NATO Veterans Initiative - NAVI’s Post

Newsweek: Satellite Photos Capture 🇨🇳Chinese Ship Swarm Near 🇺🇸US Ally's Territory Satellite images have revealed a "swarm" of nearly 100 Chinese vessels continuing to occupy waters near a 🇵🇭Philippine-held island in the contested #SouthChinaSea. Thitu Island, called Pag-Asa in the #Philippines and Zhongye Island in #China, is the second-largest naturally occurring feature in the Spratly Islands and the only one with a permanent civilian population. It and a number of other South China Sea features are at the center of territorial tensions between Beijing and the U.S. defense treaty ally. Ray Powell...shared satellite photos captured Tuesday by a European Space Agency satellite on X. The images show Chinese ships clustered close to Thitu. "By far the largest PRC (People's Republic of China) vessel swarm I've ever seen off Thitu Island," Powell wrote. "Despite clouds, I count at least 73-75 ships sitting 2.5-5.5 nautical miles (2.9-6.3 miles) from the island—well within its 12 nm territorial sea." Separate images Powell shared with Newsweek on Thursday revealed the ships remained in the area and in greater numbers. Using MarineTraffic, which tracks ships via their Automatic Identification Systems, Powell counted 83 distinct vessels. He noted, however, that additional ships may be operating in the area with their transponders switched off, a tactic often employed by China's coast guard and maritime militia.

Russia wields a formidable capability to target NATO’s undersea infrastructure in critical regions such as the Baltic, Barents, and North Seas, as well as across the world’s oceans: its “research” vessels. These are ostensibly civilian ships used for scientific exploration that double as intelligence-gathering platforms. Equipped with advanced surveillance technology, these ships often operate near critical undersea infrastructure, raising concerns about covert espionage and sabotage capabilities under the guise of academic study. https://lnkd.in/gJ4qz3er

[UFOs 'not attributable to foreign adversaries," new Pentagon report says] A release today of the Department of Defense annual report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) comes one day after a witness-based Congressional hearing on the topic. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena is required by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, as amended by the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023. “Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies,” said a DoD statement. “The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one,” adds the DoD. Rigorous scientific framework The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office is leading DOD’s efforts with others to document, analyze, and when possible, resolve UAP reports using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach. This year’s UAP report covers UAP reports from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, as well as any UAP report from previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report. This brought the total cases that AARO has been reviewing to over 1,600 as of June 1, 2024. The AARO report notes that the group continues to address this challenge by working with military and technical partners to optimize sensor requirements, information-sharing processes, and the content of UAP reporting. Source: https://lnkd.in/et9raT74 #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

China's BeiDou Navigation System Reaches Milestone, Counters U.S. GPS 🚀🛰️ #ChinaTech #SpaceRace • China's BeiDou navigation system has achieved a level of accuracy that surpasses GPS in various areas. 💪 • BeiDou was developed in response to the 1993 Yinhe incident, when the U.S. blocked the Chinese ship's GPS, leaving it stranded for 24 days. 🚫🇺🇸 • BeiDou is now integrated into the Cospas-Sarsat worldwide search and rescue network and is recognized as a global standard for flight guidance. 🌍✈️ • With 56 satellites in orbit and more monitoring stations, BeiDou provides higher PNT data availability and accuracy in many parts of the world, especially in Southeast Asia and Africa. 📡🗺️ • China plans to further improve BeiDou's accuracy, security, and reliability through new technologies and low-Earth orbit networks. 🇨🇳🚀 #SpaceExploration

Interesting article but....a few things.... 1. It is true that the DoD is very slow on getting new things going. They've gotten a bit better on some areas like smaller efforts with OTAs but....the bigger ones are not quite there yet. 2. Modernization of space capabilities like GPS ground and missile warning are important. No doubt...but....these programs aren't weapons systems. They're space support or enabling capabilities for terrestrial weapons. 3. When it comes to real weapons for space it's basically non existent. RPO and other SDA/SSA is needed but that's not warfighting weapons. We need these kinds of things yesterday. More to follow. I'm curious who commissioned this GAO study.....they don't typically just come on their own. National Institute for Deterrence Studies https://lnkd.in/eCAH6Eqh

Taking an objective, critical look at operations is prudent.

