MODERN AESA ARRAYS VULNERABLE TO ELECTRONIC AND CYBER ATTACK
The world of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures is alive and well when it comes to modern Active Electronically Scanned Array radar sets. No longer do you simply (and its not simple) attempt to jam an enemy’s radar using large swathes of electrons focused downrange. On the 21st century battlefield you literally attack a foe’s advanced radar and communications systems using viruses, malware, false commands, and worms. The old adage “sometimes your greatest advantage can become also your greatest vulnerability” may ring true in this case. lets hope the DoD and industry are focusing as much on the defensive security of our latest radar sets as their range, detection, and offensive electronic warfare capabilities.
———————————————————————————————————————
A RA! RA! EDITORIAL ON NASA’S COMMERCIAL CREW AND CARGO PROGRAM
Michael Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA Astronaut and test pilot, sings the praises of NASA’s push for commercial outsourcing of it’s low earth orbit space program. There are some nice arguments here but I find lots of talk about high risk market competition to fill a miniscule existing demand for such services to be downright puzzling. Do they think commercial low earth orbit access is like the Field Of Dreams where “if you build it they will come?” Maybe so, but that is a terrible business plan to hang billions of dollars on. Also, it would be nice to hear more from folks who do not make their living from the endeavors they so whole heatedly support. Mr Lopez-Alegria is the President of The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, so his opinion is extremely biased, which is fine, I would just like to see the other side of the argument showcased more often. None-the-less, the piece is still worth a read.
———————————————————————————————————————
DOES NORTH KOREA PLAN TO TEST A NUCLEAR WEAPON SHORTLY AFTER THEIR “UNHA-3″ ROCKET LAUNCH?
North Korea’s actions are so wild that they are actually becoming predictable. Similar to 2009, it looks like the North’s program of starting their provocation sideshow with a ballistic missile test and following promptly with a nuclear test, maybe with a smattering of shorter range ballistic missile tests in-between as we saw in 2009, may be on the docket for this years festivities. Enhancing the whole setting of morbid showmanship is the 100th birthday of revolutionary North Korean strongman Kim Il Sun. The truth is that in the span of a few coming weeks, North Korea has the potential to tell the world that they are not only an operational military nuclear power, but that they can deliver that fact to the American homeland inside one of their clumsy rockets. Hang on gang it’s going to be a wild ride…
———————————————————————————————————————-
SPECIAL FORCES NIGHT RAIDS IN AFGHANISTAN STILL ON, WELL KIND OF…
Wired.com’s “Danger Room” reports that US lead Special Forces raids in Afghanistan have not stopped under the deal stuck between President Karzai and ISAF commanders. Loopholes, assumptions, and leveraging the murkiness of the agreement seem to be the order of battle for US operators going forward in the region concerning this new law. All this begs the question: was this new initiative a real response to Afghans outrage over the controversial raids? Or was this the Karzai Government doing what it does best, that being saying one thing to appease one group, while doing the opposite to satisfy another?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/night-raids-still/
———————————————————————————————————————-
US ARMY TRANSPORT HELICOPTER FLEET IS TIRED AFTER FLYING 6X MORE THAN EXPECTED OVER THE LAST DECADE
We hear about a rapidly aging fighter and heavy transport fleet but we rarely hear about the US Army’s situation with it’s beaten down Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters which has seen continuous front line service for over a decade. Military.com does a great job presenting this issue and the decisions that Army faces regarding the situation, those being: reset, rebuilt, buy new, or neglect? The reality is that the US Army may not have a real choice in the matter as they continue to see their budget evaporate around them. Lets just hope that a conflict of necessity, where large-scale continuous helicopter transportation will be needed, does not erupt in our faces while we attempt to rest, and/or rebuilt our current force. It seems clear that Washington is fairly intent on having a decade or so “war holiday,” where we do not engage ourselves in a deep conflict during this self designated time of both fiscal and physical rebuilding. Sadly, this “conflict holiday” is a naive and arrogant concept as wars of necessity often erupt out of the nowhere, whether we like it or not.
http://www.military.com/news/article/army-inspects-aging-helo-fleet.html?comp=1198882887570&rank=1
———————————————————————————————————————
B-1B LANCERS GETTING PREPARED FOR LITTORAL SEA WARFARE?
