dish At Yevpatoria

Yevpatoriya The 70-meter dish at Yevpatoriya photographed by an American reconnaissance satellite during the Cold War. In 2025 this dish was attacked by Ukrainian drones. (credit: Harry Stranger) Breaking dishes: the space facility at Yevpatoriya by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 9, 2026 In August 2025, the Ukrainian military released a short video showing a drone attack on some domes at a satellite tracking station in Russian-occupied Crimea. In late September, they did it again, releasing a video showing a drone approaching a very large communications dish before the video went blank. In both cases, the targets were at a sprawling satellite tracking and communications facility known as Yevpatoriya. After illegally occupying Crimea in 2014, the Russian military reactivated at least part of the Yevpatoriya facility, which had been built during the Cold War as a major space communications facility and earned a bit of fame for the Soviet space program. The facility was intended to support Soviet lunar and planetary missions, and the Soviet government did not keep it secret. Soviet publications about the facility were used by the CIA to piece together clues as to what was happening there. What the Russians are currently doing there, and why the Ukrainians have attacked the equipment there, is unknown. But Yevpatoriya, and a nearby facility at Simferopol, also on the Crimean peninsula, played an important but enigmatic role in the Cold War, and both were a major target for United States intelligence agencies. (Note: there are different spellings of Yevpatoriya and the author has chosen to use the one most commonly—but not always—used by the CIA during the Cold War.) Yevpatoriya A 1957 CIA map of Crimea. Note both Yevpatoriya and Simferopol, which later became important space tracking stations. (credit: CIA) Like something from a James Bond film It does not appear that Yevpatoriya was of particular interest to the CIA during the early years of the Cold War. As a small city in western Crimea, the CIA was aware of it and its potential importance in the control of the Black Sea, but there were other locations of greater interest, particularly seaports. In November 1956, an attempt to search for evidence of an anti-ship missile proving ground near Yevpatoriya was made using a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, but cloud cover prevented interpretation of photography over the area. In summer 1957, a U-2 flew around the Crimean peninsula and photographed many military installations, notably many warships both at anchor and underway. A known airfield at Yevpatoriya was not able to be photographed due to cloud cover and it being far from the aircraft’s path. In September, the CIA produced a detailed report about military installations on Crimea, notably many warships both at anchor and underway. Yevpatoriya In summer 1957, a U-2 reconnaissance plane flown by a CIA pilot flew over the Black Sea and photographed targets inside Crimea. During this mission, Yevpatoriya was obscured by clouds. (credit: CIA) Starting in 1960, the Soviets began construction of a major satellite tracking station only a few kilometers from Yevpatoriya. The main construction was apparently finished by 1961. The facility was intended to support Soviet lunar and planetary missions, and the Soviet government did not keep it secret. Soviet publications about the facility were used by the CIA to piece together clues as to what was happening there. It looked like something from The Thunderbirds, or a James Bond movie—nothing like it existed in other space programs. In 1963, the Soviet newspaper Komsomol’skaya Pravda published an article titled “Attention! The Automatic Interplanetary Station is Calling…” which referred to the tracking station at Yevpatoriya and its role in Soviet planetary programs, and even published a photograph of the facility. Yevpatoriya This 1982 map shows the location of the many satellite tracking stations throughout the Soviet Union. There were only a few stations used for communicating with lunar and planetary missions. (credit: CIA) Equally important, at the invitation of the Soviet Union, Sir Bernard Lovell, who was then the director of the United Kingdom’s famed Jodrell Bank Observatory, visited the Yevpatoriya facility in 1963. Lovell had developed good relations with the Soviet space science community and had even helped them with their space missions. His visit was unprecedented, and Lovell described it in a July 1963 article for New Scientist. “As few Russians have been able to visit the place, I felt very privileged at being the first Westerner to go there,” he wrote. “The primary purpose of the station, and the reason for its existence, is the tracking of lunar and planetary probes; it was from here that the abortive Venus and Mars probes were commanded. It belongs to the Institute of Radiotechnics and Electronics, directed by Academician V.a. Kotelnikov,” Lovell stated. Yevpatoriya The north facility at Yevpatoriya had two large satellite dish arrays. The south facility had only one of these antenna arrays. The Soviet Union released photos of the antennas, and in 1963 Sir Bernard Lovell was able to visit Yevpatoriya. (credit: CIA) Lovell mentioned the huge tracking dishes the Soviets had built at the location, eight large dishes mounted on a single rotating rectangular mount. It looked like something from The Thunderbirds, or a James Bond movie—nothing like it existed in other space programs. The Soviets released photographs of the tracking antennas which appeared in books in the West, adding to the mystique of the Soviet space program. Whereas Jodrell Bank in England with its big impressive dish in the countryside became iconic in its own way, the unique communications system at Yevpatoriya also came to symbolize the often secretive Soviet space effort. Yevpatoriya The locations of the three Yevpatoriya facilities as depicted in an early CIA map. The microwave station would eventually become the site of the large 70-meter dish. (credit: CIA) Yevpatoriya grows Starting in 1960, American satellites overflew Crimea and photographed the facilities there. The United States was fully aware of what the Soviets were doing, although initial photographs were low quality. In September 1963, for unknown reasons, the National Security Agency, which was responsible for intercepting Soviet radio signals, requested that the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), which analyzed reconnaissance photos, conduct a survey of the area near Ust Ukhta in the northern Soviet Union for a deep-space tracking or communications facility. NPIC surveyed the area for a 50-nautical-mile (93-kilometer) radius and found nothing. Yevpatoriya Yevpatoriya was divided into three facilities, which the CIA designated North, Central, and South. The north station was used for receiving signals and was separated from the south station, which was used for transmission, to avoid interference. Multiple antennas and satellite dishes were at the northern site, including two large eight-dish antenna array clusters. (credit: Harry Stranger) By November 1963, NPIC created a report: “Deep-Space Probe Tracking and Communication Center, Yevpatoriya, USSR.” As NPIC described it, the center consisted of two tracking stations, then designated “North” and “South,” and a microwave station for ground communications. The north station was divided by security fences into three sections: a “celestial communication section,” as the report called it, a support section, and a probable terrestrial communication section. The celestial communication section contained two steerable antenna arrays located 600 meters apart, two possible amplifier buildings, and nine miscellaneous control and/or laboratory buildings. Each steerable antenna array consisted of eight 16-meter solid, circular parabolic reflectors arranged in two rows of four reflectors each. The probable terrestrial communication section consisted of a large area of grassland that probably contained high-frequency receiving antennas, but they could not be identified given existing sources. Yevpatoriya A 1963 CIA map of the north Yevpatoriya facility produced from satellite photos. Photo-interpreters kept close watch for any new construction at the facilities. (credit: CIA) The south station consisted of four main sections: a celestial communication section, a support section, a probable terrestrial communication section, and a possible antenna array section. The celestial communication section contained a steerable antenna array identical, or nearly so, to the two arrays at the north station. The array was believed to be the transmitter for communication with deep space missions, and the arrays at the north station were the receivers. The support section had four barracks-type buildings capable of holding 200-300 personnel. Satellite photos also indicated that a possible antenna array section may have started construction but then