Sunday, February 22, 2026
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Friday, February 20, 2026
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
When Second Best Is Not Good Enough
IDSCS
The US military’s first operational communications satellite system was designed to be relatively simple and fast, after a much more complicated program failed. Here Initial Defense Satellite Communications System (IDSCS) satellites are integrated into their payload dispenser in 1966. (credit: USAF)
When second best is good enough: The Initial Defense Satellite Communications System
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, February 16, 2026
The US Air Force pioneered military satellite communications in the early space age. But its path to getting there was not direct or smooth. In the late 1950s, the Army Signal Corps was placed in charge of developing a military satellite communications capability, with the Air Force supplying the launch vehicle. The Army program was named Advent, and it was a highly ambitious plan to put a large satellite in geosynchronous orbit at a time when the United States was having difficulty launching even small satellites into low Earth orbits
The decision to proceed with the new system was also a major policy reversal. Whereas the Army had been responsible for the Advent satellite and the Air Force was responsible for the ground stations, now that was reversed.
By 1962, Advent’s mass and costs had increased to such an extent that it was cancelled, with a lightweight version of the satellite was proposed instead. However, by December 1962, the lightweight geosynchronous satellite was still in limbo, with the Air Force making no moves to begin a formal procurement effort despite several companies already prepared to bid.[1] The Air Force was instead focused on a less-complex approach, known as the Initial Defense Communication Satellite Program, or IDCSP, later renamed the Initial Defense Satellite Communications System, or IDSCS. Recently, some never-before-published photos of the early IDSCS satellites have surfaced.
IDSCS
The relatively small satellites were tested on site. They were covered in photovoltaic cells. (credit: USAF)
Program 369
In 1962, after Advent had been canceled, the Task X Committee, consisting of representatives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, ARPA, and the Rand and Aerospace Corporations, proposed placing multiple, relatively small satellites in medium-altitude orbits. By the end of 1962, Air Force Systems Command’s Space Systems Division began planning to brief potential contractors on this random-orbit, medium-altitude communication satellite program, now designated Program 369.[2]
The Air Force was interested in a medium orbit, 9,260-kilometer-altitude communication system which could involve as many as 20 satellites in random orbits at the same time. The satellites would move around the sky, requiring some movement of the ground antennas to keep track with them. As many as five to seven satellites could be launched by a single Atlas-Agena D rocket. Communications capability could be restricted to one to four channels in the initial program.[3]
IDSCS
The satellites were manufactured by Philco, which was a major military computer provider at the time. (credit: USAF)
The decision to proceed with the new system was also a major policy reversal. Whereas the Army had been responsible for the Advent satellite and the Air Force was responsible for the ground stations, now that was reversed, with the Air Force developing the satellites and the Army handling the ground terminals. The new satellites would require very little control.
After Philco won the competition to build the satellites, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put the project on hold in October 1963 while the Pentagon negotiated over renting communications capability from the newly created Communications Satellite Corp. (Comsat). Negotiations dragged on until summer 1964 before they were suspended and the Air Force resumed work on the dedicated military communications program.[4] Although McNamara had hoped to buy satellite communications commercially, commercial providers could not meet many military requirements, particularly for secure communications. The Department of Defense would ultimately use commercial satellite communications, but for tasks that did not require high security.
In another cost-saving effort, in the latter half of 1964 the Pentagon tried to negotiate a “free ride” on experimental Titan III rocket launches rather than purchasing dedicated Titan III rockets after the vehicle was declared operational. The House of Representatives criticized the effort later that year as a “plan for short-range economics depending on a high-risk program that may prove costly in the end.”[5]
The original plan for the medium-altitude satellite program had an estimated cost of $60 million for the satellites and a total of $165 million, including ten Atlas-Agena launches. A modified approach, using a much higher orbit and fewer launches, cost $33 million. This was far cheaper than Advent, which had grown from the original $140 million estimate to $325 million (see “Aiming too high: the Advent military communications satellite,” The Space Review, September 26, 2022.)
While the Pentagon negotiated—ultimately unsuccessfully—with Comsat, Program 369 proceeded in a design phase. Initially, the satellites were intended to launch on Atlas-Agenas. But the possibility of using the new Titan IIIC was attractive, and so for a time, the satellites were designed to be able to launch on either vehicle, to equatorial or polar orbits. The reasoning was that if the Titan IIIC was ultimately selected, the Atlas-Agena would provide “insurance” until the Titan IIIC had fully proven itself.
IDSCS
The satellite dispenser was initially designed to be carried atop either a Titan IIIC or Atlas-Agena D.(credit: USAF)
According to a contemporary history of the program, “this convertibility had three aspects – first, the satellite and dispenser had to be mechanically, thermally and electrically suitable for use with either vehicle from launch through ascent, parking orbit, transfer orbit and final injection. Second, the spacecraft had to be designed dynamically, magnetically and electronically for medium or high altitude. Finally, the thermal, solar cell and repeater design had to be acceptable in polar or equatorial orbits.”[6]
Philco established a production line capable of building one satellite every four days. This was possible in large part because the satellites were relatively simple.
