Australia’s new space agency is now up and running and hopes are high for a sovereign launch capability. But not all space launches are equal. The launch parameters for putting a 600-kilogram satellite into geostationary orbit aren’t the same as those for a single launch with a payload of several small satellites into low earth orbit.

Australia’s space launch facilities must be ready to cope with both extremes if the nation is to become truly space-capable. There’s a danger in thinking that one size fits all in satellite launch facilities, launch telemetry and subsequent monitoring.

Already New Zealand is slightly ahead in the small satellite field thanks to Rocket Lab’s regular small-mass payload launches from its base on the Mahia Peninsula on the North Island. So far, the company has launched 28 satellites. The most recent was the successful ‘rideshare’ mission, called STP-27RD, on 5 May. You can watch a webcast of the launch here (best to start 14 minutes in).

The mission was procured by the US Department of Defense’s Space Test Program in partnership with the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit as part of the US ‘rapid agile launch’ initiative. The satellites on board represent Rocket Lab’s heaviest launch to date, with the total payload weighing in at more than 180 kilograms. The three experiments on board will demonstrate advanced space technologies and accelerate the fielding of operational space capabilities.

Rocket Lab has also launched satellites from the Mahia Peninsula for NASA (on 16 December 2018) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA (28 March 2019).

Interestingly, Theresa Hitchens, in an article in Breaking Defense, writes, ‘Large networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds.’

Currently, two Australian companies, BlackSky Aerospace and Gilmour Space Technologies, both based on the Gold Coast, are planning to start launching small satellites from northern Australia.

Gilmour Space Technologies plans to soon fire a rocket 40 kilometres into the stratosphere from a private property in the Gulf Country in northwestern Queensland, which offers both polar and equatorial orbital launch options. It will be the culmination of three years of research and development. The company has spent almost $6 million designing and building its nine-metre suborbital test rocket One Vision and the mobile launch tower that will send it into the sky. The anticipated launch comes hot on the heels of a suborbital launch by BlackSky in the southern Queensland outback last November, which carried Australia’s first commercial payload.

Queensland is vying with South Australia and the Northern Territory for a share of the space business that’s expected to turn Australia into a regional rocket hub. While companies are already planning to build launch facilities in South Australia and the Northern Territory, there have been no reported business moves in Queensland, although the state government commissioned a study.

The key maths in launch calculations start from the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, which really only applies out in space. The equation describes ‘ motion of vehicles that follow the basic principle of a rocket: a device that can apply acceleration to itself using thrust by expelling part of its mass with high velocity can thereby move due to the conservation of momentum’.

Other forces, of course, come into play in real-life rocket science. For instance, there are factors like lower atmosphere air resistance, the earth’s gravity acting on the rocket’s mass, and a vertical acceleration component even though the rocket is travelling on a curved path. Security where the first stage of the rocket falls also matters. Because of these factors, the theoretical results for frictionless space give a lower launch velocity than that actually required. Approximately 25% more velocity is needed, less any boosting effect from the earth’s tangential velocity at the launch site, having regard to the variation in orbit from due east.

What does this mean in practice? Let’s just take the example of a 100-kilogram payload on a 12.5-tonne rocket to look at the effects of latitude and orbital direction on the required launch velocity from a site near Mount Isa.

The earth’s ground speed of rotation at the equator is 465 metres per second, while at Mount Isa, 20.7 degrees south, it’s 430 metres per second. A difference of 35 metres per second doesn’t sound like much, but the exponential nature of the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation means that it makes quite a difference. Launching due east from Mount Isa equates to a ground boost of 430 metres per second. This will be good for covering northern Australia and part of the Indian Ocean. Launching for a polar orbit will obviously get no ground speed boost from the earth’s rotation.

There’s a lot of scope for Australia and New Zealand to offer small-satellite launch services at very attractive prices, through the rideshare concept, to Asian countries as well as to our home markets.

It’s been an interesting 48 hours in space news. For starters, the Trump administration’s decision to fast-track US strategy for a return to the moon, aiming for American astronauts to land at the lunar south pole by 2024 (instead of the earlier plan of 2028) caught everyone by surprise—including NASA. The announcement generated intense debate about whether the new timeline is practicable, what it means for NASA’s behind-schedule and over-budget Space Launch System rocket, and whether Congress will fully fund such a move. It’s clearly designed to achieve a lunar landing in time for the end of what would be Donald Trump’s supposed second term in office and, as explained by Vice President Mike Pence, it’s set in the context of a new space race against China.

For space watchers, that was exciting enough.

