China’s Guowang megaconstellation is more than another version of Starlink

Chinese media reports suggest that Guowang satellites could accommodate a range of instruments, including useful wide -band communications, laser communication terminals, synthetic opening radars and useful optical remote sensing charges. It looks very much like a mixture of spacex and the NRO Starshield fleet, the future constellation of the Space Development Agency and the Milnet Program offered.

In a testimony to a senatorial committee in June, the first general of the American space force said that it was “worrying” that China moves in this direction. General Chance Saltzman, the head of space operations, used the emergence of China as an argument to develop space weapons, called the euphemist of “counter-space capacities”.

“The targeting to the space they have been able to achieve in space increased the beach and the precision of their weapon systems to the point where to get closer to [to China] In the Western Pacific to be able to achieve military objectives, it is in danger if we cannot deny, disturb, degrade that … capacity, “said Saltzman.” This is the most urgent challenge, and it means that spatial force needs the space control counter-space capacities in order to deny that killing the web. “”

The push of the American army to migrate many responsibilities in wartime to space is not without controversy. The Trump administration wishes to cancel the purchases of new E-7 jets designed to serve as nervous centers in the sky, where Air Force operators receive signals on what is happening in the air, on the ground and in water over hundreds of kilometers around. Instead, a large part of this responsibility would be transferred to satellites.

Some retired military officials, as well as certain legislators, compete against the cancellation of the E-7. They say that there is too little confidence when the satellites are ready to take over. If the Air Force goes ahead with the plan to cancel the E-7, the service intends to fill the gap by extending the lifespan of a fleet of E-3 Sentry aircraft from the Cold War era, commonly called AWACS (alert and air traffic control system).

But the high space of space offers notable advantages. First, a proliferated network of satellites has a global scope, and planes do not. Second, satellites could do work for themselves, with the help of artificial intelligence and IDGE computer. This would remove humans from the line of fire. And finally, the use of a large number of satellites is intrinsically beneficial because it means that an attack on one or more satellites will not degrade American military capacities.