The United States has lost its competence in the production of small space satellites

Hello ATS!

An analytical article has appeared in the Russian information resource "Strategic Culture Foundation" on the US's ability to produce small space satellites, mainly for reconnaissance purposes. I want to bring you this very interesting article. I hope it will be interesting and informative. So.

"The Space Development Agency (SDA), part of the US Space Force, has radically changed the concept of space reconnaissance and the corresponding procurement scheme in the US military space program. Previously, the Pentagon ordered and purchased large and expensive satellites that were created over many months and sometimes years SDA now plans to spend about $4 billion annually to create a constellation of hundreds of small and inexpensive satellites.

However, as SpaceNews reports, when implementing this model in practice, a number of problems arose that the American defense industry has not yet been able to overcome.

In fact, it turned out that most suppliers, components and software for satellites simply do not have time to fulfill military government orders on time, and often end up with defects.

The attempt to transition to industrial production of satellites has shaken and collapsed supply chains, which were already not very stable.

As an example, SpaceNews cites the federal lawsuit that defense contractor L3Harris Technologies filed against one of its suppliers, aerospace firm Moog Inc.

L3Harris subcontracted $77.9 million in satellite platforms and software to Moog for two contracts, one with SDA and one with a classified government customer.

The space platform is a unified module for building spacecraft, which includes all the service systems of the satellite.

L3Harris claims that Moog repeatedly missed delivery deadlines and that satellite platforms arrived 11 to 13 months late and were defective. “Moog's failure undermined L3Harris's credibility with customers and placed L3Harris' future business at significant risk,” the lawsuit states.

In the lawsuit, L3Harris says it discovered defects in Moog's equipment that "created the potential for catastrophic loss to the satellites and the SDA mission."

In response to questions from SpaceNews, a spokesperson for L3Harris said the company cannot comment on ongoing litigation.

Aaron Astrachan, Moog's director of investor relations, said in a statement: “We are aware of the lawsuit filed by L3Harris and do not intend to publicly comment on the allegations at this time. However, we intend to vigorously defend ourselves against the allegations and will respond to the complaint in court in due course.”

Defense giant L3Harris' lawsuit against small company Moog highlights "the challenges facing the space supply chain as it tries to ramp up production to meet growing demand from the military and intelligence community," SpaceNews highlights.

“Defense industry companies, long accustomed to building a few large and complex satellites, are having great difficulty adapting to the new reality of producing large numbers of smaller, cheaper spacecraft. And the surge in demand caused by SDA exposes weaknesses in segments of the space industry,” the publication notes.

During a meeting with reporters April 10 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, SDA Director Derek Turner noted that large contractors are having difficulty accessing components, some of which are made by just one or two suppliers.

As an example, he cited a critical satellite component manufactured by Innoflight, the sole supplier of “type 1 encryption equipment” for SDA satellites. “Type 1 encryption” is a device certified by the NSA for use in the cryptographic protection of classified US government information.

According to Turner, Innoflight has an exceptional position in the market, being the only vendor today that has the right size and "Type 1 Encryption" form factor to meet SDA requirements.

“Everyone is extremely dependent on Innoflight,” he said. “We have several alternative [equipment vendors] for encryption in the future, but they probably won’t be ready until the third tranche is completed.” The third tranche is the next purchase of SDA satellites, planned for 2025 and 2026.

To date, the restructuring of the US space industry has created chaos in the supply chain, as well as confusion and uncertainty in the selection of reliable subcontractors, which pushes SDA's ambitious plans to at least the medium term."

Continued below...

“So, a number of SDA general contractors chose Astra Space as a supplier of the satellite propulsion system. But Astra had financial problems and the giants of the American military-industrial complex had to look for alternative suppliers, which pushed the delivery deadlines to the right and called into question the reliability of subcontractors.

For the next batch of satellites L3Harris is building for SDA, scheduled to launch in 2025, the company has switched to satellite platform provider Maxar Space Systems. Other SDA prime contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have subcontracted with Terran Orbital and Airbus. Some general contractors, in particular York Space Systems, not trusting subcontractors, began to produce their own satellite platforms.

The military-industrial complex giants, accustomed to uncontrolled spending of budget funds, began to actually sabotage contracts for the mass production of small satellites.

Raytheon last year won a contract as prime contractor to build seven satellites for SDA, but later said it "would not be able to meet target prices," Derek Turner said. “A lot of the work is outside the scope of this contract,” he said. “By completing this contract, Raytheon realized that the volume they had chosen in the price category would not be closed.”

Oddly enough, the contract with Raytheon was not terminated. SDA simply outsourced production of some of the components that Raytheon would have originally made to other suppliers.