Apparently the USAF want’s the Bone to become it’s boat plinker on high!
I was prepared to defend the North Koreans regarding the satellite launch, but testing a nuclear weapon when the US is already threatening to cancel the aid deal is just stupid. Unfortunately, those who will suffer will undoubtedly have nothing to do with these decisions.
I think it would be unwise to call these rockets ‘clumsy’ though. They might be several decades behind the big powers in terms of accuracy and efficacy, but we would do well to remember how many times US, European and Russia/Soviet launchers have either exploded on the pad, in the boost phase or just failed to reach orbit. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that American engineers ‘clumsily’ confused imperial and metric units with unfortunate consequences.
Commercial access to LEO isn’t the holy grail of space flight, but it is a necessary stepping stone and there are a few potential advantages in the short/medium term. Firstly, launch costs will be reduced as the equipment becomes more widespread, safer and cheaper to construct. Secondly, there’s the whole untapped market of satellite repair and recovery that just isn’t profitable for the national space programs to bother with. With several companies planning on putting small space stations into LEO like Bigelow Aerospace and Orbital Technologies, they could be also contracted out to perform micro gravity experiments such as those performed on the ISS. Currently, there’s a backlog for time on the big space telescopes as well. Imagine what it would be like if companies like those offering high res satellite imagery of Earth were to operate a space telescope!
If anything, NASA should have been scaling back their national launch program 15 or 20 years ago and encouraging the transition to a privately led industry rather than keeping the shuttles flying. They were ill suited to many of the tasks asked of them, commercially crippled by design and aging badly by the time they were grounded. The X-33 was a waste of money, and NASA bit off far more than it could chew instead of using tried and tested methods like those employed in the Constellation program.
I know it’s easy to say these things in hindsight, but when I went to university in 2003 it was already clear that something like the Constellation program (which started in 2005) was long overdue. Now the transition to a launch industry led by private firms is going to be an abrupt one, and there’s little the US can do but buy more seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft and hope a homegrown spacecraft comes along soon. Personally, I’m still hopeful that Reaction Engines’s Skylon comes to fruition and blows the anachronistic American efforts out of the market, but then that might be my overactive nationalism gland talking
(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ac46fd1c-7d74-11e1-bfa5-00144feab49a.html#axzz1retOZmwV)
On a side note, as far as I’m aware, radar jamming isn’t done using electron beams, not directly at least (electron beams are used to create radio and microwave frequency EM radiation in equipment such as the cavity magnetron).
Will, yeah its so sad that the poor people in that country are just sitting ducks for their leaders ill-decisions.
They are clumsy. The last two have not made it to their final destination. They are a hodgepodge of ex-soviet design elements and basically huge liquid fuel tanks that fly. We had clumsy rockets too, they were just that, clumsy.
Satellite repair I thought was deemed irrelevant because of the cost in doing so is less than just putting up another satellite. Repair and refuel I thought really only made sense for high end DoD stuff and even that is iffy?
I thought Bigelow was done? The reality is that the ISS will most likely be for lease by the time these new space stations are ready. Space telescopes make no money, so where is the business case for them outside the Government? Sure they are great to have but really who is going to throw down the massive cash to make them happen?
I don’t disagree with the commercial option, in ways I think its great, but they should have done it differently, first flying the shuttles commercially to prove the model, then limit the RFP to a few providers for selection as the market is tiny. All the while the Shuttle would continue flying. This is in a vacuum over the Constellation program which would have been ideal.
Finally, they could of done this with a huge prize, like $10B to get to the moon and develop a COTS LEO vehicle in the process. That would of been what we really need.