been abandoned. Yevpatoriya One of the unique antenna arrays at the northern Yevpatoria facility. From the ground, particularly when pointed at a low azimuth, they look like something from a movie. (credit: Harry Stranger) The microwave station was located midway between the two stations. It consisted of a control building and a lattice tower approximately 240 feet (73 meters) high supporting two microwave dishes. They appeared to be oriented in the general direction of Simferopol. A wire line connected the station to north station. Yevpatoriya The satellite antenna array at the south Yevpatoriya facility. This was used for transmitting. This antenna has since been demolished. (credit: Harry Stranger) Yevpatoriya was not the only place with the large antenna arrays. A CORONA reconnaissance satellite mission photographed identical eight-dish antenna arrays, with smaller diameter dishes, that had been built at the Serpukhov Radio Physical Station by August 1964. By October 1965, continuing review of CORONA satellite mission 1024-1 photographs revealed new construction at Yevpatoriya. By August 1966, the CIA’s Imagery Analysis Division had produced a detailed chronology of the development of the facilities there. New construction was underway at the electronic facilities at the north station. The CIA conducted detailed measurements of all of the buildings at both sites. Yevpatoriya The south facility at Yevpatoriya was not as extensive as the northern facility, but it did include large bunkers to house hundreds of personnel. (credit: CIA) In August 1966, CORONA mission 1036-1 identified a new steerable parabolic dish at Yevpatoriya. Although no new multi-dish arrays were built, other communications equipment was later added at the locations, and the US intelligence community kept track of the facilities. In January 1970, photography revealed an excavation for a possible second large space tracking antenna at Yevpatoriya south. By this time, the north facility already contained five large antennas. A large rectangular excavation was dug about a kilometer and a half from the existing eight-dish antenna array. It was of the same approximate size as the existing eight-dish antenna. An antenna at that location would, “like the existing antenna, have an unobstructed look-angle for acquisition of spacecraft to the south and east.” However, no new eight-dish antenna array was built. The report indicated that Simferopol was now “apparently the most significant tracking facility in the Soviet Union,” containing “the largest number of antennas, the largest area, and the most personnel of any of the Soviet tracking facilities.” By the early 1970s, the central facility, which up to this time had been a microwave communications center, was the site of a major new construction. The Soviets built a huge, 70-meter diameter satellite dish, equivalent to the largest satellite communications dishes built by NASA. It was designated as RT-70, and could also be used as a radio telescope. This dish was used for collecting very faint signals from more distant spacecraft and was equivalent to NASA’s three large 70-meter dishes constructed during the early 1960s in California, Spain, and Australia. The Soviet government referred to the Yevpatoriya facilities as NIP-16. The Soviets designated the north site as site 1, the south site as site 2, and the central site as site 3. Site number 1 is near Vitino, site number 2 is near Zaozyornoe, and site number 3, which was the last to be constructed, is near Molochnoe. Yevpatoriya The satellite antenna array at the south Yevpatoriya facility. This was part of the Pluton network. It has been demolished. (credit: Wikimedia Commons) Although the US intelligence community may not have known it for decades, the eight-dish array antennas were designated ADU-1000 by the Russians and formed the Pluton (“Pluto”) deep space tracking network. The southern transmitting array and northern receiving arrays were separated from each other to ensure that the transmitting antenna did not interfere with the receiving antennas. The 70-meter dish at the central site was designated as RT-70 by the Russians and became operational in the 1970s when it apparently began to take over most of the functions of the ADU-1000 antennas. NIP-16 also served as the mission control center for Soviet manned space missions until the mid-1970s. Yevpatoriya Simferopol was the site of a large dish used to receive signals from Soviet Mars and lunar missions. Its operations were connected by the CIA to the Yevpatoriya facility to the northwest. (credit: NRO) Simferopol Yevpatoriya was not the only space communications facility on Crimea. It is unclear when the US intelligence community first gathered hard data on the existence of a space tracking and communications facility at Simferopol, 28 nautical miles (52 kilometers) southeast of the south station of Yevpatoriya. But in September 1963, recent satellite and ground photography identified a large parabolic antenna about 26 meters in diameter at Simferopol. Yevpatoriya Simferopol eventually became a large space tracking and communications station that was closely monitored by the US intelligence community. It is depicted here in a declassified 1969 map. (credit: CIA) In November 1962, Komsomol’skaya Pravda discussed the Mars 1 mission and the Yevpatoriya station. Pravda discussed the Lunik 4 tracking operation in April 1963. Both articles indirectly referred to a large dish antenna, which was likely a dish located at the Simferopol station. They also mentioned the frequency used for communicating with the planetary spacecraft. Based upon Soviet statements about the Mars 1 and Lunik 4 missions, the US intelligence community believed that the Simferopol dish was connected to those missions, and concluded that radio or radar astronomy were not its primary missions. Yevpatoriya Although Yevpatoriya was the first deep space tracking facility in Crimea, it was soon joined by Simferopol, also on the peninsula. By the late 1960s, the CIA determined that Simferopol was the most extensive satellite and space tracking facility in the Soviet Union. It was also used to eavesdrop on the Apollo missions. This satellite photo was taken in 1972. (credit: Harry Stranger) Over the next few years, Simferopol grew substantially. In June 1969, NPIC produced a detailed overview of the Simferopol Space Flight Center. The report indicated that it was now “apparently the most significant tracking facility in the Soviet Union,” containing “the largest number of antennas, the largest area, and the most personnel of any of the Soviet tracking facilities.” It was one of a network of ten facilities containing satellite vehicle tracking equipment and providing command and control for Soviet near-space events. It also supported lunar programs “associated with the Yevpatroriya Deep Space Tracking Facility.” Yevpatoriya Simferopol continued to grow and is seen here in 1983. (credit: Harry Stranger) Yevpatoriya A dish at Simferopol photographed by an American reconnaissance satellite in 1983. (credit: Harry Stranger) Simferopol could be divided into four functional areas: the operations area, telemetry collection area, interferometer area, and the general support area. A major portion of the facility was the “Flim Flam component,” which consisted of two control buildings with roof-mounted environmental domes covering tracking and receiving dishes. Other Flim Flam components were located at other tracking facilities, and they provided the main method of communicating with Soviet spacecraft in Earth orbit. It is unclear if the US intelligence community was aware that the big dish at Simferopol had been used by the Soviets to eavesdrop on Apollo missions to the Moon. (See “The satellite eavesdropping stations of Russia’s intelligence services (part 1),” The Space Review, January 20, 2025, and part 2, January 27, 2025.) Yevpatoriya The STONEHOUSE facility in Ethiopia was operated by the National Security Agency until 1974 and used to eavesdrop on communications sent from spacecraft down to the Yevpatoriya and Simferopol ground stations. (credit: NSA) BANKHEAD and STONEHOUSE The US intelligence community began an effort in the early 1960s to intercept communications to and from Yevpatoriya space tracking and communications station and later the Simferopol station. Transmissions from Yevpatoriya to space could be intercepted at an American listening post in Turkey initially named BANKHEAD. But any signals coming down to Earth from distant spacecraft, such as lunar and Mars probes, would be very low power and require a large dish to collect them. The NSA’s STONEHOUSE facility was apparently able to collect higher quality signals than the Soviets could with their equipment at Yevpatoriya. In the early 1960s, the United States began considering building three large interception dishes at three different locations around the world to collect signals from Soviet planetary spacecraft. They were to be named