In other words, the Pentagon allocated additional funds for the production of necessary components in other companies, without punishing the defense monster in any way.

The failure of the Pentagon's largest contractors to mass-produce small satellites drew harsh criticism from Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Force Acquisition Frank Calvelli, who condemned them for "whining" about supply chain problems rather than taking more proactive steps to solve them.

“Our larger companies are complaining about the supply chain, and I think they are the ones that have the resources and assets to actually do something about it.”

Calvelli also said that the Pentagon's top contractors are still blaming the COVID-19 "pandemic" for their supply chain problems, which is simply ridiculous.

But there are real problems in the U.S. Space Force chain that may prove insurmountable, Steve Kaiser, vice president of Veteran Ventures Capital, said during a panel discussion at the Space Symposium on April 9.

“I don’t think we pay enough attention to supply chain issues,” Kaiser said. – If you are an investor and are looking at a company, pay special attention to supply chain security. We are already seeing cracks in the modern space industry's supply chain. Imagine what will happen in three years.”

Several defense executives who spoke to SpaceNews on condition of anonymity noted that “the problems with SDA suppliers point to deeper, systemic problems that cannot be quickly resolved. They cautioned that some companies capable of building SDA-ordered satellites are only capable of producing one spacecraft at a time and will need time and effort to ramp up production to meet SDA requirements.”

The surge in demand for small military satellites has created real bottlenecks not only with complex systems such as “Type 1 encryption”, but also with conventional components such as batteries, motors and solar panels.

Thus, the US space industry is currently unable to create a large constellation of reconnaissance satellites.

And one of the key reasons for this was the corruption component, which the SDA is bashfully silent about.

Last January, Britain's Financial Times noted that "while the Pentagon has just five major defense contractors, the network of companies in their supply chains is vast, intricate and fragile... The extensive supply chain for these and other weapons is under critical strain." . A failure in the delivery of one part due to the fault of one small subcontracting company can paralyze the entire defense industrial complex.”

a reply to: RussianTroll

"Financial Times analysts were surprised by the lack of information on all levels of supply chains. The whole point is that the “gray zone” at the lower levels of supply chains makes corruption in government defense procurement possible. The Pentagon knows about this, but is making enormous efforts to hide the scale of theft in the American defense industry. In 2016, Reuters reported that “the U.S. military falsified trillions of dollars in its records, audit finds.” “Where does the money go? Nobody knows,” Franklin Spinney, a retired Pentagon military analyst, wrote at the time.

Over the past thirty years, there has been a total deindustrialization of the United States, from which the American military-industrial complex suffered the most.

Apparently, the ambitious dreams of the US military about a massive constellation of reconnaissance satellites, as they themselves admit, may turn out to be unrealistic, at least in the medium term."

For my part, I would like to add. In the mid-2000s, American intelligence was faced with a situation where large amounts of data began to leak, presumably to Russian intelligence. In particular, this was expressed in the fact that literally all the traitors from the USSR and Russia who had defected to the West suddenly found themselves open and discredited, and became targets of supposedly Russian liquidators. Which, of course, was denied by the heads of the Russian special services. The CIA and NSA were looking for a Russian mole in their ranks, but the reality was even worse.

It turned out that the data was discredited only for NATO countries in Europe and the USA. Data for the UK was untouched. As a result of enormous analytical work, it turned out that there is no place for “moles” in Western intelligence services. It’s just that all NATO countries introduced the latest SB-4 encryption code when transmitting data via satellites, while the British left the old NW data encryption code. That is, Russian inspector satellites approached NATO satellites, intercepted transmitted database arrays and decrypted them, having all the keys to the cipher of the latest SB-4 system. Presumably. And the British, using the old NW code, seemed to remain on the sidelines. Although this does not mean anything, since it is possible that this code was also opened, but was the subject of a more complex game by the Russian special services.

Now other codes are used, I don't know them. But it is not a fact that they were also deciphered by Russian cryptologists, and Russia has no more NATO secrets that they do not know. It is very interesting.

Thank you.

Honestly, I'll go back and read this later, but I'll go ahead and tell you this is absurd.

We invited small satellites!!! Cameras in a little box that floats around the Earth are a no brainer at this point.

Do you know how many small satellites space x puts up in a single falcon launch? Falcon heavy? Well wait for starship, it'll blow your mind.

Google starlink. 💫

a reply to: RussianTroll

this just in, Russian propoganda tells Russians that the great Satan US isn't as good as Russia is at junk. Russian is way better.

my shocked face.

originally posted by: 5thHead
Honestly, I'll go back and read this later, but I'll go ahead and tell you this is absurd.

