Starfire

RUSSIA TO REVAMP AIR-SPACE DEFENSES BY 2020 — Ria Novosti — Moscow — Russia will create a new generation of air and space defenses to counter any strikes against its territory by 2020 due to a potential foreign threat, the Air Force commander said on Tuesday.

“By 2030… foreign countries, particularly the United States, will be able to deliver coordinated high-precision strikes from air and space against any target on the whole territory of Russia,” Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said, referring to the potential for new hypersonic and space-based offensive weapons.

“That is why the main goal of the development of the Russian Air Force until 2020 is to create a new branch of the Armed Forces, which would form the core of the country’s air and space defenses to provide a reliable deterrent during peacetime, and repel any military aggression with the use of conventional and nuclear arsenals in a time of war,” the general said.

“In line with the new air-space defense concept, we have already formed a number of brigades, which will be armed with S-400 and S-500 air defense systems,” Zelin said at a news conference in Moscow.

The S400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler) is designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), twice the range of the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot, and 2 1/2 times that of Russia’s S-300PMU-2.

The system is also believed to be able to destroy stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, and is effective at ranges up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and speeds up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second.

The fifth-generation S-500 air defense system, which is currently in the blueprint stage and is expected to be rolled out by 2012, would outperform the S-400 as well as the U.S. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system.

“The S-500 system is being developed under a unique design… and will be capable of destroying hypersonic and ballistic targets,” the general said.

Meanwhile, the Soviet-era MiG-31 Foxhound supersonic interceptor aircraft will most likely be used as part of the new air-space defense network, as was intended when it was designed.

“We are upgrading this system to be able to accomplish the same air-space defense tasks,” Zelin said.

According to some sources, Russia has over 280 MiG-31 aircraft in active service and about 100 aircraft in reserve.

AEGIS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE INTERCEPTS TARGET USING SPACE TRACKING AND SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM — U.S. Department of Defense, 13 February 2013—The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS Lake Erie (CG 70) successfully conducted a flight test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, resulting in the intercept of a medium-range ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean by a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IA guided missile.

At 11:10 P.M. HST, (4:10 A.M. EST) a unitary medium-range ballistic missile target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, on Kauai, Hawaii. The target flew northwest toward a broad ocean area of the Pacific Ocean.

The in-orbit Space Tracking and Surveillance System-Demonstrators (STSS-D) detected and tracked the target, and forwarded track data to the USS Lake Erie. The ship, equipped with the second-generation Aegis BMD weapon system, used Launch on Remote doctrine to engage the target.

The ship developed a fire control solution from the STSS-D track and launched the SM-3 Block IA guided missile approximately five minutes after target launch. The SM-3 maneuvered to a point in space and released its kinetic warhead. The kinetic warhead acquired the target reentry vehicle, diverted into its path, and, using only the force of a direct impact, engaged and destroyed the target.

Today’s event, designated Flight Test Standard Missile-20 (FTM-20), was a demonstration of the ability of space-based assets to provide midcourse fire control quality data to an Aegis BMD ship, extending the battlespace, providing the ability for longer-range intercepts and defense of larger areas…

RUSSIAN SUPPLY SHIP DOCKS WITH ORBITING SPACE STATION — Moscow (UPI) — July 28, 2013—An unmanned cargo ship has docked at the International Space Station to deliver nearly 3 tons of supplies, Russia’s space agency said.

The Progress 52 spacecraft docked smoothly with the orbiting station Saturday, shortly after being launched from Russia aboard a Soyuz rocket. “The docking was carried out in automated regime as scheduled,” a spokesman for the space agency Roscosmos said.

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said the mission returned to the short 6-hour course to the space station. The previous supply mission took two days to rendezvous with the station. Before that, three space freighters — Progress M-16M, Progress M-17M and Progress M-18M — also delivered their cargo to the ISS in six hours.

Progress M-20M will bring some 2.4 metric tons of fuel, food, oxygen, scientific and medical equipment to the orbital outpost.

Fragments of Russia’s Progress M-18M space freighter sank safely in the Pacific Ocean after reentering the atmosphere on Friday, a spokesman for the Russian mission control center said.

The spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station shortly after midnight Moscow time and started its final journey toward a remote location in the Pacific Ocean known as the “spacecraft cemetery.”

EXPERIMENTAL SPACE PLANE COULD CUT SATELLITE COSTS — Ray Locker, USA Today, 13 November 2013—The Pentagon wants to cut the costs of putting satellites into space by creating a “space plane” that can fly into low Earth orbit and release satellites for about $5 million a launch.

Called the XS-1, the plane to be developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) would be capable of flying 10 times the speed of sound (Mach 10), and carry payloads between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds into orbit, according to documents released this week.

If developed, the plane would be capable of rushing smaller satellites into space and cutting the long lead times necessary to use conventional launchers, such as rockets. “Current space launch vehicles are very expensive, have no surge capability, and must be contracted years in advance (i.e., long call-up times),” DARPA records show…

… The XS-1 project follows a 10-year effort to build another hypersonic vehicle, called the Falcon HTV-2. According to a 2003 DARPA plan, the Falcon was intended to be capable of taking off “from a conventional military runway and striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours. It could carry a 12,000-pound payload consisting of Common Aero Vehicles (CAVs), cruise missiles, small diameter bombs, or other munitions…”