The Pentagon can place SpaceX in the center of a sensor targeting network to the other

The possibilities include the exploitation of automation, artificial intelligence and automatic learning to feel, target and hit an enemy vehicle – a truck, a tank, a plane, a ship or a missile – generally instantly.

“If I am on the edge of the 3D fusion, I am less dependent on the ground and I can move around the world with my network of mesh,” said Davis. “There is a resilience inherent in global architecture – not only space architecture, but global architecture – if the soil segment or the connection segment is attacked.”

Question the plan

Military officials have not disclosed the cost of Milnet, either in its current form or in the future architecture envisaged by the Trump administration. For the context, SDA has a fixed price contracts worth more than $ 5.6 billion for around 340 data relay satellites in 1 and 2 tranches.

This amounts to around 16 million dollars per spacecraft, at least one more expensive order of a starlink satellite leaving the SpaceX mounting chain. Starshield satellites, with their secure communication capacity, are probably a little more expensive than a standard starred link.

Some former defense officials and legislators are not at ease to put operational satellites in the “killing chain”, the term military official uses for the process of identifying threats, taking a targeting decision and taking military measures.

It is not yet clear if SpaceX will use Milnet satellites in this new paradigm, but the company has a long -standing preference to do this. SpaceX built a handful of technological demonstration satellites for the space development agency a few years ago, but did not compete for subsequent SDA contracts. One of the reasons for this, said sources, is that the SDA operates its satellite constellation of the government’s control centers.

Instead, SDA has chosen L3harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, Sierra Space, Terran Orbital and York Space Systems to provide the next lots of missiles and data transport satellites. RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, withdrew from a contract after the company determined that it could not earn money in the program.