USAF Seeks Threat Detectors for Satellites A year and a half after China showed the world it can shoot satellites out of orbit, the U.S. Air Force i

USAF Seeks Threat Detectors for Satellites


A year and a half after China showed the world it can shoot satellites out of orbit, the U.S. Air Force is taking steps to make future satellites able to detect impending attacks.

And beyond simply seeing it coming, the Air Force wants its satellites equipped with technology that will offer commanders on the ground solid information about who launched the attack.



This effort to make satellites more alert to their surroundings is being called Self-Aware Space Situational Awareness, or SASSA.



The Air Force is reviewing bids by at least two major defense firms to build “suites” of threat-detecting sensors for satellites.

At this point, the SASSA program does not call for adding active countermeasures or other defenses to U.S. satellites.



The Air Force says the sensor suite should include a “visible camera” for spotting and identifying nearby objects, and other sensors for detecting laser attacks and radio frequency jamming, proximity sensors to judge the distance of surrounding objects, and sensors to measure the space environment.



“The final sensor complement is currently being assessed,” the Air Force said in a statement.

Ultimately, different sensors may be placed on different satellites, depending on their missions and the threats that particular satellites are expected to confront, said Todd Citron, director of space superiority and special missions for Boeing in El Segundo, Calif.

Boeing and its defense industry rival Lockheed Martin have submitted proposals for building the sensor suites.



The sensors already exist, Citron said. The task for Boeing and Lockheed is to combine them in a lightweight payload that can plug easily into just about any satellite.

Today, each of the sensors would have to be installed in a satellite separately, and its telemetry carefully woven into the satellite’s communications system, Citron said.

SASSA’s modular approach is intended to produce a cost-effective method for making future satellites “self aware.”



The Air Force Space Superiority Systems Wing said it plans to award two contracts by October. The companies say they expect the contracts to be worth about $30 million.

The Air Force hopes to have sensors and accompanying communications gear ready for launch on satellites as early as 2010 or 2011.



Concern that U.S. satellites, particularly spy satellites, are sitting ducks in space increased in January 2007, when the Chinese military demonstrated its anti-satellite prowess by firing a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy an old Chinese weather satellite 537 miles above the Earth.



However, the Air Force said its push to increase space situational awareness substantially predates the Chinese anti-satellite demonstration. Presidential directives in 1996 and 2006 instruct the U.S. military to “support” space situational awareness for intelligence, military and commercial satellites and for human space flight.



Space situational awareness today is provided mainly by ground-based telescopes and radars that are located around the world. They are used mainly to keep track of objects in space, such as debris from rockets and other satellites, not to warn of imminent attacks.

That’s no longer good enough.



As reliance on space for communications, surveillance, navigation and other purposes increases, so does the ability of potential foes to threaten satellites with jammers, lasers and kinetic kill vehicles.



In a description of the SASSA program earlier this year, the Air Force said it wants to equip satellites to:

■ Provide indications and warning of attack.

■ Identify the source of attacks.

■ Perform battle-damage assessment on adversary space systems.

■ Identify “anomalies” in space, both environmental and man-made.

The satellite’s communications gear is to be able to report threats, attacks and anomalies to the Joint Functional Component Command for Space and the Air Force’s Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System.



In addition to making satellites self-aware, Boeing is part of an industry team working on a Space Based Space Surveillance system, which is basically a satellite with a 500-pound optical camera for tracking other satellites, space debris and other objects.



“SBSS will revolutionize space situational awareness,” Citron said Ultimately, SBSS will consist of a small constellation of satellites that detect and track objects in space.

Even if U.S. satellites can detect and report threats on their own and be warned of threats by other satellites, it is unclear what they can do about imminent danger.



Adding defensive capabilities to a satellite “is beyond SASSA,” Citron said.

Current U.S. spy satellites and early warning satellites have some ability to protect their optical sensors against laser attacks, and have substantial resistance to jamming, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which monitors defense policy.



“All spacecraft have some maneuvering capability” that they need to make occasional adjustments in their orbits, Pike said.



So if current satellites become aware of imminent threats, they might be able to “run away a little bit. But tactical maneuvering is not what these guys typically do,” he said.



No existing satellites are believed to have “shoot back” capability, but the U.S. military “has definitely looked at shoot back” to protect spy satellites that might be attacked by kinetic kill vehicles in low-Earth orbit, Pike said.



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Mar 13, 2009, post by slesik
Synthetic Future


After topping off at almost $150 a barrel last July, oil now sells for less than $40. But the price collapse hasn’t altered U.S. Air Force plans to fly its jets on fuel made from coal, natural gas, even animal fat.

“We are still on track to complete certification of all aircraft to fly on synthetic fuels by 2011,” Air Force spokesman Gary Strasburg said. And by 2016, the Air Force wants half of the jet fuel it uses in the United States to be synthetic.



That means about 400 million gallons of fuel made from coal, biomass, natural gas and other nonpetroleum sources. And that may be a problem.

At present, there are no U.S. plants producing enough synthetic fuel to meet more than a fraction of the Air Force needs. Several companies have plans to build plants for turning coal and biomass into synthetic fuel. But the plans were developed when high-priced oil made alternative fuels much more appealing, at least in terms of cost.



In January, the Air Force itself pulled the plug on plans to let a private company build a plant for turning coal into 25,000 barrels of jet fuel a day on federal property at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.

The service declared plans for the plant “not viable,” but cited security concerns, not cost, as the fatal flaw.



Still, the push toward synthetic fuel goes on.

“We have completely certified the B-52 and B-1″ bombers and C-17 cargo planes to fly on synthetic fuel, Strasburg said. In addition, the Air Force has flown F-22 and F-16 fighters, B-2 bombers, KC-135 refueling tankers, C-5 cargo planes and T-38 trainers using a 50-50 mixture of synthetic fuel and standard JP8 military jet fuel.