New Post: Slingshot Aerospace Selected to Provide Technology to USSF to Detect GPS Jamming and Spoofing Threats to International Security - https://lnkd.in/dc8B9MB2 Aerospace, Inc., the leader in AI-powered solutions for satellite tracking, space traffic coordination, and space modeling and simulation, today announced it has been awarded $1.9 million from the United States Space Force’s (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC) to further develop Slingshot’s existing GPS jamming and spoofing detection, as well as more precisely geolocate the …

Tracking both advanced missile threats and adversarial satellites is now paramount to national security. Currently, American space agencies have 10 hypersonic and ballistic missile tracking satellites in orbit. Yet, the U.S. plans to heavily invest across various solutions aimed at helping detect advanced missile and satellite threats. Earlier this year, the DoD confirmed Russia was testing a nuclear-capable satellite. As stated by Audrey Schaffer, vice president of strategy and policy at Slingshot Aerospace, a California-based space technology firm, “The amount of traffic in space is only growing… when you have not just 10,000 satellites that are active but 10,000 satellites in a single constellation, it is very quickly going to be impossible for humans or even teams of humans to sift through all that data and identify potential threats to our national security.” Noteworthy developments indicating an arms race in space include: ·On June 14th, the Missile Defense Agency’s advanced missile tracking satellites logged their first views of a hypersonic flight test- a key step in validating American ability to track adversarial missiles. Eventually, the U.S. plans for this constellation to total over 100 satellites to provide global coverage of advanced missile launches. ·Slingshot Aerospace is developing an AI system that identifies anomalous satellites within large constellations. The company unveiled its model, dubbed #Agatha, on June 5, announcing that it had demonstrated the ability to detect outlier satellites among operational constellations. ·Later this year, a partnership between the U.S. Space Force and Rocket Lab, dubbed Victus Haze, will test American ability to rapidly deploy and position satellites in space to respond to threats and investigate suspicious objects. Where do you think the space arms race will take us? #space #spacerace #satellites #hypersonic #defense #armsrace

Mass-produced, anti-satellite, laser attack submarines...okay, just putting this out there. Here's the 'Interesting Engineering' article from this morning as well: https://lnkd.in/e-MpaZ9T #china #maritime #space #capabilities #technology #satellite #submarines https://lnkd.in/erkFZRAh

As new European institutional secure communications systems such as #iris2 , #GOVSATCOM and #EuroQCI are being developed, Pooling & Sharing solutions for extending reach and resilience are needed. Also, for everything to work together we also need common standards and interfaces and we need to understand better the needs and priorities of users and stakeholders. At a recent meeting at the European Defence Agency in Brussels I presented the Ecosystem developed by the European Space Agency - ESA for both reserving Secure Satcom solutions from various resource providers but also creating a Multi-Domain Marketplace offering a one-stop shop for reserving SatCom, Earth Observation and Geolocation digitized products and supporting Civil Security from Space. As EU governments also try to understand their future satcom needs and find out what they need to do to take an active part in these developments, I also introduced an #ESA funded study done in #Cyprus, addressing the needs of local government users and creating a way to manage their access for Satcom services and Earth Observation products needed to support civil emergencies. #connectivity #connectivitymatters  #military #MILSATCOM #GOVSATCOM #communications  #newspace  #constellations #satellite #space #satelliteoperatos #satcoms #satellitesystems  #telecommunications #spaceindustry #LowEarthOrbit #geo #megaconstellations #multiorbit #satellitesystems  #earthobservation #esa #poolingandsharing #civilsecurity  #eu #europe #resilience  #defense #security #sovereignity #iris2 #MichaelHadjitheodosiou