When Bloomberg TV posted its interview with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in the wee hours Wednesday morning, it created a wave, more like a sonic boom, across the U.S.-based space, defense, and foreign affairs communities. Even CNN’s foreign affairs cognoscenti Fareed Zakaria opened his Sunday morning show and based his weekly Washington Post column on it.
What the U.S. military’s top uniformed leader said squarely put to rest any debate on how the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, and the Biden Administration view China’s unaccounted-for late-July launch of a Long March 2C rocket that at least from China officially remains a mystery.
“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning. I think I saw in some of the newspapers they used the term “Sputnik moment.” I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention,” Milley said.
What’s in this week’s podcast
In order to set aside the hype using the Sputnik metaphor naturally causes, in this week’s episode I spoke with one of the nation’s foremost hypersonic weapons systems authorities - and that’s not hyperbole - Mark Lewis. He is an aeronautics and astronautics engineer - a.k.a. a rocket scientist-engineer.
Until January of this year, Lewis was the DoD’s director of Defense, Research and Engineering and the acting deputy under secretary of defense for Research & Engineering. In other words, he was the Pentagon’s senior-most scientist.
In our conversation, Lewis gives the history and the context of what makes a “Sputnik moment,” and explains what Milley was actually saying and the role of strategic technological surprise in warfighting. Lewis is the Executive Director, Emerging Technologies Institute at the National Defense Industries Association.
In the second half of this episode, Sarah Mineiro and Kaitlyn Johnson also weigh in on Milley’s close “Sputnik moment,” and then dig into what they see as the asynchronous relationship between the U.S Space Force and Senate and House appropriators.
Mineiro and Johnson are experts in space, defense, and budget policies and issues. Mineiro has worked in government in defense and intelligence and on legislation, specifically the bill that created the U.S. Space Force. The proud former “Hill Rat” is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security’s Defense Program, and the senior director for space strategy at Anduril Industries.
Kaitlyn Johnson is the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a key author of the think tank’s annual must-read “Space Threat Assessment.” Kaitlyn is also the host of the center’s podcast “Tech Unmanned.”
Why it matters
In the U.S., while Congress is grappling with the FY2022 defense budget - the National Defense Authorization Act - the government through Gen. Milley has confirmed its belief that China launched into orbit a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to American shores in late July.
The U.S. has a missile defense system designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, but not to put too fine of a point on it, its dependability is literally hit-or-miss. Plus, hypersonic glide vehicles and ICBMs are not the same things.
To get the geopolitical context and a deeper understanding of this alleged and mysterious launch and the differences between hypersonics and ICBMs, read last week’s newsletter and/or listen to the podcast.
While experts believe it is possible to develop systems, some of which by the way would have to be space-based, to defend against a hypersonic glide vehicle, they don’t yet technically exist. Money, and a lot of it, and focused dedication are needed for such a technological development effort…
Enter the U.S. Space Force… The USSF is under pressure from Congress and the Administration to get things done in space faster, smarter and better, and more efficiently, especially economically. On Wednesday it became clear that meeting that responsibility and funding it are out of sync.
Sticking to the responsibility theme, the USSF and its Space Warfighting and Analysis Center hosted a seminal meeting, billed as a “business fair” with a reported 180 space and defense companies. In the public notice, the classified event’s purpose was to provide “industry partners insight and rationale to the Force Design processes and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) currently being employed in the context of Missile Warning/Missile Tracking mission areas.”
The meeting was not about awarding contracts, but rather sharing with industry what the USSF sees as the current and future threat environment, and what capabilities will be needed to address them. You can be sure China’s alleged hypersonic glide vehicle was a topic.
To get the full analysis of this story and an idea of where we go from here from the experts, listen to The DownLink, a Defense and Aerospace Podcast above or from the Defense & Aerospace Report… Or use and subscribe through your favorite podcast player.
Like what you’re reading? Get The DownLink in your inbox!
Random Signals
Boeing announced on Wednesday it is taking a $185 million write-down on its annual earnings. That’s because of this August’’s Starliner test-launch flub. The un-manned test launch of the human-rated space-launch and transportation system was indefinitely scrubbed because 13 valves in the propulsion system were stuck in a closed position. Last year software glitches forced the company to part with $410 million to prepare for the August test. The Starliner is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. You can read more about the Starliner’s woes in “Transmission #003 Boeing’s Oof-T2.”
The weather has forced NASA and SpaceX to delay the Crew-3 launch to 1:10 a.m. Wednesday, November 3. It will be SpaceX’s fourth crewed NASA Commercial Crew Program mission to the International Space Station. NASA’s live coverage of the launch starts at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, November 2. But like I wrote last week, if you intend to stay up to watch, please check the NASA Commercial Crew blog or NASA’s Twitter account to see if the launch gets a “go.”
The SpaceX Crew Dragon launch service to the ISS may have Roscosmos as its newest customer. On Monday Dmitry Rogozin, who has a frenemy relationship with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, told reporters covering the 72nd International Astronautical Congress meeting in Dubai, U.A.E. that "From our viewpoint, SpaceX has gained sufficient experience for representatives of our crews to make flights aboard its spacecraft." The Crew Dragon also has fewer holes and propulsion misfires than Russian-made spacecraft… Just saying.
There was a big hint of space during U.S. President Joe Biden’s and French President Emmanuel Macron’s kiss-and-make-up session on the margins of the Rome G20 Summit. Remember that the AUKUS agreement cut to the quick France’s expectation to make and sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. France even recalled its ambassador to the U.S. Besides saying that the United States and its oldest ally remained deep friends, their statement read: “The United States and France intend to intensify cooperation on space issues, which will be further discussed during Vice President Harris’ upcoming visit to Paris.” Also, note that France has an Air and Space Force.
While this is not news, I’m recommending that you read Colin Clark’s piece in Breaking Defense, titled “US, China, Russia Test New Space War Tactics: Sats Buzzing, Spoofing, Spying.” It’s a great feature depicting the nation-on-nation on-orbit spy vs. spy game.
And for fun, NASA has a page up on its website showing off how over the years astronauts aboard the ISS go trick-or-treating. It’s very cute.