This decision to design for either Atlas or Titan ultimately had a cost. “There were many conflicts that were resolved only by compromising the performance in both cases, but the program flexibility and non-dependence on a new booster design justified them,” engineers involved in the program explained. “The convertibility feature was maintained through the early part of 1965. At that time, some of the conflicts became serious, the compromises more painful, and most important of all, the Titan III program was looking good.” Rather than the medium-altitude orbits, the Air Force could use the Titan IIIC to place them into near-synchronous orbits.[7]
The first Titan IIIC had launched successfully in June 1965. A second launch, in October, had failed. A third launch, in December, had been partially successful. The Air Force decided to eliminate the Atlas-Agena option and launch the satellites atop the fourth Titan IIIC launch.
IDSCS
The IDSCS satellites used the new Titan IIIC rocket, which placed them in a near-synchronous orbit. Concern about the availability of the Titan IIIC was a major uncertainty early in the program. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)
Simple satellites
Philco had previously built the Courier IB satellite and had built computers for the military. The company established a production line capable of building one satellite every four days. This was possible in large part because the satellites were relatively simple. They had no moving parts, no batteries for electrical power, and limited telemetry capability to report the status of the spacecraft. The satellites could not be commanded from the ground, which had the benefit of making them resistant to Soviet tampering. They could provide two-way circuit capability for 11 “tactical-quality” voice circuits, or five “commercial-quality” circuits. The latter could transmit digital or teletype data.
IDSCS
Philco was capable of manufacturing a satellite in approximately four days. Each launch carried eight satellites. (credit: USAF)
Each satellite was a polyhedron with twenty-four faces, weighed 45 kilograms, was a meter in diameter and a meter high, and was covered with 8,000 solar cells. The communications equipment consisted of a single-channel 8,000-megahertz receiver, and a 20-megahertz double-conversion repeater. In addition, they would have a three-watt traveling-wave-tube amplifier transmitting around 7,000 megahertz. The satellites had three-year operational lifetimes. In service, they often lasted twice as long.[8]
IDSCS
The IDSCS satellites were about a meter wide and a meter tall, weighed 45 kilograms, and relatively simple. (credit: USAF)
In June 1966, the Air Force launched seven communications satellites into near-synchronous orbits of 33,877 by 33,655 kilometers (an eighth satellite was a technology demonstrator). A second cluster of eight satellites was launched in August, but failed to reach orbit. Two more launches, in January and July 1967, increased the number of satellites in orbit.
IDSCS
The relatively small satellites were tested on site. They were covered in photovoltaic cells. (credit: USAF)
According to those who worked on the program, the orbit options had been extensively studied. The near-synchronous orbit was selected in case a satellite in the cluster failed. If they were placed in geosynchronous orbit, that failed satellite would remain in place for a long time. But in near-synchronous orbit, the cluster would slowly drift. “Because of this slow drift, satellites will stay in view of the ground stations for several days but a malfunctioning or failed satellite will not completely destroy the communications capabilities of a particular link.”[9]
The system was declared operational before the launch of the last group of eight satellites and renamed the Initial Defense Satellite Communications System (IDSCS). The final launch of eight satellites in June 1968 atop a Titan IIIC brought the total number in orbit to 35 satellites.[10] It was years later than planned, but the Air Force finally had its communications satellite system.
IDSCS
Compass Link was a system for scanning photographs in Vietnam and transmitting them via satellite to Washington, DC, where they were analyzed at the National Photographic Interpretation Center. The scanning hardware had been developed for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Although little is known about Compass Link, it did use IDSCS satellites. (credit: CIA)
Vietnam goes to orbit
In 1964, the US Army established a ground station in Saigon to relay messages via NASA’s Syncom satellite. In July 1967, the military installed satellite ground terminals at Saigon and Nha Trang for communicating via the IDSCS satellites. They linked military forces in Vietnam directly to Washington, DC. This provided new capabilities compared to existing telecommunications networks.
Communications satellite technology was advancing rapidly throughout the 1960s, pushed in part by clear commercial demand as well as significant military investment.
One of the more unusual and secretive uses of this new capability was Project Compass Link, which provided circuits using the IDSCS satellites to transmit high-resolution photography between Saigon and Washington, DC. This meant that photos taken by tactical aircraft over the battlefield could be analyzed in Washington. After the planes returned to base, their photos were developed and taken to the transmission center. The ground stations had a scanner that could scan a photograph for transmission. This scanner had been developed using technology originally intended for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program (see “Live, from orbit: the Manned Orbiting Laboratory’s top-secret film-readout system,” The Space Review, September 18, 2023.) To date, information on the Compass Link equipment and how it was used remains scarce.
Other commercial communications satellite systems were also used by US military forces in the Pacific during this time. The commercial systems were used for administrative and logistical requirements, and the military systems were used for more sensitive communications.
IDSCS
Satellites undergoing fit checks prior to shipment to the launch site. (credit: USAF)
Evolving communications
IDSCS was intended to be an interim system until a better and more capable communications system was developed. The Air Force was aware of the system’s limitations from the start, and planned for a follow-on program to address many of them, increasing lifetime, adding better encryption and anti-jamming capability, as well as operating in geosynchronous orbit, the goal originally established with Advent in the late 1950s. Communications satellite technology was advancing rapidly throughout the 1960s, pushed in part by clear commercial demand as well as significant military investment. The Air Force sponsored experimental communications satellites like Tacsat and the LES satellites, and NASA also sponsored communications satellites to develop new technologies. Although commercial industry sought to satisfy growing demand, the government had unique needs and could not rely on the commercial market to satisfy them.
