Race to launch new missiles for Trump’s space force

Defence and aerospace companies are accelerating plans to develop new types of missiles and satellites.

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Picture: AP

Defence and aerospace companies are accelerating plans to develop new types of missiles and satellites in an effort to capitalise on President Trump’s proposed military branch devoted to space warfare.

Even before the administration’s plans for a “space force” were announced earlier this month, Pentagon space spending was on the rise, in part to combat the rising threat to US satellites from Chinese and Russian technology, which the US military has been tracking for years.

Space projects could see larger shifts of money as debate over the President’s space-force plan increases public awareness of the military’s drive to speed up deployment of next-generation space equipment.

The increased budget is attracting the attention not only of big companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin but also smaller ones like information-technology specialist Booze Allen Hamilton. Companies are prioritising the development of fast, highly manoeuverable missiles; technology to detect hostile missile launches; small, more-resilient communications satellites; and processing data from new sensors.

Getting less attention in the budget is traditional space hardware, such as bigger satellites that typically have taken longer to build and deploy.

Existing military space efforts are focused through the air force, which has said it wants to spend around $US44 billion ($60bn) on unclassified space research, development and new equipment over the next five years — nearly 20 per cent more than its prior guidance in 2017. While the projections were made before the President’s space-force plan, much of the money could end up shifted to the new branch if Congress approves it.

The totals don’t include expected funding boosts to classified projects, outside usual public oversight, which have been among the fastest-growing slices of the defence budget.

Boeing chairman Dennis Muilenburg told Wall Street analysts earlier this year that he was encouraged by the Trump administration’s “sustained funding and support” for military and civilian space programs. “We do see it as an important business segment for our future,” he said.

Proponents argue the changes to the space budget are essential to counter evolving Chinese and Russian technology capable of blinding, jamming or possibly even destroying American surveillance and communications satellites. US intelligence officials have publicly criticised Beijing for aggressively pursuing antisatellite weapons and for setting up military units specifically trained to attack foreign satellites.

Because of the overseas threat, top candidates for additional funding include research on swarms of space-based sensors able to detect hostile missile launches and, ultimately, potential deployment of advanced orbiting lasers designed to defend a variety of military spacecraft.

Regardless of the project, proponents predict more focus and dollars will go to build and test prototypes. They are intended to demonstrate technical capabilities and flag future production problems more quickly than the Air Force’s traditional, time-consuming hardware development and acquisition process.

Air force General John Hyten, head of Strategic Command, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons, repeatedly has lamented the lumbering pace of replacing missile-warning and other types of satellites. “I don’t know how it happened, but somehow this country lost the ability to go fast,” he said last December. However, the Pentagon appears focused on speed.

“We’ve told all of our contractors” the military simply won’t support “more exquisite, one-off science (experiments)” that block rapid deployment, air force Secretary Heather Wilson said.