We invited small satellites!!! Cameras in a little box that floats around the Earth are a no brainer at this point.

Do you know how many small satellites space x puts up in a single falcon launch? Falcon heavy? Well wait for starship, it'll blow your mind.

Google starlink. 💫

Musk's satellites perform an extremely limited function of transmitting bulk data over the Internet. You simply cannot imagine the capabilities and functionality of small reconnaissance satellites.

a reply to: RussianTroll

are you of the mindset that only Russia has this capability?

a reply to: RussianTroll

Your OP is also talking about a company that is only 5 years old, when other major companies, NASA, have been around for decades and have this stuff figured out to the T.

a reply to: network dude

Russia is the only country capable of doing anything worth doing, don't you know?

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: RussianTroll

are you of the mindset that only Russia has this capability?

Of course, Russia has. Because, most importantly, Russia is interested in the production of cheap, effective and mass-produced weapons systems. But in the USA they are interested in producing expensive systems, the more expensive the better. This is the difference between the military-industrial complex of Russia and the United States.

a reply to: PorkChop96

Perhaps yes, but most likely no. Otherwise, orders would be completed on time.

a reply to: RussianTroll

Ahem. Starlink?

We wouldn't know about classified stuff and neither would you.

Well done for Sputnik though. "Bleep Bleep"!

a reply to: RussianTroll

Believe that at your own risk. Those guys in the DS are sneaky bastards. Sun Tzu should be re read right now troll.

ETA

Elon is the DS nightmare so far and that makes him the enemy and his whole organization is going to be having issues until they are flushed out of the company for which they work for him.

a reply to: RussianTroll

"Russia is interested in the production of cheap, effective and mass-produced weapons systems".

What's this got to do with small satellites?

a reply to: RussianTroll

This is just a bunch of old space fat cats trying to suck off the teat. Here's a good quote from what you posted:

The military-industrial complex giants, accustomed to uncontrolled spending of budget funds, began to actually sabotage contracts for the mass production of small satellites.

Spacex and a lot of other aerospace companies are not just shaking up the industry, they're creating it. I assure you. We will be just fine. These old fat cats need a wake up call and they are getting it.


The article talks about. A few different things ( fat cats throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks?). Some company that sounds like they should go out of business anyway.... No big deal .

Some encryption issue? ....phaw!!! We got computer nerds out the yin yang in this country. Just get some egg head to fix it up or change the regulations to allow the use of different software. We're the home of silicone valley for God's sake. No big deal. It's prolly more of a contract/ approval thing that was put in place to eliminate competition.

We got the rockets and the tech and the ability. If there is one thing the US can do it's put satellites in orbit.

originally posted by: RussianTroll

Of course, Russia has.

Do they ? Got a link? Microsats, cubesats, starlink... Aka small satellites have been becoming a thing for years now so I wouldn't be surprised if Russia made smaller satellites but I've never heard of them.

Small satellites that work in a constellation is what the article is talking about. If there is public information on Russian satellite constellations I'd love to read about it.

a reply to: 5thHead

The value of any satellite is its functionality, not its size. Ramer only increases its functions, but is not an end in itself. Once again, Starlink satellites can only relay the internet signal. and ALL! We are talking about completely different satellites.

a reply to: RussianTroll

How many countries can take ultra high resolution reconnaissance images of, LiDAR, infrared, water vapor?

How many have satellites that can help survey vegetation, geological conditions, and hydrology?

Much of this has been released to the public domain as well for all countries to benefit from.

If the US is falling behind, I’m curious who’s ahead.

Okay, I see no one here understands what we are talking about. I'm not talking about Starlink satellites measuring 10x10 cm, which can only relay the Internet signal. We are talking about reconnaissance satellites of small size, but with a full range of functions.
An example from the recent past. Recently there was an international scandal at the diplomatic level that Russian inspector satellites were approaching American reconnaissance satellites, and they allegedly did something with them. The American reconnaissance satellite is three times the size of the Russian one, and in addition to reconnaissance equipment, it has an autonomous engine that can change its orbit. But the amount of fuel is limited. Russian satellites, in addition to a set of equipment and engines, have a much smaller size and a much larger fuel volume.
A Russian inspector satellite approaches an American satellite. The latter runs away from him, changing his orbit. The Russian catches up with him. The American runs away again. And so on until the American runs out of fuel, loses functionality, enters the upper atmosphere and burns up. The Russian flies further and performs his functions.
Now it is clear?

originally posted by: RussianTroll
a reply to: 5thHead

The value of any satellite is its functionality, not its size.

But that's what the article is about. It says SMALL right there in the title

Again provide a link to a constellation of small satellites made and operated by Russia. I'd love to read about it.