You can see an animation of the BX-1 companion satellite at 1:57 into the clip. Anybody remember that really boring paper I wrote, in 2004, calling for “rules of the road” regarding autonomous proximity operations? (That’s when satellites maneuver around one another.) Me neither, but according to the internet, I said: The launch of a …
Britain's Independent Deterrent
by | 2008-12-22 | 13 Comments
Sorry for the light blogging of late. I got a chuckle out of this story: US firms now control UK’s nuclear weapons plant LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government said Friday that a state-owned nuclear group has sold its stake in the company that manages the U.K.‘s atomic weapons research center, bringing the facility under the …
SBIRS—Two Heads are Better than One
by | 2008-12-17 | 1 Comment
click on the image for a larger version The currently active US early warning satellites, SBIRS and DSP: each satellite is removed one at a time to highlight its individual coverage. Orbits have been determined by the amateur satellite observer network, see-sat, with particular thanks to Mike McCants, Greg Roberts, Peter Wakelin, and Scott Campbell …
Posture Commission Interim Report
by | 2008-12-16 | 7 Comments
The Strategic Posture Commission has released its interim report. For what it is worth, I think Hans K has it backward. The report doesn’t “reinstate Russia at the center of U.S. nuclear thinking” as he suggets, so much as it observes the reality that US strategic planning has not moved on from a Russia-centric model— …