STONEHOUSE. The Americans expected that the Soviets would have three deep space ground stations around the world, and STONEHOUSE stations would be required for each of them (see “Stonehouse: Deep space listening in the high desert,” The Space Review, May 8, 2023 and “Stealing secrets from the ether: missile and satellite telemetry interception during the Cold War,” The Space Review, January 17, 2022.) The National Security Agency, which prepared to build the STONEHOUSE dishes, eliminated two of the three stations due to cost. But it caught a break when the Soviets decided to not build additional ground stations and only transmit during the time when the spacecraft was in view of the Crimean station—the so-called “dump method.” Thus, only one STONEHOUSE interception station was needed. A deep space interception station required a large antenna, a highly sensitive receiver, and high-quality recording devices. It also ideally needed to be sited in a location free of radio noise. The single STONEHOUSE station was built in Ethiopia starting in 1963, and in 1964 the Department of Defense released a cover story that it was an electronics research facility. The BANKHEAD system in Turkey, which was eventually renamed HIPPODROME, which could intercept signals going up to space, was apparently tasked with cueing STONEHOUSE about Soviet planetary launches so that STONEHOUSE could later intercept their data. The original STONEHOUSE plan was a single 26-meter (85-foot) diameter antenna, but a 46-meter (150-foot) diameter antenna was later added for redundancy. The larger antenna had lower surface quality but simpler construction. Jodrell Bank’s huge dish in the United Kingdom, although not ideally suited for intercepting Soviet deep space communications, was also used for that purpose—Sir Bernard Lovell, although friendly with Soviet scientists, was also British to the core. The NSA’s STONEHOUSE facility was apparently able to collect higher quality signals than the Soviets could with their equipment at Yevpatoriya. In 1974, the STONEHOUSE facility was closed due to a civil war in Ethiopia, and the NSA apparently moved operations to a British facility in Cyprus, which had the benefit of being closer to Yevpatoriya and Simferopol. Although the CIA’s interest in Soviet planetary missions decreased during the 1970s, Yevpatoriya and Simferopol were also used to communicate with high-altitude Soviet communications satellites, so they remained important targets for intelligence collection. By early 1982, Yevpatoriya’s north facility had been updated with newer equipment. The north area consisted of 24 different antennas, including two 12-meter diameter ORBITA antennas, an 8-meter diameter antenna, two 25-meter diameter antennas, the two famous eight-dish antenna arrays, a four-element telemetry antenna, a QUAD LEAF antenna, and several others. The central facility contained the huge 70-meter-diameter antenna, a large antenna control building, and ten support buildings. Why Ukraine attacked Yevpatoriya is confusing. They apparently believe that the 3762/4 observatory and the big RT-70 dish are associated with the GLONASS navigation system. The south facility included four double rhombic antennas, two horizontal dipole antennas, a 16-element telemetry antenna, the eight-dish antenna array, a new 32-meter diameter antenna, and two mast antennas. The facility consisted of an operations and support area. The support area contained twenty support buildings. By this time, the US intelligence community had measured the frequencies and azimuths of the transmitting antennas. They knew what was happening there in detail. Three other dishes as big, or nearly as big as the one at Yevpatoriya had been built at other locations throughout the USSR, although the Soviet Union never developed the worldwide tracking network that the United States had constructed for both its civil and military space programs. Yevpatoriya Drone view of the PT70 dish during a Ukrainian attack in summer 2025. Ukraine's military believes that this large dish is used to support the GLONASS navigation satellite system. (credit: Ukraine Ministry of Defense) Yevpatoriya today According to space historian and analyst Bart Hendrickx, in recent years Russia began developing new optical space tracking facilities in multiple locations, including one in Yevpatoriya, which contained four optical telescopes. These are part of the Pritsel military space surveillance system, with the optical sites having the designation 3762. The tracking systems consist of optical telescopes located under domes and the observatory at the north facility is designated 3762/4. In late August 2025, Ukraine launched drones at the 3762/4 observatory, aiming at one of two domes. It was unclear from the video if the drone damaged the observatory or merely impacted on the dome without exploding. At the same time of this attack, at least one drone was attacking the big RT-70 dish a few kilometers away. In video, the drone approaches the dish, which has some missing panels. Whether the drone hit the dish, and if it caused any damage, is unknown. It is also unknown if the dish was still in operation, although the missing panels imply that it was no longer used. On September 10, 2025, Ukraine released another video of an attack on the 3762/4 observatory. Dramatically, a surface-to-air missile fired by the Russians failed to hit the drone before the drone impacted on the control building at the observatory and exploded. Another explosion is seen at another part of the facility. Why Ukraine attacked Yevpatoriya is confusing. They apparently believe that the 3762/4 observatory and the big RT-70 dish are associated with the GLONASS navigation system. The extent of the damage, if any, is publicly unknown. However, the US intelligence community is certainly still watching Yevpatoriya. Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Harry Stranger, Chris Pocock, Xin Lu, and Bart Hendrickx. Harry Stranger’s website is https://spacefromspace.com/. Further reading: “Military Targets on the Crimea Peninsula, USSR,” Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Research and Reports, September 30, 1957. CIA-RDP78T04753A000100160001-5 “Deep-Space Probe Tracking and Communication Center, Yevpatoriya, USSR,” National Photographic Interpretation Center, November 1963. CIA-RDP78B04560A001200010012-2 “Simferopol Space Flight Center, Deployed Comm/Elec/Radar Facilities, USSR,” National Photographic Interpretation Center,” June 1969. CIA-RDP78T04563A000100010029-1 “Yevpatoriya Deep-Space Tracking Center, USSR,” Photographic Intelligence Report, Central Intelligence Agency, August 1966. CIA-RDP78T05161A001000010049-5 “Yevpatoriya Deep Space Tracking Facility, North/Yevpatoriya Deep Space Tracking Facility, South,” National Photographic Interpretation Center, July 1969. CIA-RDP78T04563A000100010012-9 “Imagery Analysis Service Notes,” Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, January 16, 1970. CIA-RDP78T04759A009700010047-0 “Activity at Selected Soviet Space Tracking Facilities, Deployed Commo/Elec/Radar Facilities, USSR” National Photographic Interpretation Center, March 1982. CIA-RDP82T00709R000100070001-9

The Future Of Interplanetary Communications

DSN The future of interplanetary communications means moving from traditional systems like the Deep Space Network (above) to more networked concepts. (credit: NASA) The Solar System Internet: Envisioning a networked future beyond Earth by Scott Pace and Yosuke Kaneko Monday, February 9, 2026 As humanity’s ambitions extend beyond Earth—evidenced by NASA’s Artemis program and burgeoning commercial lunar and Martian ventures—the limitations of current space communications are increasingly apparent. Traditional point-to-point links, reliant on scheduled radiofrequency (RF) contacts and specialized protocols, struggle with the challenges of interplanetary distances such as propagation delays exceeding 20 minutes one-way to Mars, frequent line-of-sight disruptions, and asymmetric data rates where uplink capacities can be orders of magnitude lower than downlink. In response, researchers have been working to enable a Solar System Internet (SSI), a visionary architecture leveraging Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) using the Bundle Protocol (BP) to create a standardized, overlay network akin to (but distinct from) the terrestrial Internet. You can think of the terrestrial Internet as driving from Washington to New York. You get on the I-95 freeway and head north, getting off at your exit and arriving at a desired address. The interplanetary Internet is like going from Washington to Jakarta. In preparation for the first Artemis landing of humans on the Moon, a new generation of communications and navigation services are being created for cislunar space. LunaNet is an international framework for a lunar Internet, developed by NASA, ESA, and JAXA, providing communications, navigation (PNT), and data services for future Moon missions, featuring