But the more dramatic news, which broke late Wednesday evening, was India’s test of an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) in low-earth orbit (LEO). Promoted as a great achievement for India, ‘Mission Shakti’ involved the destruction of a 740-kilogram microsatellite by a missile carrying an ASAT. The mission was led by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation, the government agency responsible for India’s military space capability. The satellite, known as ‘Microsat R’, was a ‘live’ satellite (meaning it was in active use as a military reconnaissance satellite), though clearly it could also be considered a prospective target for an ASAT test.

The low altitude—300 kilometres—of Microsat R means that most of the debris will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up quickly. That distinguishes the Indian test from China’s 2007 ASAT test against the Fengyun-1C satellite at 800 kilometres, which produced a large debris field and generated significant international opprobrium for Beijing.

The Indian test is much closer in nature to the US 2008 Burnt Frost exercise, in which a US Navy cruiser launched an SM-3 missile defence interceptor against a malfunctioning US satellite in a decaying orbit at 280 kilometres. The ostensible aim was to prevent toxic chemicals from spreading in the event of an uncontrolled re-entry—but the mission also demonstrated an ASAT capability to Beijing following its test in January 2007. Although much of the debris re-entered and burned up quickly, some was thrown higher into LEO and was a hazard for close to 18 months.

The Indian ASAT test appears to be an attempt to demonstrate parity between Delhi and Beijing on counterspace capability—at least against very low altitude LEO satellites. As Brian Weeden and Victoria Sampson note in their 2018 global counterspace assessment, China has certainly deployed direct-ascent ASATs designed to destroy US satellites in LEO.

Those weapons could easily be directed against Indian satellites too. In a crisis, that would give China the ability to reduce the terrestrial capability of Indian military forces. It would compromise effective command and control and eliminate space-based intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, leaving Indian forces deaf, dumb and blind. Without an Indian ASAT capability, China has little to fear from an Indian response in kind and could gamble that Delhi wouldn’t risk escalation—for example, by using nuclear weapons.

So, it’s likely that India’s actions were motivated by a desire to establish credible space deterrence against China, and potentially against Pakistan (though it must be noted that the Pakistani space program is nowhere nearly as advanced as India’s). The test also contributed to India’s ability to undertake ballistic missile defence. An ASAT test against a LEO-based satellite demonstrates the ability to intercept longer-range missiles, which fly faster and higher than short-range tactical missiles that generally fly within earth’s atmosphere. That’s a message to both Pakistan, which has Shaheen-II and Shaheen-III medium-range ballistic missiles, and of course China, which has a full range of ballistic missile capabilities that can reach targets across the length and breadth of India.

The window of opportunity for conducting ASAT tests may be closing soon. There are long-running efforts to promote and strengthen space arms control and legal norms against space weapons. Nothing in the panoply of current space law prevents testing of ASATs, but China and Russia are promoting the draft UN treaty banning the placement of weapons in space (the ‘PPWT’ proposal) and continue to push the proposed Prohibition on an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) agreements. The US and other nations are rejecting these ideas because they’re unverifiable and would leave Chinese and Russian direct-ascent ASATs intact. India may have decided to ensure it has a declared ASAT capability now to avoid any possible political fallout from refusing to sign or withdrawing from such agreements in the future.

From India’s perspective, the ASAT test is also an important achievement that boosts national prestige. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promoted the ASAT test as a sign of India’s entry into a select club: ‘The launch under Mission Shakti has put our country in the space super league.’

With a national election coming up, and Modi promoting his defence and national security credentials, especially after the Indian response to Pakistan following the Pulwama attack, the ASAT test plays to his domestic political agenda, as much as it seeks to emphasise India’s prestige globally.

Of course, blowing up satellites doesn’t have the same ‘feel-good’ effect as other types of space activities, such as putting astronauts back on the moon. The fact that India’s test was carefully designed to avoid a large debris field is commendable. Yet it has already generated considerable criticism because every test is perceived to weaken promoted norms against space weaponisation, making it easier to proceed down a slippery slope towards an arms race in space.

Will China take India’s ASAT test as a justification for accelerating and broadening its ASAT program? How might India then respond? How might the US respond to an accelerated Chinese ASAT program? The potential for an action–reaction space arms race coming out of Asia shouldn’t be ignored.

China’s ASAT program since 2007 has emphasised co-orbital testing, which is better suited to ‘soft kill’ mechanisms, including techniques that disable rather than physically destroy a target. It’s not in any state’s interest to fill space with debris that hinders access, or worse, risks a ‘Kessler syndrome’ event of cascading collisions generating expanding clouds of space debris. India can certainly make a military case for ASATs to ensure parity and strengthen space deterrence against Chinese counterspace capability, but it would be wise to leave ‘hard kill’ behind and develop more sophisticated ‘soft kill’ techniques that avoid the worst outcomes of space war.

