A US military exercise in space got underway with barely anyone noticing
A US military exercise in space got underway with barely anyone noticing
一场几乎无人察觉的美国太空军事演习悄然展开
Rocket Lab quietly launched a small satellite from New Zealand on Friday in a high-flying military exercise to test the US Space Force’s ability to rapidly respond to a crisis in low-Earth orbit. The launch was scarcely announced in advance. The only public indication of an impending launch was the release of a warning for pilots and sailors to steer clear of the rocket’s flight path. Rocket Lab did not provide a livestream of the launch, as it does for most of its missions. 上周五，火箭实验室（Rocket Lab）在新西兰悄然发射了一颗小型卫星，进行了一场高空军事演习，旨在测试美国太空军在近地轨道应对危机的快速反应能力。此次发射几乎没有提前预告。唯一的公开迹象是针对飞行员和海员发布的避让警告，要求其远离火箭飞行路径。与大多数任务不同，火箭实验室并未对此次发射进行直播。
As of Monday morning, officials from Rocket Lab and the Space Force had not acknowledged the launch in any official public statements. But the US military’s catalog of space objects was updated over the weekend to reflect the launch. A new satellite, designated Victus Haze Puma, showed up in the catalog with a launch date of Friday from Rocket Lab’s privately run spaceport at Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand. The Space Force cataloged the spacecraft in a polar orbit ranging between 215 miles and 286 miles (347-by-461 km), with an inclination of about 97.5 degrees from the equator. 截至周一上午，火箭实验室和太空军的官员尚未在任何官方声明中承认此次发射。但美国军方的空间物体目录在周末进行了更新，记录了此次发射。一颗代号为“Victus Haze Puma”的新卫星出现在目录中，显示其于周五从火箭实验室位于新西兰马希亚半岛（Māhia Peninsula）的私营航天发射场升空。太空军将其编入极地轨道，轨道高度在215至286英里（347至461公里）之间，轨道倾角约为赤道以北97.5度。
A pretty sporty mission
一项极具挑战的任务
Victus Haze is the US military’s latest responsive space mission. The Space Force announced plans for the mission in 2024 when it selected Rocket Lab and True Anomaly to build and launch two satellites into low-Earth orbit. At a high level, the idea was to launch a small satellite built by True Anomaly first, posing as a satellite from a potential adversary, like China or Russia. Rocket Lab was supposed to have a satellite on standby to go up and inspect True Anomaly’s spacecraft, ready to launch on short notice once military officials gave the order. “Victus Haze”是美国军方最新的响应式太空任务。太空军于2024年宣布了该计划，并选中了火箭实验室和True Anomaly公司，负责建造并将两颗卫星送入近地轨道。从宏观层面看，该计划旨在先发射一颗由True Anomaly制造的小型卫星，模拟来自中国或俄罗斯等潜在对手的卫星。火箭实验室则需准备一颗待命卫星，一旦军方下达指令，便能迅速发射升空，对True Anomaly的航天器进行抵近侦察。
The objective of the Victus Haze mission is to demonstrate how the military and its commercial partners might be able to quickly go up and assess a threat in orbit. That is apparently what happened last week. Rocket Lab had another launch on its schedule for a commercial customer last week, but the company announced a postponement last Tuesday “to conduct additional checkouts,” without offering any additional details. Safety notices began to appear on aviation and maritime websites a couple of days later, just hours before the launch window for Victus Haze launched on Friday. Victus Haze任务的目标是展示军方及其商业合作伙伴如何能够快速进入太空并评估轨道威胁。这显然就是上周发生的情况。火箭实验室原定上周为一名商业客户进行另一次发射，但该公司上周二宣布推迟，理由是“进行额外的检查”，并未提供更多细节。几天后，就在周五Victus Haze发射窗口开启前几个小时，航空和海事网站上开始出现安全通知。
The launch time, estimated to be approximately 6:20 am EDT (10:20 UTC) on Friday, was set to coincide with the passage of the orbit of one of True Anomaly’s satellites over New Zealand. True Anomaly’s Jackal-0004 satellite launched from California on May 3 on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Publicly available orbit data indicated Rocket Lab’s Victus Haze Puma satellite approached within 60 miles (100 km) of the Jackal satellite just eight hours after launch, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks space activity using open source data. 发射时间估计在周五美国东部时间上午6:20（协调世界时10:20），这一时间点正好与True Anomaly的一颗卫星经过新西兰上空的时间吻合。True Anomaly的Jackal-0004卫星于5月3日搭乘SpaceX的拼车任务从加利福尼亚州发射升空。据利用开源数据追踪太空活动的专家、天体物理学家乔纳森·麦克道尔（Jonathan McDowell）称，公开的轨道数据显示，火箭实验室的Victus Haze Puma卫星在发射后仅八小时，就已接近至距离Jackal卫星60英里（100公里）的范围内。