In 1971, the Air Force launched the first of the Defense Satellite Communications System II (DSCS II) satellites. DSCS II was a much larger, spin-stabilized satellite placed in geosynchronous orbit, but did not have all the features that the Air Force desired; they would later be included in the DSCS III satellites. Once DSCS II satellites became operational, the Air Force primarily relied upon large satellites in geosynchronous orbit for its primary communications requirements, a situation that is only beginning to change today with the advent of large numbers of small comsats in low Earth orbit.
Acknowledgement: the author wishes to thank Jamie Draper and Jim Behling for assistance in obtaining the photographs used in this article, and Aaron Bateman for providing the AIAA history overview.
References
“Defense is Pushing Random-Orbit Satellite,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, December 24, 1962, p. 23.
Philip J. Klass, “DOD Communication Satellite Launch Set,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1966, p. 33.
“Military Comsat Bidder’s Briefing Set,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 4, 1963, p. 31.
H.B. Kucheman, Jr., W.L. Pritchard, and V.W. Wall, “The Initial Defense Communication Satellite Program,” AIAA Paper No. 66-267, AIAA Communications Satellite Systems Conference, May 2-4, 1966.
Philip J. Klass, “Military Comsats Deploy for Global Cover,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 27, 1966, pp. 25-26.
“The Initial Defense Communication Satellite Program,” p. 4.
Ibid.
David N. Spires and Rick W. Sturdevant, “From Advent to Milstar: The U.S. Air Force and the Challenges of Military Satellite Communications,” in Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communication, Andrew Butrica, ed. NASA SP-4217, 1997, pp. 67-69.
“The Initial Defense Communication Satellite Program,” p. 5.
Ibid.
Dwayne Day is interested in hearing from anybody with information about the Compass Link system. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.
Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.
Musk's Moon Mania
Moonbase Alpha
In a presentation to xAI employees, Elon Musk described establishing a “Moonbase Alpha” that would build AI data center satellites and launch them using a mass driver. (credit: xAI)
Musk’s Moon mania
by Jeff Foust
Monday, February 16, 2026
What has been the most surprising development in space in the last year? Perhaps it was the saga of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator. That was an unprecedented ordeal, with Isaacman’s nomination suddenly withdrawn only for him to be renominated months later. But in the end, the result was what most expected a year ago: Isaacman leading the space agency.
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” Musk wrote.
Perhaps it was NASA’s budget, with the White House proposing severe cuts to overall spending and even steeper cuts in areas like science and space technology, along with cancellations or early terminations of key elements of Artemis. But by the time the final fiscal year 2026 spending bill was enacted in January, NASA’s 2026 budget was close to its 2025 budget, with few cancellations.
Arguably the biggest surprise in the last year is the one that has developed just in the last several weeks: SpaceX’s sharp pivot to the Moon. A year ago, it seemed that Elon Musk, using his influence in the new Trump Administration, was shifting space policy from a return to the Moon towards human missions to Mars. That was evident in everything from Trump’s mention of “launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars” in his inaugural address to a budget proposal that included funding for new Mars exploration technology initiatives.
Now, though, it’s SpaceX that’s changing course. The administration has made clear its near-term focus in human space exploration is the Moon, returning astronauts to the lunar surface before China can land its first taikonauts there. A White House executive order in December, which effectively serves as the national space policy, calls for a human landing on the Moon by 2028 and beginning work on a permanent outpost there by 2030. Mars is only mentioned in passing as a goal for the indefinite future.
SpaceX, already under pressure to accelerate work on the lunar lander version of Starship for NASA’s Human Landing System program (see “The (possibly) great lunar lander race”, The Space Review, November 3, 2025), seems to shifted even more towards the Moon in recent weeks, culminating in a social media post by Musk February 8, just as the Super Bowl was about to kick off.
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” he wrote.
Needless to say, most were unaware of that shift in focus. For most of SpaceX’s nearly quarter-century history, the company, and Musk, were deeply associated with a human presence on Mars, not the Moon. That was the subject of numerous presentations by Musk over the years, which have described making humanity “multiplanetary” by establishing human settlements, even large cities, on Mars in the next few decades.
That included, as an example, a talk he gave at Starbase in May around the time of a Starship test flight. “Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars,” he said then (see “Starship setbacks and strategies”, The Space Review, June 9, 2025).
“Along the way we can do cool things, like have a Moon base, like Moonbase Alpha,” Musk said last May.
He used that talk to outline plans for sending Starships to Mars, starting as soon as the next launch opportunity in 2026. That plan called for sending 500 landers to Mars in 2033, each capable of carrying 300 tons of payload. The goals for that launch campaign included establishing global mobility and communications at Mars as well as resource extraction and “increase independence from Earth.”
