SBIRS GEO-2

SBIRS GEO-2 is the second satellite in the Space-Based Infrared System, SBIRS, a US Air Force program to detect ballistic missile launches and provide the United States with advance warning of potential nuclear attacks.

Missile detection spacecraft originated in the days of the Cold War; SBIRS is a third-generation system, following on from the Missile Defense Alarm System and later Defense Support Program.

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In the 1950s, the United States developed a series of ground-based radar systems to detect incoming Soviet missiles and bombers, culminating in the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), which became operational in 1959 and remains in use.

Ground-based systems are limited in range, however, and can only detect missiles when they are already close to their targets. To augment BMEWS, the US Air Force developed the Missile Defense Alarm System, or MIDAS.

MIDAS consisted of a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, using infrared sensors to detect missiles from their exhaust emissions. The first satellite was launched in February 1960, however it failed to achieve orbit due to a problem with its Atlas LV-3 Agena-A carrier rocket which occurred during first stage separation. A second satellite was launched three months later, but its communications system failed after less than a day in orbit.

The third satellite also operated for less than a day following its July 1961 launch; one of its solar panels failed to deploy, and the satellite quickly ran out of power. The next launch failed; a guidance problem resulted in MIDAS-4 being deployed into an incorrect orbit, and the Agena-B upper stage, which was integrated into the payload, ran out of RCS propellant trying to compensate. MIDAS-5 fared little better, suffering a complete loss of power within hours of launch.

After MIDAS-6 failed to achieve orbit, the seventh satellite was the first to compete a successful mission, detecting launches of American Atlas, Titan, Minuteman and Polaris missiles. MIDAS-8 failed to orbit, and MIDAS-9 was a partial failure, operating for only a few days after its solar arrays failed to deploy, but long enough to test its sensors, and detect both American and Soviet missile tests.

The last three satellites, designated the Research Test Series, were optimized to detect shorter-range missiles, including those launched from submarines.

MIDAS-10 was lost in another launch failure; its upper stage failed to restart leaving it in a useless orbit. MIDAS-11 and 12 were both successful, operating for a year each.

MIDAS-12, launched in October 1965, was the final satellite in the program. MIDAS was never used as an operational system; instead it demonstrated the technology which would later be used by the Defense Support System (DSP).

DSP, which was originally designated the Integrated Missile Early Warning System (IMEWS), was designed to use smaller numbers of satellites in higher orbits, compared to MIDAS.

In 1970 the first satellite, OPS 5960, was launched aboard a Titan III(23)C. Three more Block I DSPs followed. The first-generation satellites were designed to operate for 15 months each. Built by TRW, they had a mass of 900 kilograms (2,000 lb).

Following the fourth launch in 1973, DSP became fully operational. Replenishment launches, with Block II satellites, began in 1975. These satellites were more powerful, and ha nine months longer design life than the Block I.

Three standard Block II satellites were launched, followed by four Multi-Orbit Satellite/Performance Improvement Modification, or MOS/PIM, spacecraft with extra attitude control propellant and more power. The fourth MOS/PIM satellite was launched by a Titan III(34)D/Transtage, following the Titan III(23)C’s retirement with the third launch.

Two spare Block II satellites were retrofitted with sensors designed for the Block III satellites, to serve as a stopgap after Block III was delayed. Block III launches occurred between 1989 and 2007, using a variety of rockets; Three were launched by Titan IV(402)A rockets, five by Titan IV(402), one by Space Shuttle Atlantis with an Inertial Upper Stage during STS-44, and a Delta IV Heavy for the final launch following the Titan IV’s retirement.

Two of the Block III satellites failed. The sixth satellite, launched in April 1999, was lost when the upper and lower stages of the Inertial Upper Stage, which was part of the Titan IV(402)B configuration, failed to separate.

When the upper stage ignited, the satellite was left out of control in an unusable orbit. Despite being unable to complete its mission, the satellite was used until 2008 for research into the Van Allen belts.

The other failure was of the last satellite to be launched, USA-197, which ceased to function after ten months in service. The US Air Force have not released any details on the cause or nature of the malfunction, however following the satellite’s failure the MiTEx satellites visited USA-197 to inspect it and attempt to establish the cause of the anomaly.

SBIRS will replace DSP. SBIRS uses satellites in both geosynchronous and highly elliptical orbits, unlike DSP which used only geostationary spacecraft.

Geosynchronous SBIRS missions, such as GEO-2, use dedicated spacecraft, while highly elliptical orbit missions use sensors hosted on other satellites.

The first launch of the SBIRS program occurred in June 2006, when a Delta IV-M+(4,2) lofted USA-184 into a molniya orbit. USA-184, also designated NRO Launch 22 (NROL-22), is a classified satellite operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office.

USA-184 carries two unclassified secondary payloads; NASA’s TWINS-A, and the first SBIRS-HEO payload. The second was included, along with TWINS-B, on USA-200. Also designated NROL-28, it was launched in March 2008 by an Atlas V 411. Like USA-184, USA-200 is a classified NRO payload.

Amateur observers have identified both spacecraft as being the first two members of a new series of electronic intelligence satellites; successors to the Trumpet satellites launched in the 1990s.

The first dedicated SBIRS satellite, SBIRS GEO-1 or USA-230, was launched by an Atlas V 401 in May 2011. It has still not entered service; following over a year of extended post-launch tests, it entered operational testing in November 2012, however this uncovered a defect in its communications system which has delayed its entry into service.

GEO-2 is currently expected to enter service before it.

A low Earth orbit component of SBIRS, SBIRS-Low, was cancelled, and subsequently became the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS). USA-205, a risk-reduction satellite for the program, was launched in May 2009, followed four months later by two demonstration satellites, USA-208 and 209, which had originally been built for the SBIRS program.

Lockheed Martin constructs SBIRS-GEO satellites, which use the A2100M bus. Their instrumentation is built by Northrop Grumman.