interoperable standards, delay-tolerant networking, and a scalable architecture for orbiters, landers, and surface assets to support sustained lunar exploration. The key idea and technology: DTN and the Bundle Protocol The SSI is not a single, monolithic network but an interoperable overlay designed to “federate” all kinds of distinct space assets—spacecraft, relays, rovers, and ground stations—into a “store-and-forward” fabric tolerant of the solar system’s unforgiving communication environment. The linchpin is DTN, a protocol suite initiated in 1998 by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), formalized through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). DTN addresses the problem of a “challenged network,” where end-to-end connectivity cannot be assumed, by decoupling data transport from delivery. You can think of the terrestrial Internet as driving from Washington to New York. You get on the I-95 freeway and head north, getting off at your exit and arriving at a desired address. The interplanetary Internet is like going from Washington to Jakarta. You drive to the airport, get on a scheduled flight, make some stops in transit with layovers, arrive in Jakarta, and then get a local ride to your destination. The SSI uses the Bundle Protocol, which is distinct from the terrestrial Internet’s use of TCP/IP protocols. TCP/IP’s continuous acknowledgment model falters under multi-minute delays, which are typical in deep space communications. Instead, BP uses a store-and-forward mechanism in which intermediate nodes hold bundles until forwarding opportunities arise. BP can operate across a wide range of communication protocols, from CCSDS-based space protocols to the familiar TCP/IP used on the Internet. It also functions well in “communication-resource-poor” infrastructures, and can operate under opportunistic (e.g., rover encounters) contacts without requiring constant end-to-end paths. The scalability of SSI is a force multiplier. BP’s overlay nature integrates legacy assets; for example, the Europa Clipper could leverage Mars Odyssey relays via DTN gateways to increase communications opportunities. Technical demonstrations have validated this architecture. ESA’s 2023 interoperability test, involving NASA JPL, Morehead State University, and the open-source D3TN implementation, showed reliable data delivery across disrupted links and independently developed DTN nodes. DTN data and video transmission have been tested at the Moon on the current Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission. Earlier NASA mission studies, including Europa Clipper, also found that DTN could reduce operational complexity by abstracting complex links into uniform network endpoints. Why it is important: reliability, scalability, and access in space operations The importance of SSI transcends incremental improvements; it fundamentally shifts space communications from siloed, mission-specific pipelines to a reusable, multi-stakeholder infrastructure, mirroring the terrestrial Internet’s “network once, use many” ethos. Current systems—epitomized by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) or ESA’s ESTRACK—rely on pre-planned, point-to-point sessions, incurring high latency in scheduling: days for contact windows. DTN’s store-and-forward paradigm, with its planned routing via contact graphs (precomputed link schedules), increases potential efficiency. Moreover, SSI enhances mission resilience and innovation. In high-disruption scenarios (e.g., solar conjunctions blacking out Mars-Earth links), bundles persist across regional outages, enabling autonomous operations. The scalability of SSI is a force multiplier. BP’s overlay nature integrates legacy assets; for example, the Europa Clipper could leverage Mars Odyssey relays via DTN gateways to increase communications opportunities. ESA’s Moonlight initiative envisions lunar DTN services over Ka-band, where bundles enable dynamic path selection amid gateway constellations, supporting terabit-scale downlinks for Earth observation missions. Some analyses estimate that SSI could amortize infrastructure costs across more than 100 missions by 2035, fostering commercial ecosystems like data relay leasing from Starlink-like megaconstellations extended to cislunar orbits. SSI lowers barriers for participation in space, particularly for developing countries. Traditional space communications demand multimillion-dollar ground stations and custom interfaces that exclude all but major space agencies. DTN’s open standards enable “plug-and-play” interoperability. A low-cost DTN node (e.g., software on Raspberry Pi-class hardware) can carry bundles from shared relays, as demonstrated in Morehead State’s university-led ESA tests. DTN’s resilience to “resource-poor” environments can also be translated to terrestrial applications, such as rural mesh networks in sub-Saharan Africa, creating dual-use knowledge transfer. The SSI could democratize space access but global coordination is needed, as with the terrestrial Internet. For example, all BP traffic terminates on physical layers governed by recommendations and regulations by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Speeches by the ITU Secretary-General have explicitly flagged interplanetary networking as a horizon issue, warning of interference risks from new cislunar constellations. The DTN’s use of shared bands. e.g., aggregating lunar gateways, could strain existing allocations for space services and require dynamic spectrum access protocols that would have to be international coordinated. Similarly, BP’s dual standardization (CCSDS for space profiles, IETF for overlays) could prompt discussions with ITU working groups. For example, ITU-T Study Group 13’s work on future networks could include DTN extensions, ensuring interoperability with 6G terrestrial backhauls. Multistakeholder forums—mirroring WCIT (World Conference on International Telecommunications) processes—could be used to reconcile CCSDS Blue Books with ITU Recommendations and prevent proprietary forks that disadvantage smaller actors and balkanize networks. A key insight of the multistakeholder approach that made the Internet successful was to build “bottom-up” and avoid top-down designs that stifle innovation. Actions needed to make the Solar System Internet a reality The technical foundations for the SSI have been demonstrated and open international standards are available and documented. Programs like LunaNet are in work to create a new cislunar architecture for communications and navigation. However, there are hundreds of actions necessary to make the SSI a reality and little time to do so. There is a large gulf between today’s four- to five-node bespoke networks and making BP-DTN into an actual operational network with network monitor and control systems, management systems, security, and more. For the scale of human and robotic space activity being contemplated today, we will need to manage hundreds of nodes in a networked environment and we only have a few years to learn how to do so. As a terrestrial analogy, just because you have TCP/IP doesn’t mean you have the Internet. While there has been good progress in getting BP-DTN accepted in LunaNet, there has not been as much attention to systematically managing DTN clients that will use a combination of NASA and commercial ground stations and relay satellites. A basic NM&C (Network Management and Control) system is needed to provide the tools, applications, and processes to monitor, configure, troubleshoot, and secure network infrastructure. We should not wait for exponential growth in DTN nodes in LunaNet and involvement of ground stations from multiple countries, government and commercial, to start working out how to make a DTN network system. For the scale of human and robotic space activity being contemplated today, we will need to manage hundreds of nodes in a networked environment and we only have a few years to learn how to do so. We cannot afford a large number of IT specialists to care and feed every DTN node. This does not scale (nor do current systems) and users need an SSI that “just works” in the background as we have come to expect with the terrestrial Internet. The Solar System Internet, powered by DTN and the Bundle Protocol, heralds a paradigm where space becomes a networked continuum, resilient and inclusive. Its technical elegance, using store-and-forward transfers over heterogeneous adaptors, delivers tangible gains in efficiency and access, while governance foresight ensures broad participation. Today, with LunaNet prototypes orbiting, the SSI is no longer speculative—it’s the architecture for humanity’s coming multi-planetary epoch if we decide to build it. If we do not, others will. Scott Pace is the Director of the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School of International Affairs. Yosuke Kaneko is the President of the Interplanetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG) of the Internet Society.

