La startup de monitoreo espacial LeoLabs dice que ha detectado una tendencia: Rusia en particular, pero tambi\u00e9n China.Parecen estar programando actividades en \u00f3rbita potencialmente amenazadoras para que coincidan con los feriados estadounidenses, presumiblemente cuando menos observadores del cielo estadounidenses est\u00e1n realmente mirando. Se trata de sat\u00e9lites que despliegan otros sat\u00e9lites. Si bien no est\u00e1 claro qu\u00e9 est\u00e1n haciendo los sat\u00e9lites \u201chijos\u201d, los despliegues de subsat\u00e9lites pueden ser un m\u00e9todo para desplegar ASAT (armas antisat\u00e9lites) coorbitales o cargas \u00fatiles encubiertas que pueden representar un riesgo para sat\u00e9lites sensibles o clasificados.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Space monitoring startup\u00a0LeoLabs\u00a0<\/a>says it has spotted a trend: Russia in particular, but China too, seem to be timing potentially threatening on-orbit activities to coincide with US holidays \u2014 presumably when fewer American skywatchers are actually looking.<\/p>\n \u201cIt may be on purpose. It probably is,\u201d Ed Lu, LeoLabs cofounder and chief technology officer, told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n The latest evidence happened on Nov. 23, US Thanksgiving, when Russia\u2019s Cosmos 2570 satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) revealed itself to be a Matryoshka (nesting) doll system \u2014 comprising three consecutively smaller birds, performing up-close operations around each other, according to the company.<\/p>\n This \u201cspawning\u201d event mimicked the activity of Cosmos 2565, launched on Nov. 30, 2022 and believed to be an electronic reconnaissance satellite, which released a daughter satellite (Cosmos 2566) on Dec. 2, and which, in turn, released its own baby satellite on Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), according to LeoLabs.<\/p>\n Similarly, on the 25 and 26 of November 2022, LeoLabs said it observed China\u2019s spaceplane, which Beijing calls Test Spacecraft 2, \u201cconduct[ing] rendezvous and proximity operations\u201d that involved a docking maneuver by a satellite it released, Victoria Heath, LeoLabs team lead for communications and marketing, told Breaking Defense. A second docking \u201clikely took place\u201d around Jan. 10, 2023, she said.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s unclear what the child-satellites are up to, sub-satellite deployments \u201ccan be a method of deploying co-orbital ASATs [anti-satellite weapons] or covert payloads that may pose a risk to sensitive or classified satellites,\u201d LeoLabs said in an analysis of the Russian operations provided to Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n Owen Marshall, a space domain awareness analyst at LeoLabs, told Breaking Defense that the convenient timing can allow some satellite maneuvers to go undetected for periods of time and thus provide adversaries with a \u201cwarfighting advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the the fact that you can release something, and if you can release it in such a way that that nobody realized you released it, then you essentially have a secret payload up there without its own launch. Until somebody catches up to it, it\u2019s hidden for some periods,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n With regard to Cosmos 2570, LeoLabs\u2019s analysis said that based on Space Force\u2019s data, the service\u2019s 18th Space Defense Squadron, responsible for\u00a0space domain awareness<\/a>, lost track of it when it maneuvered shortly after launch, but that LeoLabs days later was able to find it and its daughter, called Object C. \u201cWe were able to track both objects quickly and send frequent updates. On November 24, we were the first to detect, catalog, and deliver alerts to the\u00a0Joint Task Force \u2013 Space Defense (JCO)<\/a>\u00a0on a secondary object released by sub-satellite Object C before the public catalog was able to respond. This prompted urgent action by all parties to track and identify the new object, now called Object D,\u201d said the LeoLabs analysis, provided to Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to track both objects quickly, utilizing a cue received from the 18th, and send frequent updates,\u201d LeoLabs added.<\/p>\n JCO stands for the Joint Task Force-Space Defense (JTF-SD) Commercial Operations Cell, which coordinates with private satellite operators and companies offering space tracking services for US Space Command. The JTF-SD is SPACECOM\u2019s functional component command responsible for space domain awareness.<\/p>\n Col. Raj Agrawal, commander of the Space Delta 2, under which the 18th Space Defense Squadron falls, told Breaking Defense that the Delta \u201ctracked COSMO2570 starting from launch with consistent updates to the TLEs (two line elements) except for when the satellite maneuvered. \u2026\u00a0 Upon completion of the maneuver, Space Delta 2 quickly re-associated the satellite\u2019s TLE. The time it takes for analysts to publish the re-associated TLE can appear to external agencies as a \u201cdelay;\u201d however, there was no loss of custody of COSMO2570.\u201d (Two line elements are the basic measurements of an objects position on-orbit.)<\/p>\n Then on Dec. 6, Cosmos 2570\u2019s granddaughter began another maneuver, bringing it within less than 1 kilometer of its mother \u2014 extremely close and well beyond what is normally considered safe for orbital operations, Heath said. That move happened in \u201cfavorable lighting conditions,\u201d suggesting that the granddaughter \u201chas an electro-optical (EO) sensor payload.\u201d<\/p>\n Lu said that the problem of keeping tabs on sub-satellites and their maneuvers is already outpacing the ability of human analysts to keep up, and is only going to get worse as the pace of launch continues to grow every year. This means that it is imperative for the Pentagon to bring automated systems to sort through the data to bear as soon as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are too many satellites, there are too many places to hide. This year, there were more than 3,000 satellites launched. So, that\u2019s 10 new satellites a day. There aren\u2019t that many analysts, right? And next year is going to be another 40 percent larger than that. OK, so, we\u2019re talking 15 satellites a day on average,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to make that transition to these automated systems for monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, as the winter holidays approach, US government space-watchers might have a lot more on their plates than\u00a0tracking Santa<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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