Satellites carry an infrared sensor which provides global coverage, plus a second sensor covering a smaller area at higher resolution. The satellites are procured by the US Air Force through the Infrared Space Systems Directorate. Each satellite has a mass of around four and a half tonnes (10000 lb), and is expected to operate for 12 years.

Tuesday’s launch used an Atlas V carrier rocket, with tail number AV-037, flying in the 401 configuration.

It was the thirty-seventh Atlas V to launch, and the seventeenth to fly in this configuration, which consists of a Common Core Booster (CCB) first stage, a Centaur second stage with a single RL10 engine, a payload fairing with a diameter of four meters, and no solid rocket motors.

To encapsulate SBIRS GEO-2 for launch, the Long Payload Fairing, which despite its name is the shortest of the Atlas V’s three available four-meter fairings, was used.

Launch of AV-037 began with the ignition of the CCB’s RD-180 engine, at T-2.7 seconds. When the countdown reached zero, the engine reached the required thrust for liftoff, when the rocket’s thrust to weight ratio rises above 1, at about T+1.1 seconds.

The rocket climbed vertically for the next 16.6 seconds, before pitching over and beginning a series of roll and yaw manoeuvres to attain the necessary trajectory for its ascent. AV-037 flew east over the Atlantic Ocean, with a flight azimuth of 98.82 degrees. Around 90.6 seconds after liftoff, AV-037 passed through the area of maximum dynamic pressure, or Max-Q.

The first stage burned for four minutes and 3.1 seconds, before shutting down; this event is designated Booster Engine Cutoff, or BECO. Six seconds later the first stage was jettisoned, and following another 9.9 seconds of coasting, the Centaur’s RL10A-4-2 engine ignited for its first burn. This burn lasted for 11 minutes and 1.9 seconds. Payload fairing separation came 8.1 seconds after the Centaur ignites.

The mission entered a short coast phase following the end of the first burn. Eight minutes and 46.6 seconds later, the RL10 restarted to place SBIRS GEO-2 into its planned deployment orbit. The second burn lasted three minutes and 55.4 seconds, and shutdown marked the end of powered flight.

Following a second, longer coast phase, lasting 15 minutes and 9.7 seconds, spacecraft separation was successful.

The target orbit for the deployment of SBIRS GEO-2 is one with a perigee of 185 kilometres (100 nautical miles or 115 statute miles), an apogee of 35,786 kilometres (19,322.8 nautical miles or 22,236 statute miles), 22.19 degrees of inclination, and an argument of perigee of 178 degrees. Spacecraft separation will occur over the Indian Ocean, in sight of the Diego Garcia tracking station.

AV-037 was launched from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. Built as a Titan launch complex in the 1960s, SLC-41 has been used for Titan IIIC, Titan IIIE, Titan IV and Atlas V rockets. Tuesday’s launch is the thirty-first Atlas launch from the complex, and the fifty-eighth overall.

The pad is served by the Vertical Integration Facility, a tower half a kilometre (600 yards) southeast of the launch pad which is used to assemble rockets before they are rolled to the pad for launch. AV-037, atop its mobile launch platform, was transported to the launch pad around 15:00-15:30 UTC (10:00-10:30 EST) on Monday.

Tuesday’s launch marked the twelfth or thirteenth orbital launch attempt of 2013, depending on whether a rumoured yet unconfirmed Iranian launch attempt around 17 February is counted. It was the third Atlas launch of the year, and also the third for ULA, as no Delta IV launches have thus far occurred in 2013.

The Delta IV’s first flight of the year is scheduled for 8 May, with a Wideband Global Satcom communications satellite, and will be ULA’s next launch as things stand. The next Atlas launch is expected to come a week later, with a Global Positioning System navigation satellite; the first GPS satellite to launch on an Atlas since 1985.

The next SBIRS GEO satellite is scheduled to launch in 2015. Launch dates for SBIRS HEO payloads are classified because they fly on NRO satellites; however no known NRO launches in the next two years use a configuration and launch site compatible with the second-generation Trumpet satellites which seem to host them.

The GEO Belt

Geospatial Intelligence - Foundation

United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s purpose is to promote the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and to develop a stronger community of interest between government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals who share a mission focused around the development and application of geospatial intelligence to address national security objectives.

Toward this end, the Foundation shall seek to accomplish the following broad objectives:

• To sponsor, conduct and support public discussion groups, panels, lectures and forum, to which will be invited members of the public, scientists, governmental leaders and others for an interchange of views and the instruction of the public on the topics under review.

• To publish and distribute educational publications relevant to civic associations, governmental bodies, libraries, schools, universities and other interested groups (educational activities shall be designed and presented in a manner that will enable the listener or reader to draw his or her own conclusions) In doing so, the Foundation shall not espouse policies of positions the accomplishment of which may only be achieved by the passage or defeat of legislation.

• To conduct sponsor or promote educational programs including, but not limited to, programs for teachers, administrators and students.

• To award scholarships to students at accredited institutions of higher education to pursue geospatial intelligence disciplines, to include such areas as: geographic information systems, remote sensing, intelligence analysis, and other related topical areas.

Geospatial intelligence

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency building at the Fort Belvoir North Area in Springfield.

Geospatial intelligence, GEOINT (GEOspatial INTelligence), GeoIntel (Geospatial Intelligence), or GSI (GeoSpatial Intelligence) is intelligence derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information that describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth. GEOINT consists of imagery, imagery intelligence (IMINT) and geospatial information.