Thanks for the correction, would electron clouds be a better term?
B-1 Pilots Turn Their Bombsights to the Pacific: The Air Force has always wanted to take over tasks that the Navy has traditionally done, including Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare. The submarine is, and will undoubtedly remain, the best weapon against sea-based forces. The aircraft carrier is, and will undoubtedly remain, the best forward-based anti-aircraft weapons system.
For me, clumsy is a term used in the pejorative that doesn’t fairly reflect the North Korean achievements in the field, especially given very limited resources and few test flights they’ve had to work with. I don’t think clumsy describes the careful trial and error process of creating such complicated technology, even if they’ve yet to perfect it.
Satellite repair is too costly now, but that’s because only governmental programs are currently capable of putting a robot or manned repair mission together. I’ve not run the numbers myself, but there are others who think robotic missions would be feasible in the near future (http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/epos-robotic-facility-simulaes-satellite-repair).
Perfectly good satellites are often lost simply because we can’t refuel them, and without fuel for station keeping, they deorbit because of atmospheric friction. Obviously complicated repair jobs are a waste of time, but that’s because satellites are just not designed for orbital servicing. If someone could do a proof of concept with a satellite in orbit, I expect you’d see more companies opting for satellites with refueling ports and perhaps components like blade servers that can be easily switched out.
Bigelow’s not done yet (http://www.spacenews.com/venture_space/120320-bigelow-aerospace-ends-furloughs.html) though it wouldn’t surprise me if they went under soon. However, it was really just an example. We could contract out experiments if similar companies could place low cost stations in orbit, rather than relying on hundred billion dollar missions like the ISS.
I’m hopeful the ISS will be extended or leased out, but NASA has been making plans to deorbit their modules, and the Russians are thinking about rearranging theirs if they can (or at least that was the last I heard). Much like Mir, the ISS will be a mess before long though. I’d be surprised if it’s still up there past 2025, sad as it may be.
The shuttles were never commercially viable. Too big and costly to compete with the unmanned launchers in the satellite industry, and much more expensive to operate than vehicles like Soyuz for putting people into LEO. They were a jack of all trades, crippled by the CIA’s demands for a huge payload (http://www.space.com/12996-secret-spy-satellites-declassified-nro.html), and subject to some ridiculously optimistic turn-around forecasts.
Something like the X-37 flying on a Delta was the best option, and NASA could have done it in the ’90s. If they’d have put forward even a $1B prize, NASA could have done away with their X-37/minishuttle interim solution after ten or fifteen years of use and begun contracting their business out, while funding their Ares 5 for a Moon shot.
***
Electrons aren’t used directly in electronic warefare, though I’m sure someone has tried to weaponise an electron beam. The problem is electrons don’t travel very far through air. Radar uses electromagnetic radiation of radio and microwave frequencies. It’s exactly the same as visible light, but with a much longer wavelength that we haven’t evolved to see.
To jam radar, you can transmit a stronger radio signal that creates a lot of noise (light shining a strong light in you opponents eyes). You can also create interference patterns in the signal returning to the radar receiver which would create false images. Both of these basic methods can be countered by switching to different frequencies and using more powerful signals.
Newer hacking techniques (I imagine) rely on accessing the computers that operate and interpret the radar through the signal itself. It would be no different in principle to wirelessly hacking into someone’s wifi router and then going into the router settings and changing them. Developing a firewall between the receiver and the computers operating the radar would stop this, and much like having computers using separate modems rather than one router, decentralising the radar stations would mean fewer could be affected by the jamming equipment. Obviously this will result in better software that can break through the firewalls, and jammers than have longer range and can affect more radar stations at once.
The problem is that while your common-or-garden hacker has access to the firewall on your router simply because he can buy one, it would be significantly harder to get hold of the firewall software running on a EWR or SAM battery. I would be very impressed (incredulous even) if the people writing Suter-like software did it without having access to the programs running on their opponent’s radars. It would be like cutting a key to fit a lock you’d never seen.