Musk made only a passing reference to the Moon in that talk. “Along the way we can do cool things, like have a Moon base, like Moonbase Alpha,” he said, referencing the classic sci-fi TV series “Space: 1999”. (“Moonbase Alpha” was also the name of a video game released in 2010 developed in cooperation with NASA, in which the player is an astronaut at a lunar base in the then-distant future of 2025.)
“We should have a Moonbase Alpha. The next step after the Apollo program would be to have a base on the Moon,” Musk said. That base, he suggested, would be a “gigantic science station.” But after that brief digression, Musk returned to talking about sending humans to Mars, the main thrust of the talk.
Musk has talked about establishing a lunar base off and on in the past, even using the same name for it. For example, at one conference in July 2017 he expressed his support for a lunar base. “If you want to get the public really fired up, you’ve got to have a base on the Moon,” he said then.
A few months later, talking about what was then called BFR at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, he mentioned the ability of that predecessor of Starship to support a lunar base, which he also called Moonbase Alpha. “It’s 2017,” he said in that speech. “I mean, we should have a lunar base by now. What the hell’s going on?”
These concepts, though, seemed like side quests: nice things to do but not on the critical path to making humanity multiplanetary. The company’s interest in the Moon appeared largely limited to developing the HLS lander version of Starship, along the way gaining experience in technologies like in-space propellant transfer also needed for Mars.
So what changed? Musk, in his Super Bowl Sunday announcement, suggested it was a matter of speed. “It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time),” he wrote. “This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city.”
That, however, has always been the case. In the past SpaceX was willing to overlook any advantages rapidly iterating at the Moon offered in favor of pressing ahead as fast as possible to Mars.
The shift from Mars to the Moon comes as part of some of the biggest changes at SpaceX in years. In December, SpaceX executives said that the company was preparing to go public after years of claiming it would remain private: “We can’t go public until we’re flying regularly to Mars,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said in 2018 (see “SpaceX, orbital data centers, and the journey to Mars,” The Space Review, December 15, 2025).
While the company’s CFO, Bret Johnsen, said that the proceeds for an IPO would allow SpaceX to “build Moonbase Alpha and send uncrewed and crewed missions to Mars,” the near-term factor in that decision was developing orbital data centers intended to serve what is, for now, an insatiable demand for computing power for AI applications.
Two weeks ago, Musk took another step in that direction when he announced that SpaceX would acquire xAI, his AI and social media company. The goal, he said, was to create a vertically integrated company that could both deploy and use the orbital data centers he insists is the future of AI.
“My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space,” he wrote in a memo announcing the deal that was published on SpaceX’s website. “In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.”
“We’re going to make it real. We’re actually going to have a mass driver on the Moon,” he said. “I really want to see the mass driver on the Moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space.”
Just a few days earlier, SpaceX filed an application with the FCC for an orbital data center constellation of up to one million satellites. The satellites would operate in both sun-synchronous and mid-inclination orbits between 500 and 2,000 kilometers. The spacecraft in sun-synchronous orbits would be oriented to be in near-constant sunlight, providing continuous services, while those in mid-inclination orbits would handle peaks in demand.
The brief application had little in the way of technical details—nothing about the size and power of the satellites or specific orbital planes—but plenty of grandiose visions. “Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step toward becoming a Kardashev Type II civilization — one that can harness the sun’s full power — while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multiplanetary future among the stars,” the company stated.
Musk used some of the same language in the memo discussion the xAI acquisition. “By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to scale compute. It’s always sunny in space!” he wrote. “Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization, one that can harness the Sun’s full power, while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future.”
Musk added that, eventually, the orbital data center satellites might be built and launched from the Moon, enabling terawatts of AI computing power. “Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the Moon. Once there, it will be possible to establish a permanent presence for scientific and manufacturing pursuits,” he wrote.
“Factories on the Moon can take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power,” he said. No one could accuse Musk of not thinking big.
Last week, xAI posted a video of a company all-hands meeting hosted by Musk. Most of the 45-minute session involved updates from employees on various projects, but Musk closed the presentation with another vision of a lunar-enabled future for AI.
“Ultimately, you have to go out there and explore the universe to understand it, and that’s the motivation behind the combination of SpaceX and xAI,” he said. By launching spacecraft from Earth, he said the combined company could deploy 100 to 200 gigawatts of AI compute a year, with a path to one terawatt a year.
“But what if you want to go beyond a mere terawatt?” he asked. (AI data centers used about four gigawatts of power in the US in 2024, and are projected to grow to 123 gigawatts by 2035, according to a study by Deloitte last year.) “In order to do that, you have to go to the Moon.”
He described a factory that would build data center satellites on the Moon, launching them using a mass driver, which he described as a concept from science fiction. “We’re going to make it real. We’re actually going to have a mass driver on the Moon,” he said. “I really want to see the mass driver on the Moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space.”
On screen, an illustration of such a mass driver appeared, looking not unlike concepts from half a century ago proposed by Gerard K. O’Neill and other advocates of space colonies, who proposed building those free-space settlements using lunar resources transported by mass drivers.
“I can’t imagine anything more epic than a mass driver on the Moon and a self-sustaining city on the Moon and going beyond the Moon to Mars,” he concluded, “going throughout our solar system and ultimately being out there among the stars.”