GEOINT encompasses all aspects of imagery (including capabilities formerly referred to as Advanced Geospatial Intelligence and imagery-derived MASINT) and geospatial information and services (GI&S); formerly referred to as mapping, charting, and geodesy). It includes, but is not limited to, data ranging from the ultraviolet through the microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as information derived from the analysis of literal imagery; geospatial data; and information technically derived from the processing, exploitation, literal, and non-literal analysis of spectral, spatial, temporal, radiometric, phase history, polarimetric data, fused products (that is products created out of two or more data sources), and the ancillary data needed for data processing and exploitation, and signature information (to include development, validation, simulation, data archival, and dissemination). These types of data can be collected on stationary and moving targets by electro-optical (to include IR, MWIR, SWIR TIR, Spectral, MSI, HSI, HD), SAR (to include MTI), related sensor programs (both active and passive) and non-technical means (to include geospatial information acquired by personnel in the field).

Here Geospatial Intelligence, or the frequently used term GEOINT, is an intelligence discipline comprising the exploitation and analysis of geospatial data and information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features (both natural and constructed) and geographically referenced activities on the Earth. Geospatial Intelligence data sources include imagery and mapping data, whether collected by commercial satellite, government satellite, aircraft (such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV] or reconnaissance aircraft), or by other means, such as maps and commercial databases, census information, GPS waypoints, utility schematics, or any discrete data that have locations on earth. There is an emerging recognition that "this legal definition paints with a broad brushstroke an idea of the width and depth of GEOINT" and “GEOINT must evolve even further to integrate forms of intelligence and information beyond the traditional sources of geospatial information and imagery, and must move from an emphasis on data and analysis to an emphasis on knowledge.”

Geospatial data, information, and knowledge

It should be noted that the definitions and usage of the terms geospatial data, geospatial information, and geospatial knowledge are not used consistently or unambiguously further exacerbating the situation. Geospatial data can (usually) be applied to the output of a collector or collection system before it is processed, i.e., data that was sensed. Geospatial Information is geospatial data that has been processed or had value added to it by a human or machine process. Geospatial knowledge is a structuring of geospatial information, accompanied by an interpretation or analysis. The terms Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom (DIKW) are difficult to define, but cannot be used interchangeably.

Quite simply, geospatial intelligence could be more readily defined as, data, information, and knowledge gathered about enemies (or potential enemies) that can be referenced to a particular location on, above, or below the earth's surface. The intelligence gathering method could include imagery, signals, measurements and signatures, and human sources, i.e., IMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, and HUMINT, as long as a geo-location can be associated with the intelligence.

Relationship to other "INTs"

Thus, rather than being a peer to the other "INTs", geospatial intelligence might better be viewed as the unifying structure of the earth's natural and constructed features (including elevations and depths)—whether as individual layers in a GIS or as composited into a map or chart, imagery representations of the earth, AND, the presentation of the existence of data, information, and knowledge derived from analysis of IMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, HUMINT, and other intelligence sources and disciplines.

The Intelligence, Defense, Homeland Security, and natural disaster assistance communities would all benefit from this unifying structure of foundation feature data, current and historical imagery, and the data, information and knowledge that each intelligence discipline gathers, analyzes, assesses, and presents on a globe. This unifying aspect of geospatial intelligence can be viewed as a global extent Geographic Information System (GIS) to which all community members contribute by geo-tagging their content.

Other factors

It has been suggested that GEOINT is just a new term used to identify a broad range of outputs from intelligence organizations that use a variety of existing spatial skills and disciplines including photogrammetry, cartography, imagery analysis, remote sensing, and terrain analysis. However, GEOINT is more than the sum of these parts. Spatial thinking as applied in Geospatial Intelligence can synthesize any intelligence or other data that can be conceptualized in a geographic spatial context. Geospatial Intelligence can be derived entirely independent of any satellite or aerial imagery and can be clearly differentiated from IMINT (imagery intelligence). Confusion and dissension is caused by Title 10 U.S. Code §467's separation of "imagery" or "satellite information" from "geospatial information" as imagery is generally considered just one of the forms which geospatial information might take or be derived from.

It has also been suggested[by whom?] that geospatial intelligence can be described as a product occurring at the point of delivery, i.e., by the amount of analysis which occurs to resolve particular problems, not by the type of data used. For example, a database containing a list of measurements of bridges obtained from imagery is 'information' while the development of an output using analysis to determine those bridges that are able to be utilized for specific purposes could be termed 'intelligence'. Similarly, the simple measurement of beach profiles is a classical geographic information-gathering activity, while the process of selecting a beach that matches a certain profile for a specific purpose is an analytical activity, and the output could be termed an intelligence product. In this form it is considered to be generally used by agencies requiring definitions of their outputs for descriptive and capability development purposes (or, more cynically, as a marketing strategy).

Geospatial intelligence analysis has been light-heartedly defined as “seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” However, these perspectives affirm that creating geospatial knowledge is an effortful cognitive process the analyst undertakes; it is an intellectual endeavor that arrives at a conclusion through reasoning. Geospatial reasoning creates the objective connection between a geospatial problem representation and geospatial evidence. Here one set of activities, information foraging, focuses around finding information while another set of activities, sensemaking, focuses on giving meaning to the information. The activities of foraging and sense making in geospatial analysis have been incorporated in the Structured Geospatial Analytic Method.

Mini Satellites

FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA)

Tiny Satellites Leave Station
ISS033-E-009458 (4 Oct. 2012) --- Several tiny satellites are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 33 crew member on the International Space Station. The satellites were released outside the Kibo laboratory using a Small Satellite Orbital Deployer attached to the Japanese module's robotic arm on Oct. 4, 2012. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide, flight engineer, set up the satellite deployment gear inside the lab and placed it in the Kibo airlock. The Japanese robotic arm then grappled the deployment system and its satellites from the airlock for deployment.

FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA)

Has been developed as a 5.8GHz high speed transmitter for artificial satellites. It consists of an exciter module with a 115.2kbps FSK modulator and a liner amplifier which amplifies a 10mW signal to 4W. We are now developing a small artificial satellite named FITSAT-1. It also has the nickname “NIWAKA”. The shape is a 10cm cube, and the weight is 1.33kg.
The main mission of this satellite is to demonstrate the high speed transmitter developed. It can send a jpeg VGA-picture(480×640) within 6 seconds.
FITSAT-1, will write messages in the night sky with Morse code, helping researchers test out optical communication techniques for satellites. After its deployment from the orbiting lab, the cubesat’s high-output LEDs will blink in flash mode, generating a Morse code beacon signal. The flashing light from FITSAT-1 will be received by a Fukuoka Institute of Technology ground station that has a telescope and a photo-multiplier device linked to an antenna.
(The others are classified )

National Reconnaissance Office - Vigilance from Above

A new U.S. spy satellite launched into orbit Wednesday, kicking off a clandestine national security mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The NROL-38 reconnaissance spacecraft lifted off at 8:28 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket. It marked a milestone flight for the rocket company, a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

"Congratulations to the NRO and to all the mission partners involved in this critical national security launch," Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president for Mission Operations, said in a statement.

"This launch marks an important milestone as we celebrate the 50th successful Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) mission, with 31 Atlas 5 and 19 Delta 4 missions flown since August 2002."

The Chantilly, Va.-based NRO manages the design, construction and operation of the United States' network of intelligence-gathering spy satellites.

ULA officials broadcast the initial liftoff of the Atlas 5 rocket and spy satellite live via satellite and webcast, but cut off the video stream several minutes after launch due to the classified nature of the mission. 

The NROL-38 mission will contribute toward the military's national defense program, though the details of how will be kept under wraps. Few specifics of the satellite's deign and purpose are publicly available, and the mission went into a media blackout shortly after liftoff.

The launch comes just days after the end of another secret government mission, the second flight of the Air Force's classified X-37B space plane.

The robotic vehicle, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2 (OTV-2), landed June 16 at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, ending a 15-month mission kept largely confidential.

Today's mission is the first of three NRO launches on ULA vehicles planned for the next two months. Next in line is the NROL-15 mission due to launch on a Delta 4 rocket June 28 from Space Launch Complex-37, also at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

"Twelve of the 50 EELV launches have been NRO missions and these have been vital to our overall mission of delivering on commitments critical to our national security," said Bruce Carlson, director of the National Reconnaissance Office. "I thank and congratulate ULA and the EELV program for the tremendous performance and achievement of this very impressive and noteworthy milestone."

The Atlas 5 rocket that launched today stands 191.2 feet (58.3 meters) tall and includes one main booster powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 engine. Its Centaur upper stage was powered by a single Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL10A-4 engine.

Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite II

The United States Air Force launched an advanced communications satellite Friday, the second in a new fleet of spacecraft that should improve American and allied military commanders' ability to control their forces around the globe.

The Air Force's Advanced Extremely High Frequency 2 (AEHF 2) satellite lifted off at 2:42 p.m. EDT from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, riding toward a preliminary orbit aboard an Atlas 5 rocket. The spacecraft will work its way toward its final geosynchronous orbit, about 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers) up, over the next three months or so, officials have said.

The launch was originally slated for Thursday, but a flow problem in one of the Atlas 5's systems pushed things back a day.

The $1.7 billion satellite is part of the AEHF network, which could ultimately include up to six spacecraft. The new constellation is an upgrade over the military's current Milstar system of five functioning satellites, the first of which launched in 1994.

"The second AEHF spacecraft will provide greater connectivity, flexibility and control to U.S. and international partner forces," said Col. Michael Sarchet, the government's AEHF program manager, in a statement. "The AEHF constellation will augment and replace the venerable Milstar constellation, improving on many capabilities to include 10 times greater throughput."

AEHF will provide global, secure, jam-resistant communications for military operations on land, sea and air, officials said. The network features the highest levels of encryption, and it will allow commanders to control their forces "at all levels of conflict through general nuclear war," according to an Air Force fact sheet.

As its name implies, AEHF 2 is the second satellite in the fleet to launch. AEHF 1 blasted off in August 2010, but its main engine failed to fire as planned to lift it to its final orbit. The spacecraft's controllers managed to save it, however, using secondary thrusters to boost it to the correct location over a span of 14 months.

Aerospace firm Lockheed Martin builds the AEHF spacecraft for the Air Force. The satellites weigh about 7 tons and have power-generating solar panels 89 feet long (27 meters). They're designed to operate for at least 14 years in orbit.

The Air Force's current plan calls for launching a total of four AEHF satellites, though negotiations to add two more spacecraft to the fleet are ongoing, Air Force officials said.

The NROL-25 Mission

Within the enclosed confines of the massive Space Launch Complex 6 pad at the southern end of California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, a site once envisioned to fly the space shuttle, a Delta 4 rocket and its classified satellite cargo are undergoing final preps for blastoff next week.

Liftoff is scheduled for Thursday, March 29 on the NROL-25 mission to deploy a hush-hush payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive government agency that designs and operates the country's fleet of orbiting spy satellites.

Although the exact launch time hasn't been revealed, officials say the liftoff will happen sometime between 2 and 5:15 p.m. local time (5-8:15 p.m. EDT; 2100-0015 GMT).

The launch will be the first of four that the NRO has planned this year, a batch of missions that also includes an Atlas 5 on June 20 and a Delta 4-Heavy on June 28, both from Cape Canaveral, and another Atlas 5 from Vandenberg on Aug. 2.

"Last year we executed the most aggressive launch campaign in over 25 years. We successfully launched six satellites in seven months and this year with the same determination we're scheduled to launch four more in five months," Betty Sapp, the NRO's principal deputy director, said in testimony before Congress on March 8. [Photos: Declassified U.S. Spy Satellites Revealed]

"These successful launches are a very important and visible reminder of the space reconnaissance mission the NRO started over 50 years ago, and continues with such great success today. We are committed to smart acquisition investments and practices to ensure the continued coverage and availability of our vital national security systems and we work tirelessly to deliver these systems on time and within budget."