Much Needed Cargo For The Moon

Falcon Heavy launch Upper stages from heavy-lift rockets like Falcon Heavy could be aggregated in orbit to provide a low-cost way of transporting cargo to the Moon. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani) Much needed cargo for the Moon by Ajay Kothari Monday, February 9, 2026 As noted at a House space subcommittee hearing last year, the Space Launch System (SLS) does not offer a sustainable or cost-effective option for lunar settlements. SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) has the problem of needing 8 to 15 refueling (and getting it human rated for Artemis III) and also having too high a fineness ratio (FR) of about 5.5 to 6 for safe landing on possibly uneven and slanted surfaces at the lunar south pole. New Glenn may be available for Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) missions with the Blue Moon Mark I launcher soon and for human return with Mark II, which has a much lower FR of around 2. A large amount of infrastructure—hundreds of tons—will be needed on the lunar surface for a sustainable presence. This is a glaring deficit in the plan. While there has been interest in getting humans back to the Moon before China, by 2028 to 2030, the real competition is not for that anymore. It is for establishing permanence on Moon with habitats—the outposts. It is not about a “guided tour”, a sightseeing tour taking pictures or flag planting. It is about buying land and building a house to live there, as we do on Earth, even for short stints at a time. That is a much bigger deal. A large amount of infrastructure—hundreds of tons—will be needed on the lunar surface for a sustainable presence. Recent Congressional action funds missions up to Artemis 5 but not the infrastructure needed for a permanent presence, which is indispensable. This is a glaring deficit in the plan. Some argue that we already beat China and every other country to the Moon by 60 years. True, but not for establishing a permanent presence with habitats. That is still open, unclaimed. That is still to be done. China will likely beat us in that competition unless we do something in next two to three years. This proposed method here may be the least costly and safest option, with margins, and also the quickest method to supplement the plans and alleviate this deficit. For Artemis 3 and beyond, one of the two options would be to use Falcon Heavy as an add-on to SLS plans, a proven vehicle with 11 successful flights. Other possibilities include New Glenn and possibly Rocket Lab’s Neutron when successfully and reliably flown, which would likely be too late for this urgent need to compete with International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) of China and Russia by 2030. The primary requirements for facilitating this option are to have a reusable first (or booster) stage and a low-dry-weight upper stage (or orbiter stage). The former will reduce the cost of the mission and the latter will reduce the mass needed for translunar injection (TLI), lunar orbit insertion (LOI), and landing propellant. Propellant refueling would reduce the total dry weight in LEO but it comes with unproven cryogenic propellant transfer, which is not wise. Both the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn offer those possibilities with their upper stages at 4.5–6 tons and 10–12 tons respectively. Starship does not, with its upper stage at nearly 85–100 tons. To realize this, the upper stages of both were recreated in our code SpaceSIDE. They are shown below. here is no need to redevelop new rockets such as Starship or SLS for new aims except in specific cases. This approach will build a railroad to space with many stops. The computed numbers below prove that this is quite feasible with margins to spare. The idea would be to use four flights of Falcon Heavy, docking the upper stages in LEO and thus increase the propellant fraction to be able to do TLI, LOI, and lunar landing. There is no refueling need and no need to have a stopover in near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). The concept is direct to Moon. Docking in LEO has been done continuously since 1966 and numerous times at ISS. It is simpler than docking at ISS, not requiring human transfer or propellant transfer either, and can be designed much more simply than the refueling options. So compared to the present scenarios of 10–20 refuelings of methane and liquid oxygen required by SpaceX’s HLS or the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen refuelings of New Glenn at LEO and NRHO, this would be easier to accomplish. This approach is also suggested for many of our future missions within the solar system in addition to the ones in the pipeline such as SLS, Starship, and New Glenn. The combination/permutation with five degrees of freedom (number of flights, number of docckings/refueling, payload sizes, and delta-v needed for different destinations) provide hundreds of possible solutions with already developed rockets and engines. There is no need to redevelop new rockets such as Starship or SLS for new aims except in specific cases. This approach will build a railroad to space with many stops. This analysis did not use the refueling option, so the number of degrees of freedom here is four. Since the above options are for cargo delivery only, no consideration is given to flying up to low lunar orbit from the lunar surface and/or back to Earth (trans-Earth injection). Propellant Fractions (PF) are calculated for each fuel/oxidizer combination ISP g DeltaV PF LH2 CH4 RP LOX Mass Ratio sec m/s2 m/s kg/m3 kg/m3 kg/m3 kg/m3 HydroLOX 460 9.81 6210 0.7475 68 1153 5.9 MethLOX 380 9.81 6210 0.811 423 1153 3.6 RPLOX 348 9.81 6210 0.8378 805 1153 2.6 The Falcon Heavy option The Falcon Heavy LEO payload is 38, 54, or 63 tons depending on fully reusable, partially reusable (the side boosters land and can be reused with the core expended), and fully expendable. This analysis picked PR option. The first Falcon Heavy flight carries the payload (~15 tons) while the three additional upper stages from the subsequent Falcon Heavy launches would carry that much (54 tons) extra propellant each, which will remain in them at LEO. They dock at 120 deg each to the payload carrying upper stage as shown below. Thus the payload fraction is increased to what is required (~0.84 for Merlin1Dv engine) for TLI plus LOI plus landing (3260+900+2050 meters per second) for the combination. The outer 3 upper stages fire their Merlin 1Dv rockets for TLI and LOI. The central stage rocket then is used to land the combination on Lunar surface with throttling as needed. lunar cargo Four Flights of Falcon Heavy (F9H) w RP/LOX US Prop Fraction (PF) Required 0.838 Upper Stage RP/LOX tons Actual Prop Payload Capacity 54.4 15 39.4000 Dry Weight 6 # Mated # flights 4 4 Gross in LEO Propellant PF Mated 241.6 202.6 0.8386 The Falcon 9 upper stage is 4.5 tons according to SpaceX numbers. Here we allow another 1.5 tons to rigidize the tanks (in case we aim to use them at some stage as temporary habitation for astronauts), additional mass for landing legs, and docking mechanisms. So dry weight of 6 t is used in the analysis. lunar cargo Cost savings: Four Falcon Heavy launches, at $120 million each, would cost $480 million. If SLS is used via NRHO, it would cost about $2 billion (the NASA Inspector General estimate, which does not include Orion.) The cost for all included is about $4 billion for each flight. The result is substantial cost savings to NASA: almost 88%, rounded off here to 80%. It makes no sense to attempt to use SLS for cargo. New Glenn upper stage built in SpaceSIDE The New Glenn upper stage was built in Astrox’s SpaceSIDE. No weights—dry, gross liftoff weight or of various subsystems—were available from Blue Origin for the upper stage or the booster stage. Only payloads to LEO (45 tons) and GTO were available. Based on these, an attempt was made to replicate the payload numbers using SpaceSIDE’s component-based subsystem equations to build the upper stage. The BE-3U engine was also designed in SpaceSIDE for the expander cycle used, which yielded a specific impulse (Isp) of 463.5 seconds. Liquid hydrogen density of 68 kilograms per cubic meter and LOX of 1,153 kilograms per cubic meter was used. The upper stage was flown from staging to 250-kilometer