Based on previous statements from officials, the Victus Haze mission will unfold with additional maneuvers to bring Rocket Lab’s Puma satellite closer to True Anomaly’s Jackal. Eventually, the satellites are expected to switch roles, with Jackal serving as the inspector and Puma acting as the target. True Anomaly, a Colorado-based company specializing in building highly maneuverable satellites for national security missions, announced last Thursday that its latest Jackal spacecraft had achieved all of its “test objectives” following its arrival in orbit in early May to demonstrate the satellite’s capabilities for “end-to-end uncooperative rendezvous and proximity operations.” 根据官员此前的声明，Victus Haze任务将通过后续机动，使火箭实验室的Puma卫星进一步靠近True Anomaly的Jackal卫星。最终，这两颗卫星预计将互换角色，由Jackal担任检查者，Puma担任目标。总部位于科罗拉多州、专门为国家安全任务制造高机动性卫星的True Anomaly公司上周四宣布，其最新的Jackal航天器在5月初进入轨道后，已实现所有“测试目标”，成功验证了该卫星在“端到端非合作交会与抵近操作”方面的能力。
“Jackal has been fully commissioned and is prepared for its next phase of mission,” True Anomaly said, without articulating what the next phase would entail. “Jackal已完成全面调试，准备进入下一阶段任务，”True Anomaly表示，但未明确说明下一阶段的具体内容。
The tests of the Jackal satellite platform and True Anomaly’s software stack included the tracking of other objects in space using narrow- and wide-field cameras and validation of “moving object detection and tracking algorithms, confirming Jackal’s ability to execute closed-loop tracking of maneuvering targets during simultaneous vehicle maneuvers,” True Anomaly said. True Anomaly表示，对Jackal卫星平台及其软件栈的测试包括使用窄视场和宽视场摄像机追踪其他空间物体，并验证了“移动物体检测与追踪算法，确认了Jackal在自身机动的同时，对机动目标执行闭环追踪的能力。”
This sounds just like the goals for Victus Haze, which follows the Space Force’s successful Victus Nox responsive space mission in 2023. With Victus Nox, the Space Force partnered with Millennium Space Systems to build and test a small satellite in less than a year. Engineers then handed the satellite over to Firefly Aerospace, which integrated the payload with its Alpha rocket and successfully launched it just 27 hours after receiving orders from the Space Force. 这听起来与Victus Haze的目标如出一辙。此前，太空军曾在2023年成功执行了Victus Nox响应式太空任务。在Victus Nox任务中，太空军与Millennium Space Systems合作，在不到一年时间内建造并测试了一颗小型卫星。随后，工程师将卫星移交给萤火虫航天公司（Firefly Aerospace），该公司将其与Alpha火箭集成，并在接到太空军指令后仅27小时内成功发射。
Victus Haze is a more complicated demo, involving more satellites, more rockets, and multiple spaceports. True Anomaly’s contribution to Victus Haze was originally booked to launch on Firefly’s Alpha rocket, but a launch failure grounded the rocket for nearly a year. It ended up launching on SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Space Force officials have long pursued responsive launch initiatives to cut the time required for fielding new satellites from years to weeks, days, or hours. Victus Haze’s cost was borne by a mix of government funding and private capital, totaling about $92 million. Victus Haze是一次更为复杂的演示，涉及更多的卫星、更多的火箭以及多个发射场。True Anomaly为Victus Haze提供的载荷原定由萤火虫公司的Alpha火箭发射，但由于一次发射失败，该火箭停飞了近一年。最终，它改由SpaceX的猎鹰9号火箭发射。太空军官员长期以来一直致力于推动响应式发射计划，旨在将部署新卫星所需的时间从几年缩短至几周、几天甚至几小时。Victus Haze的成本由政府资金和私人资本共同承担，总额约为9200万美元。
“This demonstration will ultimately prepare the United States Space Force to provide future forces to combatant commands to conduct rapid operations in response to adversary on-orbit aggression,” Space Systems Command said in a statement when announcing the Victus Haze mission in 2024. “此次演示最终将使美国太空军能够为作战司令部提供未来力量，以应对对手在轨侵略行为并开展快速行动，”太空系统司令部在2024年宣布Victus Haze任务时在一份声明中表示。