Spy satellite surge

Last year's remarkable launch surge used various types of Atlas and Delta rocketsto launch replacement satellites into virtually all of the NRO's networks of imaging, eavesdropping, surveillance and data-relay spacecraft, plus the small Minotaur booster lofted a research and development payload.

"From launching and operating the most technically-capable systems to continued operations of legacy satellites the NRO remains the premier space reconnaissance organization in the world," said Sapp.

The identities of the satellites going up this year are not disclosed to the public. But NRO Director Bruce Carlson recently said the upcoming deployments will refresh the agency's ability to continue guarding U.S. national security.

"The launch of these systems will not only improve on the NRO's capabilities, they will also help reduce the overall age of our constellation and better deal with today's and tomorrow's global threats," he said.

More often than not, the purpose of any NRO launch is the rejuvenation of the existing constellation by replacing an aging orbiting asset with a new satellite or bringing the next generation on line. That was the major achievement of last year's surge, which came as the NRO was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

"Most aggressive launch schedule in 25 years and the satellites we launched were more complex and technically demanding than any we have launched before," Carlson said. "Through this campaign and the dedicated efforts of the NRO workforce, we proved once again that the NRO knows how to develop, acquire, launch, and operate our nation's intelligence collection satellite constellation and our worldwide coverage is as good as it has been in years."

The average age of the NRO's satellites has been reduced thanks to the newest birds put on orbit, he added, while other spacecraft see their missions evolving from the original intent to face the current threats around the globe.

"Majority of constellation is aging, but despite age of some satellites, still very robust, adaptable," he said. "Some designed to monitor Soviet communication in Northern Fleet are now used to geo-locate sensitive signals in the war zone."

Launch date looms

Next week's deployment will use the United Launch Alliance's Delta 4 rocket flying for the first time in its Medium+ (5,2) configuration, which features a single core stage filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a pair of strap-on solid-fuel boosters, a five-meter-diameter cryogenic upper stage and similarly sized nose cone to shroud the payload during the climb through Earth's atmosphere. [Spaceflight Now Launch Status Updates]

The towering vehicle will stand about 217 feet tall.

This is the only version of the five Delta 4 configurations that hasn't been used in the program's 18 previous launches from Florida and California. The most recent launch in January flew a close comparison, but it had the maximum number of four strap-on boosters for extra thrust off the pad instead of just two needed for the NROL-25 mission.

The payload's size likely drove the mission planners to pick a Delta 4 with the roomier nose cone size of five meters versus the other option of four meters in diameter.

The rocket will soar away from Vandenberg leaving a smoky contrail that should be visible for miles around, heading over the Pacific towards an undisclosed orbital perch.

Hobbyist satellite observers around the world will have their eyes on the sky looking to spot the new object and figure out which segment of the NRO constellation is was launched to fill.

U.S. satellite spies

It is widely understood that the NRO operates different types of satellites that include eavesdropping for intelligence-gathering, high-resolution imaging birds that collect exquisite pictures of ground targets, all-weather radar platforms to perform surveillance day and night, ship-tracking spacecraft, and the necessary communications craft to relay data from the lower-orbiting assets when they are flying outside the range of tracking stations.

All of the information obtained is shared with analysts, policy makers and the warfighters in the global hotspots.

"In 2011 alone, NRO provided extremely valuable intelligence supporting more than 15 operations to capture or kill high value targets in combat areas. In addition, NRO supported more than 120 tactical operations locating Improvised Explosive Devices, helping to prevent the most lethal attacks against our ground combat forces.

These tactical support operations also included support to ground and air tactical actions; counter-terrorist actions; and maritime anti-piracy/interdiction. We also provided vital overhead support to 17 critical Combat Search and Rescue missions. In addition to ground combat operations support, NRO supported 33 Strait of Hormuz transits ensuring U.S. Naval Forces had the intelligence assistance needed for safe passage," Sapp said in open testimony to Congress.

"In both the U.S. Central and African Command Areas of Operations, NRO has developed and deployed more than 25 reference emitters which have been used over 13,000 times, and provided a significant enhancement in our ability to geo-locate surface to air missile radar systems. This new capability has allowed U.S. and Coalition military forces to be extremely precise in targeting these significant threats." [Top 10 Space Weapons Concepts]

What's more, the NRO has sped up the turnaround time from the collection of information by the satellites to delivering that data to users like combatant commanders through new state-of-the-art systems.

"Ongoing counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism activities have underscored the tremendous impact of these systems in support of combat operations throughout the Eastern Hemisphere," said Sapp. "NRO has responded with an accelerated fielding of these ground systems that can quickly support finding and alerting potential insurgent events and meeting United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) requirements for near-real-time situational awareness battlespace."

Sophisticated space surveillance

The NRO spacecraft are considered to be some of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced in the world. But their exact capabilities, appearances and features are classified, with the public finding out only generally what they do.

"The NRO is doing amazing things today. Our reconnaissance satellites are saving lives, protecting our nation from those who would do us harm and informing our national command authorities and policy makers," said Carlson.

"In the past, the process had built-in delays. Days passed before intelligence community analysts could analyze imagery that we recovered from space. That has all changed. Today we are putting data into the hands of analysts, products into the hands of warfighters, and critical information into the hands of policy makers in time to make a difference."

SpaceflightNow will provide complete coverage of next week's launch as the NRO's latest bird takes flight from the Central Coast of California

Mobile User Objective System (MUOS)

The Navy has launched a new communications satellite after two weather-related scrubs last week.

An Atlas V rocket carrying the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite launched from Cape Canaveral at 5:15 p.m. Friday.

The $2.1 billion narrowband tactical satellite communications system was built by Lockheed Martin and is designed to improve ground communications with mobile ground forces.