altitude at 51.6-degree inclination (New Glenn’s payload users guide says more than 200-kilometer altitude) for LEO. lunar cargo New Glenn Upper Stage Weight Breakdown staging at 7700 f/s BE-3U Upper Stage (kg) Total (kg) S2 Fractions w payload S2 Fractions w/o payload GTOW 201,031 201,031 PropUsed 143,380 143,380 71.32% 91.89% startup 0 0 0.00% 0.00% unusable 717 717 0.36% 0.46% reserve 1,434 1,434 0.71% 0.92% EmptyWeight 10,500 10,500 5.22% 6.73% Payload 45,000 45,000 22.38% GTOW 201,031 201,031 100.00% 100.00% Ejected 12,651 12,651 Length (m) 41.5000 Diameter (m) 7.0000 With New Glenn first stage as the booster, we have multiple permutations available with four degrees of freedom: payload size, number of flights, delta-v needed, and the number mated in orbit. This allows us to reach different possible solutions depending on need and cost. The BE-3U engine is used for all the options below. New Glenn with LH2/LOX US to Moon Surface Prop Fraction (PF) Required 0.747 Upper Stage LH2/LOX tons Actual Prop Payload Capacity 45 14 31.0000 Dry Weight 10.5 # Mated # flights 4 4 Gross in LEO Propellant PF Mated 222 166 0.7477 The operations for New Glenn option are the same as described for Falcon Heavy. Cost savings: The cost for a New Glenn flight has not been stated by Blue. Media estimates are in the same neighborhood as Falcon Heavy partially-reused option used above. Taking average of the media estimates of $160 million per flight, four launches yields $640 million. Again, a substantial cost savings to NASA compared to SLS: almost 84%, rounded down here to 75%. It makes no sense to attempt to use SLS for cargo. Thus, both Falcon Heavy and New Glenn for moving cargo seem quite competitive, offer substantial savings, and possibly a quicker implementation. Starship is not available today but even when it becomes available, it will have the same refueling and fineness ratio problems that will not go away with success. For HLS, SpaceX needs to redesign and downsize (by about one third) the Starship upper stage, which may solve many problems, but this has not been mentioned by SpaceX. This approach can be used for many of our future missions within the solar system in addition to the ones in the pipeline already. It offers hundreds of possible solutions with already developed rockets and engines. This approach will build a railroad to the solar system with many stops, just as we did 150 years ago with the railroad to the West and 50 years ago with Interstate highways. Dr. Ajay Kothari is President and Founder of Astrox Corporation, an aerospace R&D company located in suburban Washington, DC. His PhD and MS in Aerospace Engineering are from the University of Maryland and BSc in Physics from Bombay University. He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and member of the AIAA Aerospace Power Technical Committee. He has over 40 professional publications and has been PI on more than 35 NASA and DOD contracts. He can be reached at a.p.kothari@astrox.com.

Book Review: "To See Far"

book cover Review: To See Far by Jeff Foust Monday, February 9, 2026 To See Far: Conflict and Cooperation on the Space Frontier by James Van Laak Ballast Books, 2005 hardcover, 392 pp., illus. ISBN 978-1-966786-71-9 US$31.99 The history of the International Space Station is a surprisingly long one. As much time has elapsed from the 1993 decision to work with the Russians on what would be the ISS to the present day as has elapsed from that decision back to Alan Shepard’s 1961 suborbital spaceflight. With the ISS a constant presence for a generation of human spaceflight, its early history can seem as distant to some as the era of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Those programs brought with them plenty of technical problems, but they often seemed to pale in comparison to the challenges of learning to work with the Russians as well as within the agency itself. That scale, along with the station’s continuing operations, makes it difficult to document its history. For now, we’re left with the documentation of those ongoing operations as well as slices of the past from various accounts, looking at its development from specific, often individual, perspectives. An example is To See Far, a new book by James Van Laak. A former Air Force fighter pilot, he joined NASA in the late 1980s, first at a safety office in NASA Headquarters and later at the Johnson Space Center. For more than a decade, he was a key manager on the Space Station Freedom, the Shuttle-Mir program, and the ISS, dealing with technical, programmatic, and even cultural challenges. Most of the book is about his time at JSC working on those programs. He was brought in to handle maintenance and logistics planning for Freedom, issues that some working on the program feared were being overlooked. Later, he was involved in assessments and redesigns of Freedom as the program was facing cancellation, spared only by bringing in the Russians to create the ISS. Soon frustrated with the management of the ISS program, he moved over to Shuttle-Mir, helping manage the series of shuttle missions to Mir and the NASA astronauts who spent time on the Russian station. When that program ended, he returned to the ISS program to lead operations as NASA was moving into its assembly phase, with a rapid cadence of missions planned. Those programs brought with them plenty of technical problems, which Van Laak recounts in the book. Those problems, though, often seemed to pale in comparison to the challenges of learning to work with the Russians as well as within the agency itself. NASA is not immune to office politics and strife among officials, and he puts that on full display in the book. Van Laak offers unvarnished views of those programs in the 1990s, discussing what went wrong and why. That includes sharp criticism of some of the leaders of the shuttle and station programs in that time, including Randy Brinkley, Tommy Holloway, and Frank Culbertson. Even Bill Gerstenmaier, aka “Gerst,” who later became an almost revered leader of human spaceflight programs at NASA before joining SpaceX, does not escape criticism: “His total mastery of the engineering details was an enormous asset, but his tendency to hoard information for his own use quickly became a liability,” Van Laak recalls of Gerst when working on Shuttle-Mir. “Engineers live to tackle technical challenges, but these issues also come burdened with very human dimensions,” he notes . In the book, Van Laak depicts himself as one of the few voices of reason with the station and Shuttle-Mir programs, trying to make progress within NASA and build relationships with the Russians while increasingly feeling overworked, underappreciated, and undercompensated. “My biggest challenge was human behavior,” he says in one chapter about working on ISS, as both Russians and Americans learned to shake off decades-old ways of work to cooperate on the station. (He notes that working on shuttle, ISS, and Freedom over less than a decade made it easier for him to accept change.) But by the end of 2001, he felt burned out and stepped away from the ISS program, later leaving JSC. “Engineers live to tackle technical challenges, but these issues also come burdened with very human dimensions,” he notes near the end of To See Far. The book makes those challenges clear, at least from Van Laak’s perspective. The issue, of course, is that others involved in those programs likely have different perceptions and recollections, as well as different records of events. (Van Laak notes in the book that the dialogue he includes in the book “may not be exactly accurate” but are based on his memories and notes “to ensure that the meaning and intent of the conversation was preserved.” That may explain why much of that dialogue seems oddly stilted and formal.) Few decisions are truly irrational or irrational; instead, it reflects a lack of a shared logic and rationale. What seems unwise or vindictive to one person can seem logical and benign to another person with a different perspective. To See Far offers valuable insights by one person deeply involved in the early years of the ISS program, but it is only one step towards a greater understanding of the program. That will gradually emerge, but it may take as long to develop as the station itself. 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.

