Space fence to detect space debris, no fines to be given
It was only after confirming April Fool’s Day was still two months away that I realized the I-must-be-dreaming stupor this morning did indeed come from the headline presented before my weary eyeballs: “Lockheed Martin gets $107M to continue Space Fence work.”
Naturally, one has to read the story with a headline like that.
The US Air Force awarded two $107 million contracts on Wednesday for preliminary designs of a Space Fence that can shine beams on fast-flying low-earth orbit space debris which will in turn help improve low-earth orbit situational awareness. This is no joke.
In America, we get fined for littering. But when it comes to “resident space debris,” our government is spending our tax dollars to help catalogue the junk it leaves behind in low-earth orbit.
So much junk is left behind that it is now a priority in dealing with our nation’s security. “Space situational awareness is a national security priority and Space Fence will greatly enhance our ability to track and catalog orbiting objects which number in the tens of thousands,” states John Morse, director of the Space Fence program at Lockheed Martin, on the company’s website.
The two $107 million contracts are for 18 months and come 18 months after the Air Force gave three $30 million contracts to Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to begin phase 1 development of the Space Fence Concept. At the expiration of the newly issued contract, either Raytheon or Lockheed Martin is expected to land a $3.5 billion deal with the USAF to build the Space Fence.
The new Space Fence will replace the existing radar system in use by the Air Force since the 1960’s, located in the US. After development, its initial operation is expected to occur in 2015 and becoming fully operational five years later, in 2020.
According to Lockheed Martin’s website, the Space Fence will enhance the US government’s world-wide surveillance abilities:
“The current VHF system in use since the early 1960s is located in the continental U.S. The Space Fence radars will rely on strategic sites around the world to expand global surveillance coverage into the Southern hemisphere.”
Information Week reported the increased use of satellites is why we need the Space Fence:
“The increasing number of satellites and other spacecraft in orbit around Earth has made the need to patrol space more critical and is driving a refurbishment of the existing technology that’s doing the job. Incidents such as a collision in February 2009 of a U.S. Iridium communications satellite and a Russian Cosmos 2251 communications satellite demonstrate what can happen if objects passing close to each other aren’t detected. Such collisions add even more debris to what already exists in space, exacerbating the situation and providing more threats to satellites and other spacecraft.”
No litter fines, just billions of dollars wasted to catalog the stuff.
Much like the millions spent to crash a rocket into the moon, after repeatedly missing the target, our government does not easily embarrass itself in the world of absurdity.