“Musk is making a huge mistake,” Zubrin wrote. “Musk’s tweet is nonsense.”
In none of the filings, memos, or presentations did Musk provide a schedule for his AI-enabled space ambitions, including a lunar satellite factory and self-sustaining city, beyond the comment in his post that a city on the Moon is potentially possible feasible within a decade. Most in the space industry, though, know such schedules are, as Musk himself has acknowledged, “aspirational.”
It does, though, suggest a new underlying thesis for Musk and SpaceX. He previously said that the company’s Starlink constellation would help fund human missions to Mars: “Starlink internet is what’s being used to help pay for humanity getting to Mars,” he said at Starbase last year, thanking Starlink customers “for helping secure the future of civilization and helping make life multiplanetary.”
Perhaps that business case no longer closes, either because of a better understanding of the revenues Starlink can generate or the costs of getting humans to Mars. Or the opportunity presented by AI and the demand for data centers is so compelling that it warrants going to the Moon first to enable that, even if satellite factories on the Moon are still decades away.
Whatever the reason, it has dismayed Mars advocates, the biggest of whom is Robert Zubrin. “Musk is making a huge mistake,” Zubrin wrote in an essay published last week, citing the lack of resources there for a “self-sustaining city” and propulsion constraints. “In short, Musk’s tweet is nonsense.”
Zubrin speculates Musk is motivated by the vast wealth AI data centers on the Moon could generate. “Or it might be where his winning streak ends,” he speculates. If lunar or orbital data centers can’t compete with terrestrial data centers—and Zubrin is skeptical they can—he worries “it could prove a financial disaster that collapses his credibility, and with it his entire corporate empire.”
Musk has said he is not giving up on Mars. “SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” he wrote in the post announcing the shift to the Moon. He has subsequently suggested this new approach could actually speed up that city on Mars.
And he has a need to speed things up: in June he will turn 55. If he still wants to achieve a goal he has long mentioned of dying on Mars—“just not on impact,” he would frequently add—a focus in the near term on the Moon needs to be an enabler if not accelerator of his Mars vision, not a diversion.
Perhaps in a year this will look like what happened with the NASA administrator confirmation process or the agency’s budget: a period of wild, unexpected swings that end up back to “normal,” in this case with Musk and SpaceX again monomaniacally focused on Mars. If not, this could turn out to be one of the biggest shifts in spaceflight so far this century.
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.
Seattle Is Space City
NG-2 launch
New Glenn on its second launch last November. Blue Origin is again considering ways to reuse the rocket’s upper stage. (credit: Blue Origin)
Seattle’s lessons for rocket reusability
by Robert Oler
Monday, February 16, 2026
Modern Seattle is known for the victorious Super Bowl LX Seahawks, a vibrant lifestyle, and manufacturing of infrastructure that sustains the nation’s and the world’s economies. Today’s reality is a long journey from 1853 when what would become Seattle was a bunch of settlements on what would become known as Puget Sound.
Without a doubt, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 settled the question of first stage reuse.
That changed when Henry Yesler took a gamble, brought a saw mill up from San Franscico, and started turning trees into lumber. The mill, first of many, produced the capability that allowed ordinary people and business to build the infrastructure to play out their dreams, which eventually created today’s reality.
In Seattle, Blue Origin recently posted notice for the position of manager for “Reusable Upper Stage Development”. Immediately, speculation set off in the space press and illuminati concerning the on-and-off possibility of the New Glenn second stage becoming reusable. As a few noted, at least the public side of that debate has been raging for quite some time.
Without a doubt, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 settled the question of first stage reuse. In a conservative booster design the one long pole was reusing the first stage. The effort has paid off handsomely: not only for SpaceX with its Starlink infrastructure but for a lot of dreamers trying to make a buck in space effort. SpaceX changed the metric of success. Economic viability ranks with technical excellence.
For rocket systems to be economically viable, the first stage must be reusable. ULA’s Vulcan, while sound technically, will fade into history rather quickly largely due to whomever at ULA won the debate about making the rocket totally expendable. The decision doomed it to mediocrity, wasting the dollars and talent spent to turn it into reality—and failing a basic vision test.
There really was no debate for SLS, a vehicle designed by politicians with the preservation of political pork as the only goal. How it worked or its cost never really came up. SLS has proven to be a debacle from a cost standpoint and, as recent events have shown, an operational one. Of course, goals differ. From the standpoint of preserving the political support to maintain it, it has so far succeeded.
Moving forward, the economics debate has shifted to the second stage. SpaceX had plans (and an interesting video) for a completely reusable F9 but quickly moved to Starship. Bringing Starship to reality has become a harder knot to cut than first stage recovery. SpaceX is slowly seeing the design of the second stage being driven not by payload, but by demands of full stage reuse.
Rocket Lab is at the opposite extreme. Neutron’s reusable first stage is designed around the doctrine of a cheap, light, expendable second stage. The limit with this design might be the size and capability of a second stage that the first can handle.
What will Blue do? The outside-the-box possibility is that the “reusable upper stage” will have little to do with New Glenn or a follow-on New Armstrong. Instead, the concern would be vehicles designed primarily to transport payloads not to low Earth orbit but from low Earth orbit to their destination either elsewhere in earth orbit or beyond. It would be refurbished for reuse outside of the Earth’s gravity well.