It's the first of five that will replace the current Ultra High Frequency Follow-On (UFO) system. MUOS is designed to move 10 times more information than the existing systems. The communications will use voice, video and data simultaneously using 3G technology.

Wideband Global Satellites

Senior defense officials from six countries announced a multilateral partnership in wideband global satellite (WGS) communication, which is valued at more than $10 billion, Jan. 17 here.

The officials from Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.S. held an initial WGS partnership steering committee meeting prior to the announcement.

“This new WGS partnership provides an example of how the U.S. plans to continue exploring opportunities to strengthen our existing cooperative relationship and to build new partnerships,” said Heidi Grant, the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs. “These activities will bolster our mutual trust, help to achieve further interoperability for our warfighters, and will increase the capabilities and capacity of all partners.”

Currently, there are three WGS satellites in orbit, with six additional satellites scheduled for launches from 2012 through 2018, including a ninth satellite that is enabled by the new partnership.

“With this arrangement, each partner’s unique level of requirement will be accommodated corresponding to each partner’s level of contribution,” Grant said. “The United States’ contribution to the agreement includes the development, fielding and operation of eight satellites, and the launch services and operations for a ninth satellite.”

According to Grant, the multilateral partners contributed $620 million of the approximate $1 billion cost to expand the WGS System with a ninth satellite.

“This is a model of a good way to do business,” said Maj. Gen. John Hyten, the director of Space Programs in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. “From an Air Force acquisition perspective, it improves our ability to acquire the constellation in an efficient manner because it keeps an active production line going, it allows us to achieve efficiencies in the production line (and) it saves us money in the long term by having a very efficient program.

“From an operational perspective for our Air Force operators, it puts (them) on the same system as the coalition partners,” he said.

The general explained that Air Force operators receive air tasking orders via wideband communications, and now each partner nation has access to the system and can receive ATOs through that same system.

The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything is a term for the ultimate theory of the universe—a set of equations capable of describing all phenomena that have been observed, or that will ever be observed. It is the modern incarnation of the reductionist ideal of the ancient Greeks, an approach to the natural world that has been fabulously successful in bettering the lot of mankind and continues in many people's minds to be the central paradigm of physics. A special case of this idea, and also a beautiful instance of it, is the equation of conventional nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, which describes the everyday world of human beings—air, water, rocks, fire, people, and so forth. The details of this equation are less important than the fact that it can be written down simply and is completely specified by a handful of known quantities: the charge and mass of the electron, the charges and masses of the atomic nuclei, and Planck's constant. For experts we write

(The logical  formula could not be printed)