The Jump Seat Satellite Begins Operations

JUMPSEAT The JUMPSEAT satellites began operations in 1971 and the program was finally shut down in 2006. The satellites provided signals intelligence information from orbits high over the northern hemisphere. (credit: NRO) High Jump: the JUMPSEAT signals intelligence satellite by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 2, 2026 On March 21, 1971, a new and unusual rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. It was a night launch and nobody viewing the rocket climb into the cold Pacific sky could tell that it was different than other Titan rockets that had launched from there many times before. But anybody at the base who saw it knew that it was new. Previous Titan rockets had narrow, pointy noses half the diameter of the Titan core stage. But this rocket had a thicker fairing, the same diameter as the core, indicating a new and bigger payload. The fairing was also tall, meaning that something long was packed inside. Once it reached orbit, anybody who had access to the orbital data could tell that rather than a low Earth orbit, it had instead headed into a highly elliptical orbit highly inclined to the Equator, one that took it low and fast over the southern hemisphere and then high and slower over the northern hemisphere, perfect for staring down on the Soviet Union for longer periods of time. By the mid-1960s, signals intelligence experts began to consider launching signals intelligence satellites into higher orbits. This led to two different new signals intelligence satellites: CANYON and JUMPSEAT. The satellite was named JUMPSEAT, and it was the first of a new kind of signals intelligence collector. It was equipped with two large dish antennas and a small telescope at the base of its “antenna farm.” In orbit, it flew with its spinning bus covered with solar panels up, and its antenna farm pointed down toward the Earth. In December 2025, the National Reconnaissance Office declassified the JUMPSEAT signals intelligence satellite, announcing it on January 28. Eight JUMPSEAT satellites were launched from 1971 to 1987, and the program was finally shut down in 2006—meaning that at least one satellite lasted 19 years or longer in orbit. Although the NRO provided only a limited amount of information on JUMPSEAT, in a press release the office indicated that it would reveal more information in the future. Most notably, the NRO released over a half-dozen photos of the early spacecraft, including models, artwork, and flight hardware. JUMPSEAT The JUMPSEAT satellites were manufactured by Hughes, which gained extensive experience in spin-stabilized high-altitude satellites beginning in the 1960s. Note that the big dish is not fully deployed. It appears to have had wings that folded out after reaching orbit. (credit: NRO) Origins of JUMPSEAT Starting in the late 1950s, the Air Force, CIA, and Navy began developing systems that could collect radar and other signals from space. The Navy was the first to orbit a radar detector in 1960 as part of a program named GRAB. The Air Force also sought to collect radar signals using both dedicated satellites and payloads attached to other satellites. The CIA was interested in determining if the Soviet Union was trying to track and interfere with its satellites. These efforts were the natural outgrowth of existing projects to put signals intelligence sensors on aircraft, ships, and submarines that had proliferated as the Cold War progressed and the United States military developed a greater appreciation for Soviet radar capabilities. By 1961, multiple satellite intelligence programs were loosely coordinated under the direction of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The Navy satellites were developed by a special component of the NRO centered at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, and known as Program C. The Air Force component of the NRO, known as Program A and based in Los Angeles, was responsible for developing signals intelligence satellites as well as photographic reconnaissance satellites. Throughout the 1960s, the signals intelligence projects grew more diverse. The Navy continued to develop the GRAB and later POPPY programs, while the Air Force pursued both large signals intelligence satellites as part of Program 770, and smaller suitcase-sized satellites as part of Program 11 (later Program 989). These satellites targeted radars of multiple types, such as air search radars and big, powerful anti-ballistic missile radars. They also focused on other signals such as navigational beacons and communications, including Soviet air traffic control communications. The smaller satellites had many different names such as PUNDIT, MAGNUM, SAVANT, TIVOLI, LAMPAN, TOPHAT, and ARROYO. The satellites were all contained within a security compartment amusingly named EARPOP. (See “A flower in the polar sky: the POPPY signals intelligence satellite and ocean surveillance,” The Space Review, April 28, 2008; “Little Wizards: Signals intelligence satellites during the Cold War,” The Space Review, August 2, 2021; “And the sky full of stars: American signals intelligence satellites and the Vietnam War”, The Space Review, February 12, 2018.) JUMPSEAT Slightly different photo of the same JUMPSEAT satellite in the factory. “EARPOP” was the security compartment for signals intelligence satellites at the time. (credit: NRO) The satellites all operated in low Earth orbit, which placed them relatively close to their targets, but limited the amount of time they could collect emissions before moving out of range. The GRAB and POPPY satellites beamed their collected signals directly down to ground stations as soon as they gathered them, whereas many of the others recorded them on sometimes-problematic tape recorders for replay when the satellite was in view of a ground station. The newly released images of the JUMPSEAT satellites, and the fact sheet about the satellite from the NRO, indicate that JUMPSEAT carried several different antennas for collecting signals. By the mid-1960s, signals intelligence experts began to consider launching signals intelligence satellites into higher orbits. From a higher perch, the satellites could collect signals for longer periods of time, including intermittent signals such as radars that were turned on and off as needed. A satellite in a high orbit could also send its data directly to a ground station in “near-real time,” where newer and more powerful computers could process their data in minutes rather than the weeks and even months it took to process signals early in the decade. This led to two different new signals intelligence satellites: CANYON and JUMPSEAT. CANYON, which remains classified, was designed to intercept communications between Soviet microwave towers that crisscrossed the vast Soviet landmass. The basic outlines of the JUMPSEAT program have been known for several decades. Its name was revealed in the mid-1980s and its unusual orbit had been observed since the 1970s. Its overall mission had also been guessed, without much certainty, by independent observers in the 1980s. The NRO contract for JUMPSEAT was awarded to Hughes Aircraft Company in 1967. At this time, debate within the intelligence community about the capabilities of Soviet anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) was reaching a fever pitch. Detecting ABM signals and other related intelligence was a key priority for JUMPSEAT. (See “From TACSAT to JUMPSEAT: Hughes and the top secret Gyrostat satellite gamble,” The Space Review, December 21, 2020.) JUMPSEAT This appears to be a different satellite than the one in the other photos. Note the different (and additional) sensors near the base of the de-spun platform. (credit: NRO) JUMPSEAT was equipped with a large antenna nearly four meters (13 feet) in diameter for collecting radar, communications, and other emissions from the ground, and a smaller antenna for relaying that data to a ground station. JUMPSEAT was a SIGINT satellite. SIGINT is the overall term for the collection of electronic transmissions. SIGINT also includes electronic intelligence (ELINT), which usually means the collection of radar signals; and communications intelligence, or COMINT. Many of the NRO’s smaller satellites were ELINT satellites. At the time JUMPSEAT entered development, the NRO already operated large SIGINT satellites in low Earth orbit as part of Program 770. By the latter 1960s, a series of Program 770 satellites