Blue Origin’s Blue Ring and yet unnamed fuel transporter stages are hints at this. It is taking a cue from the concept pioneered at least in studies sometime ago by ULA with the reusable Centaur, moving the reuse envelope to space. This allows the company to concentrate on vacuum operation and thrust sizing of conventional rocket engines, as well as use of engines that are designed for long-duration acceleration, and structures that are optimized for space.
Mass (both empty and payload) distribution would be on a more appropriate level based on mission needs then a “one size fits all” approach. Even if there was a capability to land 100 tons on the Moon, the 100 tons of payload to land does not currently exist. That results in a high cost for a lander that requires an enormous refueling effort and infrastructure in LEO and on the ground, as well as being one and done.
If the goal is for a more conventional reuse of the New Glenn second stage, where might Blue go? The effort requires study and understanding of the tradeoffs in cost and time to make the second stage recovery cost effective.
Treat the second stage as an airplane with drop tanks. The “airplane” part is the engines and avionics. The rest is expendable.
The bulk of expense and the savings in the stage should be in the engines and electronics. Full stage recovery creates enormous expense in cost and mass diverted from the payload by recovery technologies, all to save easy-to-build and cheaply produced fuel and oxidizer tanks in the quest to satisfy an imaginary need for airplane-like reflight. As Starship illustrates ,this requires an inefficient mix of vacuum and sea-level engines, high mass in thermal protection systems (TPS), aero surfaces, and a heavy cost in first stage capability.
Instead, innovate and use a modern update of the original Atlas. Treat the second stage as an airplane with drop tanks. The “airplane” part is the engines and avionics. The rest is expendable. Blue seems to have picked up on development of large “entry shields” where the NASA Inflatable Decelerator left off—they should press forward.
After establishing the entire stage on a reentry trajectory, dispose of the tank portion. Engines and avionics are protected by the expandable heat shield, using parachutes for an accurate recovery profile. Inspect, put on a new “drop tank,” and refly.
This approach eliminates the need for heavy TPS, aerodynamic surfaces, and fuel to carry this up, down, and make a precise landing. The ground infrastructure to recover, remate, and restack should be far less than powered landing.
This configuration should allow recovery from an expanded range of orbits, including GEO transfer. Confidence in the heat shield would eventually lead to use in aerobraking as a routine function—perhaps elese in the solar system as well.
Over the next 20 years in spaceflight, both crewed and uncrewed, it will be far cheaper and efficient to replenish specialized machines rather than replacing them after one mission. Yet machines, architecture, and capabilities will evolve.
When lunar in situ resource utilization comes into being, it will likely first be fuel and oxidizer. Construction of machines on the Moon is decades and many economic milestones away. Starting small will create infrastructure that can evolve driven by technology and economics.
Yesler’s mill started very small with lumber initially of poor quality, but better than what it was before, which was nothing. Little remains other than historical markers and a great view of the Sound from “Skid Row,” as the area was and is called. Yet Seattle and the booming US West Coast are clearly its legacy. Reusable upper stages might be for space infrastructure what a lumber mill on the Puget was for the US West Coast.
Robert G. Oler is a founding member of the Clear Lake Group on Space Policy. These are his own views. He can be reached at orbitjet@hotmail.com
Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.
The Case For US-China Space Cooperation
CZ-10A landing
A Long March 10A booster performs a soft splashdown near a recovery ship after a launch last week, the latest sign of China’s growing space capabilities. (credit: Xinhua)
Tame the wolf, release the panda: The case for US-China space cooperation
by Jimin Park
Monday, February 16, 2026
The United States should repeal the Wolf Amendment and pursue a cooperative space relationship with China. First, China’s space program is motivated by prestige, rather than global domination. Space cooperation could satisfy China’s pursuit of status recognition, thereby improving US-China relations. Second, the Wolf Amendment prevents genuine engagement between the two countries, limiting opportunities for trust-building. Finally, while critics argue that space collaboration poses national security risks, engagement could promote more responsible behavior by fostering mutual understanding and restraint in space activities.
The Wolf Amendment, status recognition, and space engagement
Purely militaristic or economic terms cannot fully explain China’s space motivations. Instead, prestige is the primary driver behind China’s space program. Chinese leaders have prioritized space capabilities even at the expense of military modernization and social welfare spending.[1] Chinese space professionals use the phrase “yi xi zhi di” when describing China’s space motivations, which means “a seat at the table.”[2] This phrase reflects Beijing’s desire for status recognition as a leading power in space.
The Wolf Amendment’s restrictions on space engagement disadvantage the US. Instead, the US should leverage China’s growing financial and technical capabilities to complement NASA’s efforts.
Beijing perceives the Wolf Amendment as a deliberate US effort to deny Chinese legitimacy as a space power. Space achievements are deeply tied to China’s economic growth, technological innovation, and domestic legitimacy.[3] As a result, the Wolf Amendment reinforces nationalist narratives in China that depict the West as unwilling to accept China’s rise.[4] Such perception of status denial can heighten insecurity and increase the likelihood of aggressive and confrontational behaviors by China.[5] To counter this dynamic, the US should pursue status recognition by repealing the Wolf Amendment and engaging China as an equal partner in space cooperation, thereby promoting stability and mutual respect.