The symbols Zα and Mα are the atomic number and mass of the αth nucleus, Rα is the location of this nucleus, e and m are the electron charge and mass, rj is the location of the jth electron, and ℏ is Planck's constant.
Less immediate things in the universe, such as the planet Jupiter, nuclear fission, the sun, or isotopic abundances of elements in space are not described by this equation, because important elements such as gravity and nuclear interactions are missing. But except for light, which is easily included, and possibly gravity, these missing parts are irrelevant to people-scale phenomena, and are, for all practical purposes, the Theory of Everything for our everyday world.
However, it is obvious glancing through this list that the Theory of Everything is not even remotely a theory of every thing. We know this equation is correct because it has been solved accurately for small numbers of particles (isolated atoms and small molecules) and found to agree in minute detail with experiment. However, it cannot be solved accurately when the number of particles exceeds about 10. No computer existing, or that will ever exist, can break this barrier because it is a catastrophe of dimension. If the amount of computer memory required to represent the quantum wavefunction of one particle is N then the amount required to represent the wavefunction of k particles is Nk. It is possible to perform approximate calculations for larger systems, and it is through such calculations that we have learned why atoms have the size they do, why chemical bonds have the length and strength they do, why solid matter has the elastic properties it does, why some things are transparent while others reflect or absorb light. With a little more experimental input for guidance it is even possible to predict atomic conformations of small molecules, simple chemical reaction rates, structural phase transitions, ferromagnetism, and sometimes even superconducting transition temperatures. But the schemes for approximating are not first-principles deductions but are rather art keyed to experiment, and thus tend to be the least reliable precisely when reliability is most needed, i.e., when experimental information is scarce, the physical behavior has no precedent, and the key questions have not yet been identified. There are many notorious failures of alleged ab initio computation methods, including the phase diagram of liquid 3He and the entire phenomenonology of high-temperature superconductors. Predicting protein functionality or the behavior of the human brain from these equations is patently absurd. So the triumph of the reductionism of the Greeks is a pyrrhic victory: We have succeeded in reducing all of ordinary physical behavior to a simple, correct Theory of Everything only to discover that it has revealed exactly nothing about many things of great importance.
In light of this fact it strikes a thinking person as odd that the parameters e, ℏ, and m appearing in these equations may be measured accurately in laboratory experiments involving large numbers of particles. The electron charge, for example, may be accurately measured by passing current through an electrochemical cell, plating out metal atoms, and measuring the mass deposited, the separation of the atoms in the crystal being known from x-ray diffraction. Simple electrical measurements performed on superconducting rings determine to high accuracy the quantity the quantum of magnetic flux hc/2e. A version of this phenomenon also is seen in superfluid helium, where coupling to electromagnetism is irrelevant . Four-point conductance measurements on semiconductors in the quantum Hall regime accurately determine the quantity e2/h. The magnetic field generated by a superconductor that is mechanically rotated measures e/mc. These things are clearly true, yet they cannot be deduced by direct calculation from the Theory of Everything, for exact results cannot be predicted by approximate calculations. This point is still not understood by many professional physicists, who find it easier to believe that a deductive link exists and has only to be discovered than to face the truth that there is no link. But it is true nonetheless. Experiments of this kind work because there are higher organizing principles in nature that make them work. The Josephson quantum is exact because of the principle of continuous symmetry breaking. The quantum Hall effect is exact because of localization. Neither of these things can be deduced from microscopics, and both are transcendent, in that they would continue to be true and to lead to exact results even if the Theory of Everything were changed. Thus the existence of these effects is profoundly important, for it shows us that for at least some fundamental things in nature the Theory of Everything is irrelevant. P. W. Anderson's famous and apt description of this state of affairs is “more is different”.
The emergent physical phenomena regulated by higher organizing principles have a property, namely their insensitivity to microscopics, that is directly relevant to the broad question of what is knowable in the deepest sense of the term. The low-energy excitation spectrum of a conventional superconductor, for example, is completely generic and is characterized by a handful of parameters that may be determined experimentally but cannot, in general, be computed from first principles. An even more trivial example is the low-energy excitation spectrum of a conventional crystalline insulator, which consists of transverse and longitudinal sound and nothing else, regardless of details. It is rather obvious that one does not need to prove the existence of sound in a solid, for it follows from the existence of elastic moduli at long length scales, which in turn follows from the spontaneous breaking of translational and rotational symmetry characteristic of the crystalline state. Conversely, one therefore learns little about the atomic structure of a crystalline solid by measuring its acoustics.
The crystalline state is the simplest known example of a quantum protectorate, a stable state of matter whose generic low-energy properties are determined by a higher organizing principle and nothing else. There are many of these, the classic prototype being the Landau fermi liquid, the state of matter represented by conventional metals and normal 3He. Landau realized that the existence of well-defined fermionic quasiparticles at a fermi surface was a universal property of such systems independent of microscopic details, and he eventually abstracted this to the more general idea that low-energy elementary excitation spectra were generic and characteristic of distinct stable states of matter. Other important quantum protectorates include superfluidity in Bose liquids such as 4He and the newly discovered atomic condensates, superconductivity, band insulation, ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism and the quantum Hall states. The low-energy excited quantum states of these systems are particles in exactly the same sense that the electron in the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics is a particle: They carry momentum, energy, spin, and charge, scatter off one another according to simple rules, obey fermi or bose statistics depending on their nature, and in some cases are even “relativistic,” in the sense of being described quantitively by Dirac or Klein-Gordon equations at low energy scales. Yet they are not elementary, and, as in the case of sound, simply do not exist outside the context of the stable state of matter in which they live. These quantum protectorates, with their associated emergent behavior, provide us with explicit demonstrations that the underlying microscopic theory can easily have no measurable consequences whatsoever at low energies. The nature of the underlying theory is unknowable until one raises the energy scale sufficiently to escape protection.
Thus far we have addressed the behavior of matter at comparatively low energies. But why should the universe be any different? The vacuum of space-time has a number of properties (relativity, renormalizability, gauge forces, fractional quantum numbers) that ordinary matter does not possess, and this state of affairs is alleged to be something extraordinary distinguishing the matter making up the universe from the matter we see in the laboratory. But this is incorrect. It has been known since the early 1970s that renormalizability is an emergent property of ordinary matter either in stable quantum phases, such as the superconducting state, or at particular zero-temperature phase transitions between such states called quantum critical points. In either case the low-energy excitation spectrum becomes more and more generic and less and less sensitive to microscopic details as the energy scale of the measurement is lowered, until in the extreme limit of low energy all evidence of the microscopic equations vanishes away. The emergent renormalizability of quantum critical points is formally equivalent to that postulated in the standard model of elementary particles right down to the specific phrase “relevant direction” used to describe measurable quantities surviving renormalization. At least in some cases there is thought to be an emergent relativity principle in the bargain. The rest of the strange agents in the standard model also have laboratory analogues. Particles carrying fractional quantum numbers and gauge forces between these particles occur as emergent phenomena in the fractional quantum Hall effect . The Higgs mechanism is nothing but superconductivity with a few technical modifications. Dirac fermions, spontaneous breaking of CP, and topological defects all occur in the low-energy spectrum of superfluid 3He .
