There’s a new sheriff in town, as the United States Air Force plans to launch two Geosynchronous Orbital Satellites into space on the morrow from Cape Canaveral, FL.
Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program or GSSAP will be tasked with spying on other countries satellites, taking real-time photographs from space, and tracking ‘persons of interest’.
“This neighborhood watch twosome … will be on the lookout for nefarious capability other nations might try to place in that critical orbital regime,” Gen. William Shelton, the head of Air Force Space Command, told reporters at the Pentagon. … “Today the way we track threats in geosynchronous orbit is by basically points of light, and as we take a picture of the sky and dwell on that part of the sky, [we know] things that are moving are satellites, things that are stationary are stars … Through our points of light and various other means, we make inferences on what a particular [foreign] satellite can do,” Shelton explained.
But the GSSAP “gives us an ability … to look at literal images of objects in geosynchronous orbit … A picture is worth a thousand inferences because we can see literally what that [foreign] satellite looks like, and you can effectively reverse-engineer and understand what the capabilities are … to a much greater extent than you can today,” Shelton said. … The launch comes at a time when China is rapidly improving its space and anti-satellite capabilities. Pentagon planners worry that in a future conflict, Beijing might shoot down or disable American military satellites that are critical for communications, intelligence-gathering, and targeting.
“There are myriad counter-space threats that we are seeing on the near horizon,” Shelton said. “We’re going to have to adjust our spacecraft constellations to survive in a very different environment from what we’ve had in the past,” and we need “much better situational awareness of what’s going on; hence GSSAP.”
Shelton was asked specifically whether he was worried about space-based weapons or electromagnetic pulse weapons being used against U.S. military satellites.
“All of the above,” he replied.
Shelton declined to go into detail about what capabilities the Pentagon is developing to thwart enemy anti-satellite weapons. —Air Force launching satellites to spy on other satellites – Stripes.
Given the world in which we live I can’t conceivably endorse such a project, nor would I. Frankly our government, in its current form, is solely responsible for the world in which we all now live. Bottom line.
And unless We The People do something about it, things will remain the same.
Who is the enemy and who is the friend here? Why the need for the untoward if you’re doing nothing untoward? Why the invasion of privacy?
“(9/11 is over.) Osama bin Laden is dead, Al Qaeda is on the run, and GM is alive and well…” –President Barack H. Obama, II., 2011 (only added occasionally by the President, in certain places, settings and venues…)
Watch this space folks, watch it very closely.
Peace.
–Rhett.
Say What News?! 