The Wolf Amendment’s restrictions on space engagement disadvantage the US. While America’s space exploration slowed, China’s program has advanced rapidly and independently.[6] Despite being excluded from the ISS, China successfully developed its own space station, Tiangong. Continued isolation will push both countries to develop separate technologies without information exchange or coordination. Instead, the US should leverage China’s growing financial and technical capabilities to complement NASA’s efforts.[7] Cooperation could begin with pragmatic steps such as deconflicting lunar activities, maintaining dedicated communication channels, and establishing equipment standardization.[8] By prioritizing feasible and less controversial issues, both countries can build trust and lay the foundations for deeper collaboration.[9]
Responding to key critiques of repealing the Wolf Amendment
Critique 1: China’s authoritarianism and revisionism
Representative Frank Wolf (the amendment’s original sponsor) justified the policy on moral grounds, expressing concern about cooperating with China. However, even proponents of the amendment have conceded that it has done little to influence Beijing’s space ambitions or human rights practices.[10] Simply identifying problems with China’s behavior does not constitute a sufficient basis for rejecting space cooperation. Critics often warn that China seeks to revise the global order.[11] These scholars argue that space advances fuel China’s ambitions and economic growth.[12] Yet this interpretation overstates China’s ambitions. Rather than being a revisionist power, Beijing primarily operates as “a status quo power with limited global aims.”[13] Moreover, the importance of space to China’s prestige underscores why space cooperation could serve as a valuable tool for leverage and improved bilateral relations.
Critique 2: Espionage and PLA technological development
Opponents of space engagement argue that space cooperation could inadvertently enhance the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) capabilities through China’s military-civil fusion.[14] However, this concern does not justify rejecting space engagement. In 2014 testimony before the US Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, former astronaut Leroy Chiao stated that fears of espionage were exaggerated.[15] Rather than relying on the Wolf Amendment, the US should mitigate technology-transfer risks through International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Export Administration Regulations, which cover nearly all space technologies and offer more effective safeguards.[16]
Even critics of space engagement acknowledge that the amendment has failed to deter China’s espionage or slow Beijing’s space ambitions.[17] Instead, restrictions on cooperation have accelerated Beijing’s independent space development.[18] Advocates of the amendment often assume that the US gains nothing from engaging with China, but this assumption is misguided. Cooperation provides insights into China’s decision-making processes and institutional structures, which contain “valuable information in accurately deciphering [China’s] intended use of dual-use space technology.”[19]
Continued isolation only reinforces China’s perception of status denial and risks accelerating Beijing’s independent space development.
Space engagement can address concerns of China’s military-civil fusion and espionage. Although the PLA is connected to China’s space program, cooperation may strengthen the civil space sector and limit the influence of military hardliners.[20] Repealing the Wolf Amendment would reduce China’s incentive to develop space technologies independently. Current restrictions push Beijing toward alternative partners, diminishing US influence over China’s space development and broader diplomatic leverage.[21] Given Beijing’s pragmatic tendencies, China may be willing to agree to limits on espionage in exchange for space cooperation.[22]
Critique 3: Other avenues for cooperation
Supporters of the Wolf Amendment often note that the amendment does not explicitly prohibit all forms of space cooperation with China.[23] While technically correct, this view overlooks the amendment’s practical consequences. The amendment discourages direct bilateral engagement and creates a “chilling effect” that deters collaboration even between US and Chinese companies.[24] By limiting civil space cooperation, the amendment obstructs future joint efforts in space exploration, human spaceflight, and technology transfer.[25] These restrictions—though aimed at civil collaboration—still reinforce Chinese perceptions of status denial.
Conclusion
Repealing the Wolf Amendment would enable a constructive and strategically beneficial approach to Sino-American space relations. By engaging China as an equal partner, the US can address Beijing’s pursuit of prestige while capitalizing on the mutual benefits of space engagement. Continued isolation only reinforces China’s perception of status denial and risks accelerating Beijing’s independent space development. Although national security concerns remain valid, space cooperation presents a pragmatic path for advancing bilateral relations and scientific progress in space.
[Updated Feb. 17 to correct a reference to testimony by Chiao.]>
References
Robert Hines, “A Place in the Stars: Prestige and Legitimacy in China’s Quest for Space Power,” Cornell Theses and Dissertations, 177.
Gregory Kulacki and Jeffrey G. Lewis, A Place for One’s Mat: China’s Space Program, 1956–2003 (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009), 3.
John Klein, Space Warfare: Strategy Principles and Policy (Routledge, 2025), 72–75.
Anand V., “China’s Science and Technology Capabilities: The Case of the Outer Space Sector,” Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement, August 21, 2020.
Michelle Murray, The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers (Oxford University Press, 2020), 207–215.
Alvin Hoi-Chun Hung, “Did Exclusion Ignite China’s Drive to Compete in Space Station Technology? An Analysis of the Techno-Legal Implications of the Wolf Amendment,” Journal of Law, Technology, and Policy, 2022.
