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26 December 2005 |
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http://www1.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_science/article/... |
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The Air Force Research Laboratory's new satellite is the size and shape of a flying dishwasher. Don't underestimate it. This is no $82 million home appliance. The XSS-11 is smart enough to figure out how to maneuver around objects on its own. It can fly up to other satellites, or even the space shuttle, and take pictures, looking for damage. One day, it could refuel or repair buildings in space, extending the life of objects in orbit, said its inventor, Harold "Vernon" Baker, a scientist and engineer at the Albuquerque lab. "With the shuttle problems, there's a lot of interest in the technology," Baker said. NASA has been concerned after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry in early 2003 because of complications from a loose piece of foam, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The XSS-11 could move in for a close look at the shuttle in space to make sure there was no damage before it re-enters the atmosphere. The satellite was one of 100 items picked for Popular Science magazine's "Best of What's New" awards, printed in the December issue. The awards are given to what the magazine calls the most impressive technologies developed each year. "It's the first step toward automatic satellite inspection and repair," the online copy of the article says. The lab launched the satellite on its first test voyage in April. Originally scheduled to last a year, the journey has been extended to 18 months because the satellite has proven so fuel-efficient, officials say. "It's gone extremely well," Baker said. It's being tested on U.S.-owned dead or inactive satellites in low Earth orbit, he said. After the testing is finished, other agencies such as NASA or the Air Force can make their own versions for specific tasks, he said. The XSS-11 has an onboard camera and a laser that helps it figure out its distance from nearby objects and how fast they are traveling, Baker said. It uses a radiation-hardened computer processor - also designed at the Albuquerque lab - programmed to do the same sorts of calculations in the air that are normally done by people on the ground, said Lt. Col. Bruce Anderson, a commander at the Hanscom Research Site in Massachusetts. Anderson worked with Baker on the project as a liaison between the lab and Air Force Space Command. "We have an awful lot of folks, blue suiters, who sit in ground stations flying satellites," Anderson said. "The XSS-11 has the ability to reduce the amount of people we have on the ground to monitor and fly satellites. It reduces manpower, budgets and makes us better stewards of taxpayers' money." A modified version might also be used to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, Anderson said. Hubble is in desperate need of repair because of grounded shuttle missions, he said. A shuttle trip is the only way to fix it right now, he said. "You have to take an astronaut on a space walk to repair it," Anderson said. "But if you had something that could come up and swap out a black box or whatever, then certainly what the XSS-11 is doing is the kind of thing that could enable that." The satellite could have commercial potential, maintaining company satellites and determining what happened if something goes wrong, Anderson said. Those satellites would have to be designed to be repairable, however, he said. "Generally when you attach something to a satellite, you don't intend for it to ever be removed," Anderson said. A new generation of satellites could be designed with modular components that could be removed and fixed, dramatically extending the satellites' overall life spans, he said. The challenge and future work on the XSS-11 will involve tweaking the computer programming to make it follow commands more accurately, Baker said. "You're moving at 8 kilometers per second at low Earth orbit," Baker said. "If you make a mistake maneuvering, you want to make sure it's passively safe - that things just fly by." So far, the project is on budget, on schedule and has met all of its objectives, Anderson said proudly, calling it a "crown jewel" of the Air Force. "It's a next generation thing, defining what's possible," Anderson said. "The military needs anti-satellite weapons to conduct war in space, to contain China and other space capable nations. These weapons (called ASATs, anti-satellite) are forbidden by the Treaty on Space. The below article in the Albuquerque Tribune is about a new ASAT weapon disguised as the Maytag washing machine repairman. It was purposefully described as a washing machine size tool to recon and repair satellites in orbit. Some language has described it as a doctor making house calls. Who could be against that? In the real world of empire building the U.S. military needs to conduct full time war in and from space. They needs the ability to repair and refuel in orbit weapons with nuclear power supplies and to inspect damage to vehicles like the space shuttle, and to attack other satellites. The "tool" in this article is being designed to lock onto and move another satellite out of orbit (knock it down), fire a kinetic slug (shoot it), or fire an electrical charge to fry its internal components (electro magnetic pulse). This little device is a big leap to either washing our laundry in space (a real pressing demand) or to openly putting weapons in space for the militarization of space. Much of the research for this weapon was done at the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland AFB; we here need to tackle the political use of this technology for war. The immediate danger is that nations who cannot defend themselves from this leap with new space war technology will be forced to consider a pre-emptive use of old fashion nuclear weapons on the ground against us to defend themselves and their people. Science in the hands of the military is not leading to a safer world, but taking us closer to the hard rain that Bob Dylan sang about falling upon us. Is the sky falling?" Bob Anderson <citizen@comcast.net>
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