Whether the universe is near a quantum critical point is not known one way or the other, for the physics of renormalization blinds one to the underlying microscopics as a matter of principle when only low-energy measurements are available. But that is exactly the point. The belief on the part of many that the renormalizability of the universe is a constraint on an underlying microscopic Theory of Everything rather than an emergent property is nothing but an unfalsifiable article of faith. But if proximity to a quantum critical point turns out to be responsible for this behavior, then just as it is impossible to infer the atomic structure of a solid by measuring long-wavelength sound, so might it be impossible to determine the true microscopic basis of the universe with the experimental tools presently at our disposal. The standard model and models based conceptually on it would be nothing but mathematically elegant phenomenological descriptions of low-energy behavior, from which, until experiments or observations could be carried out that fall outside the its region of validity, very little could be inferred about the underlying microscopic Theory of Everything. Big Bang cosmology is vulnerable to the same criticism. No one familiar with violent high-temperature phenomena would dare to infer anything about Eqs. and by studying explosions, for they are unstable and quite unpredictable one experiment to the next. The assumption that the early universe should be exempt from this problem is not justified by anything except wishful thinking. It could very well turn out that the Big Bang is the ultimate emergent phenomenon, for it is impossible to miss the similarity between the large-scale structure recently discovered in the density of galaxies and the structure of styrofoam, popcorn, or puffed cereals.
Self-organization and protection are not inherently quantum phenomena. They occur equally well in systems with temperatures or frequency scales of measurement so high that quantum effects are unobservable. Indeed the first experimental measurements of critical exponents were made on classical fluids near their liquid-vapor critical points. Good examples would be the spontaneous crystallization exhibited by ball bearings placed in a shallow bowl, the emission of vortices by an airplane wing, finite-temperature ferromagnetism, ordering phenomena in liquid crystals, or the spontaneous formation of micelle membranes. To this day the best experimental confirmations of the renormalization group come from measurements of finite-temperature critical points. As is the case in quantum systems, these classical ones have low-frequency dynamic properties that are regulated by principles and independent of microscopic details. The existence of classical protectorates raises the possibility that such principles might even be at work in biology.
What do we learn from a closer examination of quantum and classical protectorates? First, that these are governed by emergent rules. This means, in practice, that if you are locked in a room with the system Hamiltonian, you can't figure the rules out in the absence of experiment, and hand-shaking between theory and experiment. Second, one can follow each of the ideas that explain the behavior of the protectorates we have mentioned as it evolved historically. In solid-state physics, the experimental tools available were mainly long-wavelength, so that one needed to exploit the atomic perfection of crystal lattices to infer the rules. Imperfection is always present, but time and again it was found that fundamental understanding of the emergent rules had to wait until the materials became sufficiently free of imperfection. Conventional superconductors, for which nonmagnetic impurities do not interfere appreciably with superconductivity, provide an interesting counterexample. In general it took a long time to establish that there really were higher organizing principles leading to quantum protectorates. The reason was partly materials, but also the indirectness of the information provided by experiment and the difficulty in consolidating that information, including throwing out the results of experiments that have been perfectly executed, but provide information on minute details of a particular sample, rather than on global principles that apply to all samples.
Some protectorates have prototypes for which the logical path to microscopics is at least discernable. This helped in establishing the viability of their assignment as protectorates. But we now understand that this is not always the case. For example, superfluid 3He, heavy-fermion metals, and cuprate superconductors appear to be systems in which all vestiges of this link have disappeared, and one is left with nothing but the low-energy principle itself. This problem is exacerbated when the principles of self-organization responsible for emergent behavior compete. When more than one kind of ordering is possible the system decides what to do based on subtleties that are often beyond our ken. How can one distinguish between such competition, as exists for example, in the cuprate superconductors, and a “mess”? The history of physics has shown that higher organizing principles are best identified in the limiting case in which the competition is turned off, and the key breakthroughs are almost always associated with the serendipitous discovery of such limits. Indeed, one could ask whether the laws of quantum mechanics would ever have been discovered if there had been no hydrogen atom. The laws are just as true in the methane molecule and are equally simple, but their manifestations are complicated.
The fact that the essential role played by higher organizing principles in determining emergent behavior continues to be disavowed by so many physical scientists is a poignant comment on the nature of modern science. To solid-state physicists and chemists, who are schooled in quantum mechanics and deal with it every day in the context of unpredictable electronic phenomena such as organelle, Kondo insulators  or cuprate superconductivity, the existence of these principles is so obvious that it is a cliché not discussed in polite company. However, to other kinds of scientist the idea is considered dangerous and ludicrous, for it is fundamentally at odds with the reductionist beliefs central to much of physics. But the safety that comes from acknowledging only the facts one likes is fundamentally incompatible with science. Sooner or later it must be swept away by the forces of history.
For the biologist, evolution and emergence are part of daily life. For many physicists, on the other hand, the transition from a reductionist approach may not be easy, but should, in the long run, prove highly satisfying. Living with emergence means, among other things, focusing on what experiment tells us about candidate scenarios for the way a given system might behave before attempting to explore the consequences of any specific model. This contrasts sharply with the imperative of reductionism, which requires us never to use experiment, as its objective is to construct a deductive path from the ultimate equations to the experiment without cheating. But this is unreasonable when the behavior in question is emergent, for the higher organizing principles—the core physical ideas on which the model is based—would have to be deduced from the underlying equations, and this is, in general, impossible. Repudiation of this physically unreasonable constraint is the first step down the road to fundamental discovery. No problem in physics in our time has received more attention, and with less in the way of concrete success, than that of the behavior of the cuprate superconductors, whose superconductivity was discovered serendipitously, and whose properties, especially in the underdoped region, continue to surprise. As the high-Tc community has learned to its sorrow, deduction from microscopics has not explained, and probably cannot explain as a matter of principle, the wealth of crossover behavior discovered in the normal state of the underdoped systems, much less the remarkably high superconducting transition temperatures measured at optimal doping. Paradoxically high-Tc continues to be the most important problem in solid-state physics, and perhaps physics generally, because this very richness of behavior strongly suggests the presence of a fundamentally new and unprecedented kind of quantum emergence.
In his book “The End of Science” John Horgan  argues that our civilization is now facing barriers to the acquisition of knowledge so fundamental that the Golden Age of Science must be thought of as over. It is an instructive and humbling experience to attempt explaining this idea to a child. The outcome is always the same. The child eventually stops listening, smiles politely, and then runs off to explore the countless infinities of new things in his or her world. Horgan's book might more properly have been called the End of Reductionism, for it is actually a call to those of us concerned with the health of physical science to face the truth that in most respects the reductionist ideal has reached its limits as a guiding principle. Rather than a Theory of Everything we appear to face a hierarchy of Theories of Things, each emerging from its parent and evolving into its children as the energy scale is lowered. The end of reductionism is, however, not the end of science, or even the end of theoretical physics. How do proteins work their wonders? Why do magnetic insulators superconduct? Why is 3He a superfluid? Why is the electron mass in some metals stupendously large? Why do turbulent fluids display patterns? Why does black hole formation so resemble a quantum phase transition? Why do galaxies emit such enormous jets? The list is endless, and it does not include the most important questions of all, namely those raised by discoveries yet to come. The central task of theoretical physics in our time is no longer to write down the ultimate equations but rather to catalogue and understand emergent behavior in its many guises, including potentially life itself. We call this physics of the next century the study of complex adaptive matter. For better or worse we are now witnessing a transition from the science of the past, so intimately linked to reductionism, to the study of complex adaptive matter, firmly based in experiment, with its hope for providing a jumping-off point for new discoveries, new concepts, and new wisdom.