known as MULTIGROUP was being replaced by a new series named STRAWMAN, equipped with multiple antennas. Operating in low Earth orbit, the STRAWMAN satellites did not spend much time over Soviet territory. JUMPSEAT originated as a higher-altitude replacement for STRAWMAN, with a payload for detecting the elusive ABM radar signals. The newly released images of the JUMPSEAT satellites, and the fact sheet about the satellite from the NRO, indicate that JUMPSEAT carried several different antennas for collecting signals. It also carried additional small payloads, some of which remain enigmatic. JUMPSEAT Close up of part of the JUMPSEAT model. JUMPSEAT was equipped with at least one staring infrared sensor for detecting short-burn rockets, such as Soviet anti-ballistic missiles. It could also detect reentry vehicles during tests. It appears that an additional sensor was mounted above the infrared sensor. (credit: NRO) Infrared from high orbit About the same time that TRW was beginning work on the Defense Support Program infrared early warning satellite for the Air Force, and Hughes was successfully bidding for the JUMPSEAT signals intelligence payload for the NRO, another infrared sensor mission was gaining support in the USAF. The new mission appears to have started out in the same organization, Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO), that created the Program 949 (Defense Support Program). The infrared mission apparently did not originate in the much more secretive NRO. In March 1967, the Air Force’s senior leadership presented the results of a study concerning the ability of an infrared sensor operating in the wavelength range of 2.68 to 2.97 microns in either medium altitude or geosynchronous orbit to detect ICBMs and short-burn missiles such as ABMs. The sensor would need to have a much higher scanning rate than the Defense Support Program satellite, which rotated six times a minute. This higher scanning rate was necessary to detect the ABMs before their engines burned out. As a bonus, the higher scanning rate would also enable the sensor to detect reentry events, such as Soviet warheads during ICBM tests. According to a memorandum summarizing the briefing from the director of the NRO (DNRO) Al Flax to the Secretary of the Air Force, Harold Brown, this would be an intelligence sensor, not one intended to directly support Air Force operations like the Defense Support Program satellites. Despite the highly classified nature of JUMPSEAT, a year before the first launch Aviation Week had already revealed its Air Force code number, 711, its launcher, its elliptical orbit, its contractor, and its SIGINT mission. Because Aerojet had their hands full with the DSP sensor, the Air Force determined that these other sensors could best be built by Hughes, and that a Lockheed satellite then being built “for another program”—almost certainly CANYON—could host them. The goal then was to have a spacecraft available in 15–18 months, presumably because of the urgency that then surrounded the resolution of the ABM controversies. For unknown reasons, the new sensor was incorporated into JUMPSEAT instead. With Hughes building both the sensor and the spacecraft, the integration task would have been simplified, although the satellites operated in vastly different orbits. JUMPSEAT JUMPSEAT Two illustrations of the JUMPSEAT satellite. Note that they have different sensors mounted at the base of the de-spun platform. In operation, the antenna farm pointed down towards the Earth. (credit: NRO) Listening from on high The NRO put increased emphasis on collecting information on Soviet anti-ballistic missile radars starting in 1967. Beginning in 1968, the STRAWMAN low-altitude electronic intelligence satellites carried a payload named CONVOY to detect such signals, and the NRO also launched at least one POPPY mission as well as small spacecraft named TIVOLI and MABELI that targeted ABM radars. Some reports indicate that JUMPSEAT was developed to detect Soviet ABM radars, partly as a consequence of a committee chaired by Harry Davis that developed a strategic plan for signals collection from space. If JUMPSEAT originated as an ABM radar detection satellite, it apparently evolved to take over most of the STRAWMAN mission, because STRAWMAN was phased out of service soon after JUMPSEAT began operating. Despite the highly classified nature of JUMPSEAT, a year before the first launch Aviation Week had already revealed its Air Force code number, 711, its launcher, its elliptical orbit, its contractor, and its SIGINT mission to “monitor foreign radar activity.” The name JUMPSEAT was not revealed until the late 1980s, in Seymour Hersh’s book about the 1983 shooting down of Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 by a Soviet fighter plane. JUMPSEAT A Hughes Syncom/Leasat communications satellite being prepared for launch on the space shuttle. Leasat was used as the basis for the second generation Satellite Data System relay satellites. Hughes acquired significant experience with spinning satellites and high-altitude signals and communications satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office and the military. (credit: NASA) After the 1971 launch, more JUMPSEAT satellites were launched in 1972, 1973, and 1975. Starting in the early 1970s, the Air Force (not the NRO) began development of a new Satellite Data System (SDS) satellite with a communications relay mission. The Air Force was responsible for developing the satellite, and the CIA was responsible for the communications relay payload. Hughes won that contract, probably helped by its experience developing JUMPSEAT. Whereas JUMPSEAT used the HS-318 satellite bus, the SDS, also known by the classified name QUASAR, was apparently based upon Hughes’ somewhat larger commercial Intelsat IV satellite bus. A later version of QUASAR was based on Hughes’ much wider Leasat satellite bus. In June 1976, the NRO launched the first SDS data relay satellite, which operated in a similar orbit as JUMPSEAT. Much later in the 1990s, some versions of SDS added a geostationary capability. Hughes’ military and intelligence satellite work, as well as its popular Intelsat IV design, enabled the company to become a powerhouse in high-altitude satellites for the next several decades. JUMPSEAT JUMPSEAT had a large main dish for collecting signals, and a smaller dish for relaying signals to ground stations in the United States. The dishes were on a platform that was de-spun from the satellite bus. Note the unlabeled sensor at the base of the de-spun platform. (credit: NRO) Known and unknown The NRO has not released substantial information on JUMPSEAT at this time, but will review information for further release “as time and resources permit.” It did release illustrations of “the early JUMPSEAT systems” and the “early JUMPSEAT models.” They reveal a large circular dish antenna with a smaller circular dish antenna mounted above it atop a tall tower. Construction photos indicate that the larger dish was stowed in a partially folded configuration during launch and deployed in orbit. According to a source who was briefed about JUMPSEAT’s role in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, by that time JUMPSEAT’s antennas were mounted side-by-side rather than one atop the other. The purpose of this new configuration is unknown, but the company may have gained confidence from its SDS satellite operations, which required that the antennas be pointed towards different targets. JUMPSEAT The National Reconnaissance Office released several photos of JUMPSEAT models. These models reveal features of the design. (credit: NRO) The illustrations of JUMPSEAT released by NRO do reveal some information not mentioned in the public fact sheet or declassification memo. Notably, the staring infrared sensor is visible at the base of the de-spun antenna platform. In one image, a second optical sensor is present. The optical sensor also appears to have another sensor mounted above this, although its purpose is unknown. The NRO’s JUMPSEAT declassification is a start, but it will likely be several years before significantly more information is released, such as official histories, mission reports, and documents and memos. In summer 2023, the NRO declassified the PARCAE ocean surveillance satellite, but two and a half years later it still has not released any documents or even photos of the flight hardware. JUMPSEAT will remain mysterious for a while longer.