Space Force’s Victus Haze Mission: Countering On-Orbit Aggression

TFD – Delve into the pioneering Victus Haze mission by the Space Force, focused on countering on-orbit aggression and advancing space domain awareness. This article unveils the collaboration between Rocket Lab, True Anomaly, and the Space Force for this crucial endeavor.

The US Space Force announced Thursday it is partnering with two companies, Rocket Lab and True Anomaly, for a first-of-its-kind mission to demonstrate how the military might counter “on-orbit aggression.”

On this mission, a spacecraft manufactured and launched by Colorado-based startup True Anomaly will track down another satellite. The Space Force’s Space Systems Command said in a statement, “The vendors will exercise a realistic threat response scenario in an on-orbit space domain awareness demonstration called Victus Haze.”

A satellite might approach a US spacecraft through movements in this danger scenario, or it could take on other peculiar or unexpected actions. The Space Force aims to be able to intervene in such a situation, either to stop an enemy from acting or to protect a US satellite from harm.

General Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the Space Force, stated, “We need the ability to go up there and figure out what this thing is when another nation puts an asset up into space and we don’t quite know what that asset is, we don’t know what its intent is, we don’t know what its capabilities are.”

With Victus Haze, the Space Force hopes to illustrate this. True Anomaly’s spacecraft will launch first for this mission, pretending to be a satellite from a possible rival nation like China or Russia. When the Space Force provides the go-ahead to launch True Anomaly’s spacecraft, Rocket Lab will have a satellite ready to go up and check it.

True Anomaly CEO and cofounder Even Rogers described the company as “pretty sporty.”

The original version of this article could be found on Ars Technica, a reputable source for reviews, tech policy analysis, news, and more. Condé Nast, the parent company of WIRED, is the owner of Ars.

The two spacecraft will then swap places, with True Anomaly’s Jackal satellite actively circling Rocket Lab’s satellite, if all proceeds as planned. The Space Force states that True Anomaly and Rocket Lab must deliver their spacecraft by autumn 2025 at the latest.

“If a near-peer competitor makes a movement, we need to have it in our quiver to make a counter maneuver, whether that be go up and do a show of force or go up and do space domain awareness or understand the characterization of the environment—what’s going on?” stated Guetlein.

The purpose of the upcoming military operation, Victus Haze, is to validate the capabilities of Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS. Through these initiatives, the Space Force and its private partners have demonstrated how to shorten the time needed for a satellite’s preparation and launch.

For the Victus Nox mission last year, the Space Force collaborated with Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems. In less than a year, the Victus Nox satellite was constructed, tested, and prepared for launch in less than sixty hours. After getting launch orders from the Space Force, Firefly successfully launched the spacecraft on its Alpha rocket 27 hours later. This is an incredible accomplishment in a sector where satellites take years to manufacture and launch campaigns usually require weeks or months.

“We no longer have the luxury of time to wait years, even 10 or 15 years to deliver some of these capabilities,” Guetlein stated during a Center for Strategic and International Studies talk in January. “A tactically relevant timeline is a matter of weeks, days, or even hours.”

“Victus Haze is about continuing to break those paradigms and to show how we would rapidly put up a space domain awareness capability and operate it in real time against a threat,” Guetlein stated.

In order “to keep the demonstration as realistic as possible,” a Space Force spokeswoman told Ars that the Victus Haze mission is more complex than Victus Nox, including two prime contractors, two spacecraft, and two rocket launches from separate spaceports. All of these events are scheduled to occur within short timeframes.

“This demonstration will ultimately prepare the United States Space Force to provide future forces to combatant commands to conduct rapid operations in response to adversary on-orbit aggression,” the Space Systems Command said in a statement.

This is a really significant operational demonstration that is really pushing the envelope on technology and demonstrates a lot of faith in the US industrial base,” Rogers stated.

Rogers stated in an interview with Ars that “basically, this is about characterizing an unknown capability for the first time in low-Earth orbit.” “There are a whole host of challenges that come with that, consistent coverage with communications, how do you track a maneuvering object in low-Earth orbit with limited space domain awareness capabilities, what’s the right level of autonomy and human interaction?”

A few weeks after the company’s initial announcement last month, True Anomaly revealed that its first two Jackal satellites will not be able to finish their scheduled rendezvous demonstration. The satellites were launched on a SpaceX piggyback flight. This would have served as an example of the kind of work that Rocket Lab and True Anomaly will showcase on Victus Haze.

Before Victus Haze, Rogers stated that his company is developing two more demonstration missions.

Rocket Lab received $32 million from the Defense Innovation Unit of the Pentagon for its contribution to the Victus Haze project. The Space Force’s innovation branch, SpaceWERX, has awarded True Anomaly a $30 million contract. Victus Haze will cost about $92 million in total, with True Anomaly providing $30 million in private funding to assist with mission expenses. The entire project is managed by Space Systems Command’s Space Safari section.

“We recognize the significant opportunity to leverage the commercial space industry’s innovations to counter China as America’s pacing threat,” said Colonel Bryon McClain, Space Systems Command’s program executive officer for space domain awareness and combat power. “The world’s most inventive space industry is found in the United States. Victus Haze will show how we might react to reckless behavior in orbit under operationally realistic circumstances.”

“Once the build phase is completed the mission will enter several successive phases to include hot standby, activation, alert, and launch phases,” according to the Space Force. “While this is a coordinated demonstration, each vendor will be given unique launch and mission profiles.”

The nearly refrigerator-sized Jackal satellite from True Anomaly will take off on a “rapid rideshare” mission from either Vandenberg Space Force Base in California or Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, according to Space Systems command. It is highly probable that this will be a ride-sharing launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. There are differences between launching on a dedicated rocket, like the Victus Nox mission did last year, and launching on a rideshare flight.

Depending on the launch provider’s flight schedule, True Anomaly estimates it could remove its satellite from storage and combine it with a rocket in 12 to 84 hours. The Space Force will give Rocket Lab a 24-hour notice to launch its satellite, which will be comparable in size to True Anomaly’s spacecraft, on an Electron rocket from Virginia or New Zealand following the launch of True Anomaly’s Jackal. The launch window for Rocket Lab’s satellite must coincide exactly with True Anomaly’s spacecraft’s orbital rendezvous.

The founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, said in a statement that “Victus Haze builds on Rocket Lab’s proven track record of delivering launch and spacecraft solutions that enable advanced missions on accelerated timelines.” “The ability to design, build, launch, and operate a spacecraft within one streamlined team is rare and will deliver unparalleled speed and value to the nation.”

It has not been simple to reduce the time required for satellite launches to this point. Similar objectives were pursued by the military in the 2000s and 2010s under the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) program, however Guetlein noted that the program’s primary focus was on capability replacement or replenishment rather than space threat response.

Commercial businesses have since created their own cutting-edge capabilities. The Space Force has less expensive access to more sophisticated technology. Guetlein remarked, “At the time, it was too expensive.”

The Space Force’s and its commercial partners’ culture needs to be changed, and that presents a greater problem today. Airspace clearances, safety paperwork, and regulatory permits must all be processed more quickly.

According to Guetlein, “tactically responsive space is not about the hardware.” “The satellite, the sensor, or the rocket are not the main concerns. It has to do with attitude. It has to do with culture.

Ars Technica was the original home of this story.