“Pathways to Exploration—Rationales and Approaches,” National Academy of Sciences, 2014
Aaron Bateman, “The prospects for United States–China space cooperation are limited,” The Bulletin, June 12, 2023.
Bin Li, “Space Won’t Be Safe until the U.S. and China Can Cooperate,” Scientific American, May 9, 2022.
Dan Hart and Dean Cheng, “Should the Wolf Amendment Be Repealed?” The Aerospace Company, July 29, 2025.
Elle Lu and Alex Stephenson, “Space: The Final Frontier of U.S.-China Competition.” The National Interest, July 5, 2022.
Dean Cheng, China and the New Moon Race (Space Policy Institute, 2024), 8–30.
David Kang, “What China Doesn’t Want,” Foreign Affairs, September 19, 2025.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s Military-Civil Fusion Policy,” U.S. Department of State.
Andrew Johnson, “An Agreement to Disagree,” In Chen Lan and Jacqueline Myrrhe. “Go Taikonauts. All about China’s space programme,” Issue 12. May 2014: 21–26.
Hart and Cheng, “Wolf Amendment.”
Hart and Cheng, “Wolf Amendment.”
Makena Young, “Bad Idea: The Wolf Amendment (Limiting Collaboration with China in Space),” Defense360, December 4, 2019.
Michael Listner and Joan Johnson-Freese, “Commentary | Two Perspectives on U.S.-China Space Cooperation,” SpaceNews, July 14, 2014.
Marco Aliberti, When China Goes to the Moon… (Springer, 2015), 233–234.
Peter Harrell, “China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses,” CNAS, December 12, 2018.
James Lewis, “Space Subcommittee Hearing – Are We Losing the Space Race to China?,” Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, September 27, 2016.
Hart and Cheng, “Wolf Amendment.”
Paul Bolt, “American Sanctions on China’s Space Program: Effective Economic Statecraft?,” Space and Defense 15, no. 1 (2024): 149–63, DOI: 10.32873/uno.dc.sd.15.01.1037.
Young, “Bad Idea: Wolf Amendment”
Jimin Park is a masterÆs student at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service with a focus in Asian Studies. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Global & International Studies from the University of Kansas.
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: Webb's Cosmos
book cover
Review: Webb’s Cosmos
by Christopher Cokinos
Monday, February 16, 2026
Webb’s Cosmos: Images and Discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope
by Marcin Sawicki
Firefly Books, 2025
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-2281-0573-2
US$49.95
Spectacular images of galaxies, nebulae, stars, and more from the James Webb Space Telescope are readily available online. But having hundreds of them available in a single book is deeply satisfying. One can linger with them, with no distractions. Marcin Sawicki and a team of editors and designers at Firefly Books have produced a gorgeous, well-designed and informative book that gives us a record of JWST’s first years.
Divided into ten chapters with an introduction and epilogue, Webb’s Cosmos spans stars and star birth; individual and merging galaxies; galactic deep fields; gravitational lensing; and planets, “ours” and those of other solar systems.
The book is a keeper, and the prose is so approachable and photos so exquisite I think it would make a great gift for younger readers whose interest in science and astronomy might be cultivated by such a volume.
Sawicki’s first-person account of working on the JWST, watching the nerve-racking launch, the deployment of its delicate sunshield, and his recounting the telescope’s longer history and future operations is engaging. The prose here and throughout the book is crisp and clear.
As he writes, “All of it—every pixel of every image—is grounded in science, data, and in decades of dreaming and building. But every Webb image also inspires wonder. Because beyond the technical achievement, beyond the scientific discoveries, Webb invites us to seek answers to timeless questions: Where did we come from? How did the cosmos around us evolve? What is our place in it? Are we alone?”
Readers will savor those questions individually as they savor the imagery. You’ll find stunning images of stars looking like exploded flowers, like something from a futurist landscape. There are classics like the Cosmic Cliffs of Carina and the Pillars of Creation. But you will encounter, of course, many images new to you, including, perhaps, the blue mists of the Chamaeleon 1 molecular cloud and Earendel, the most distant sun yet observed and photographed within the Sunrise Arc, “the most strongly gravitationally magnified galaxy from the early universe currently known.” Even the feature names are poetic.
Several photographs overlay Hubble Space Telescope and JWST imagery to create new ways of looking at galaxies, for example, and yet the book’s most potent images, for me, are those of planets in our own Solar System and the “snapshots” of exoplanets like little lit gems. You’ll find favorites too.
The book excels as well at infographics that explain, among other things, the scale of the cosmos and the expansion of the universe. These are easy to grasp and useful in helping to remind the reader of the sublime scale of photos that one can just easily turn to, page by page. With short, clear chapter introductions, the book functions as a beginner’s guide to astronomy as well.
The book is a keeper, and the prose is so approachable and photos so exquisite I think it would make a great gift for younger readers whose interest in science and astronomy might be cultivated by such a volume. Awe and wonder have long been hallmarks of deep space imagery. Webb’s Cosmos reminds us why—and shows us that our quest for future JWST discoveries is just beginning.
Christopher Cokinos is the author of the award-winning book Still as Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon from Antiquity to Tomorrow. He is a co-editor of Moon Bound, a project of The Moon Gallery Foundation.
Monday, February 16, 2026
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)