For testing and certification purposes, the Pentagon’s Defense Energy Support Center has been buying synthetic fuel from South African synfuel producer Sasol.

Ultimately, though, the Air Force wants domestic sources, Strasburg said. The intent is to boost national security by reducing dependence on imported oil.

Synthetic oil becomes competitive when petroleum costs about $60 or $70 a barrel, said Tim Edwards, a senior chemical engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate.



Oil Cost Could Surge Again

Despite the relatively cheap price of oil today, pursuing synthetic fuel “is still a good idea,” Edwards said. As long as the United States continues to import about 70 percent of the oil it burns, “there’s no way to prevent oil from going to $170 a barrel,” he said.

The Air Force hopes its considerable appetite for oil provides the economic foundation for a U.S. synthetic oil industry.

Airlines are beginning to experiment with synthetic fuel, too. And the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines around the world, has said it wants to replace a quarter of petroleum-based fuels with synthetics by 2025.



In January, the Air Force began buying fuel from Rentech, a Los Angeles-based synfuel company that claims to have the only working Fischer-Tropsch fuel plant in the United States.

For now, Rentech turns natural gas into jet fuel at a rate of 10 barrels - 420 gallons - a day at a plant in Colorado. But the company plans to build a plant in Mississippi that will eventually produce 30,000 barrels of synfuel a day from coal, petroleum coke and biomass. Rentech also plans to produce jet fuel from purely renewable feedstocks.



Rentech makes synfuel using the Fischer-Tropsch process. That involves heating the feedstock - coal, petroleum coke, wood, corn stalks or other biomass - to about 1600 degrees Fahrenheit until it turns to gas.



Various unwanted products in the gas, such as mercury, sulfur and others, are removed, leaving carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The carbon dioxide (C02) and hydrogen are fed into a reactor where a catalyst of iron particles suspended in liquid wax converts them into a form of synthetic fuel called wax.



The synthetic wax is then refined into jet fuel, diesel fuel and similar products using essentially the same process used for turning petroleum into those products.

The process produces a lot of carbon dioxide, and that is a major drawback.



Petroleum-based fuel produces about 27 pounds of CO2 per gallon of fuel. Coal-based synthetic fuel produces about 50 pounds, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Carbon dioxide is produced when the coal is turned into gas. More is created when the finished fuel is burned in an engine. CO2 is the most abundant of the greenhouse gases believed responsible for global warming, and the goal is to produce less of it, not more.



Concerned that liquid fuel made from coal would increase CO2 emissions, Congress passed a law in 2007 to make it illegal for the U.S. government to buy synthetic fuels that emit more greenhouse gases than do fuels already in use.

Rentech and other Fischer-Tropsch advocates offer at least two solutions to the CO2 problem.

Capturing Karbon



One is carbon sequestration. Instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, it is captured and buried underground. Rentech proposes capturing CO2 and piping it to oil fields near the company’s Mississippi plant. Pressurized CO2 would be pumped underground into partially depleted oil wells, where it would push unrecoverable oil into locations where it can be pumped out.



If the carbon dioxide can be captured and then injected into the ground, the fuel produced by the Fischer-Tropsch process can produce 11 percent to 23 percent less CO2 than standard jet fuel, said Julie Dawoodjee, Rentech’s director of investor relations.

Another way to reduce CO2 emissions is to use biomass along with coal to produce liquid fuel.



Biomass is considered to be carbon-neutral. That’s because when it grows, biomass takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. When it is burned as fuel, it is simply returning what had been removed from the air by growing plants. It’s often referred to as carbon recycling.

The U.S. Energy Department estimates there are 1.3 billion tons of biomass available annually - from plants, grain crops and wood residue to animal manure and garbage - that could be turned into liquid fuel.



And it’s not just for airplanes, Edwards said. The Air Force plans eventually to use synthetic fuel to power trucks, generators and heaters, he said.



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Mar 12, 2009, post by admin
Superconductor Technologies Inc. Wins $4.1 Million Contract Modification With U.S. Air Force


Superconductor Technologies Inc. (STI) (Nasdaq:SCON), a leading provider of advanced wireless solutions, innovative adaptive filtering, and world class cryogenic products for commercial and government applications, was awarded a contract modification by the U. S. Air Force for the next 12 month phase of work on the SURF program. The additional funds were awarded based on successful completion of milestones on the first phase of the program. The modification increases the current contract funded amount by $4.1 million.



“This award builds on the successful April 2007 SURF Phase I program for which STI developed Semiconductor-Tuned High Temperature Superconducting Filters for Ultra-Sensitive Radio Frequency Receivers (SURF),” said Jeff Quiram, STI’s president and chief executive officer. “In Phase I, STI demonstrated its adaptive, tunable filtering increases speed while reducing size and cost for military programs. In Phase II, we will expand our contract R&D role with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by developing test units. We are excited to move forward on our corporate goal of achieving significant product sales to the U.S. government and look forward to continuing to be a partner in DARPA’s future success.”



The U.S. Air Force conducts research, development, test and evaluation, and provides the acquisition management services and logistics support necessary to keep U.S. Air Force weapon systems ready for war.



About Superconductor Technologies Inc. (STI)



STI, headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, is a leading provider of high performance infrastructure products for wireless voice and data application as well as advanced HTS thin film deposition techniques and cooling technologies. Commercially, STI’s SuperLink(r) solution increases capacity utilization, lowers dropped and blocked calls, extends coverage, and enables faster wireless data rates. Its AmpLink(tm) solution enhances the performance of wireless base stations by improving receiver sensitivity and geographic coverage.



For information about STI, please visit http://www.suptech.com.




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