Of all the potentially transformational military technologies that will appear over the next 10 years, hypersonic strike weapons, and ultimately, hypersonic platforms, could radically transform future military operations as well as open up the prospect of cheaper and more responsive access to space. The United States, Russia (here and here), China (its programmes discussed below) and India (and here) as well as Australia (here and here) all have R&D projects aimed at developing hypersonic propulsion or understanding the science of hypersonics.

Hypersonic flight occurs at velocities five times above the speed of sound (Mach 5 = 6,174km/hr), and current research into hypersonic propulsion is focusing on the Mach 5 to Mach 10 (12,348km/hr) realm based around supersonic combustion ramjets, or ‘scramjet’ engines. The US’ X-51 scramjet demonstrator flew twice successfully (though three times unsuccessfully) between May 2010 and May 2013, and in the process provided valuable data that may lead to the development of scramjet-based weapons in the future. China also claims to have flown their own scramjet in October 2014, and the US and China have both tested hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). China’s DZ-ZF (previously known as the Wu-14) HGV has flown several times, most recently on 23 November 2015.

The development of hypersonic weapons implies that in future warfare, particularly between major states, speed will assume prominence as a factor for determining victory, alongside information. For example, in considering the implications for the survival of naval surface combatants of China’s early tests of the Wu-14, Andrew Davies noted that hypersonic weapons reduce time of response for defenders to the point where a viable anti-ship missile defence with the traditional layered approaches becomes largely impossible. Instead, naval forces will need new and more responsive technologies like directed energy weapons, electromagnetic railguns or defensive hypersonic missile systems. Ben Schreer suggests that hypersonic weapons indicate a new era of high speed warfare, which reinforces a first strike incentive in a manner that’d be highly destabilising in a crisis, and suggests a new ‘cult of the offensive’, where the side which strikes first most likely wins.

Hypersonic weapons will depend on an effective and resilient ‘kill chain’ to function effectively. That means a state that invests in hypersonic weapons must also invest in advanced sensor systems that can detect and track a specific target, and have secure data links from the sensor to the decision-maker and then to the ‘shooter’. It’s not just about faster missiles—it’s about the technologies that come together to either use such weapons or defeat them. Equally important is a requirement for more agile and responsive command structures that function at a vastly accelerated pace measured in seconds or minutes, rather than hours or days. In a looming age of high speed warfare, command must be executed equally rapidly, and there cannot be any bottlenecks. High speed warfare leaves little room for political micromanagement, conferring with legal advice on rules of engagement, or second guessing tactical decisions. It may be that, as with the debate over lethal autonomous weapons, decision-making is compressed in high speed war such that a degree of automation is necessary, in some cases taking the human out of the loop entirely, and therefore raising challenging policy issues for many western governments. Conversely, this may not be a problem for states who have no media scrutiny and aren’t constrained by the ‘Jus in Bello’ principles of modern warfare that require discrimination and proportionality in generating military effect.

Hypersonic weapons may also promote an expansion of geographic conceptions of joint military operations, from the scale of theatres to hemispheres. The US Navy’s concept of ‘Distributed Lethality’ is in part designed to offset the threat posed by supersonic antiship cruise missiles like the Chinese YJ-18, or anti-ship ballistic missiles such as the Chinese DF-21D, but hypersonic weapons could expand the geographic scope of that threat without necessarily extending timelines for defences to respond. Greater speed may be matched by greater range, but absent a corresponding increase in warning times in comparison to supersonic strike weapons. This gives the attacker much more operational flexibility, and will demand greater investment in long-range networked ISR for the defender’s joint expeditionary forces to ensure they can see a distant but fast moving threat sooner.

Therefore, the speed of hypersonic weapons implies new approaches to warfare, centred not just on winning an information edge to enable precision attack, but through exploiting a speed advantage. The proponents of a Revolution in Military Affairs in Information-led Warfare coming out of the 1991 Persian Gulf War argued that winning the information battle is vital for military success. However a new suite of high speed weapons, of which hypersonic systems are a key capability, suggests that a knowledge edge alone won’t be sufficient. We face rising or returning peer state threats that actively seek to erode our military advantages, and in a 21st Century ‘battle for the first salvo’, our slow subsonic weapons and platforms, most with limited range, will be at a severe disadvantage. In the future major power war, preserving our knowledge edge, and being able to exploit a speed advantage will be essential requirements for military success.