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SpaceX To Play Bigger Role In This 'Massive' Live-Fire Air Force Exercise
WASHINGTON — SpaceX Starlink satellites will play a major role in an Air Force live-fire exercise in April, and a Virgin Galactic (SPCE) sister company is in talks to potentially join in as well.
In December, the Air Force tested its experimental Advanced Battle Management System that will connect air, sea, land and space assets. The exercise was deemed an overall success, with SpaceX Starlink satellites used to link to a Lockheed Martin (LMT) AC-130 gunship.
As a next step, the Air Force's April 8 event is going to be "massive," Air Force acquisition chief William Roper told reporters at the Pentagon Friday. The SpaceX Starlink satellites will play an even bigger role than in December, as Roper wants them to connect to more assets, including platforms on the ground.
"SpaceX has been a great industry partner for us," he said. "They are very excited, and we are excited to learn more about their satellites through the demonstration."
The exercises will include live-fire drills, such as taking down a UAV and shooting down a cruise missile. They will be performed across the country, from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
SpaceX Starlink may not be the only commercial space provider in the exercises. Roper said that he is in discussions with Virgin Orbit, the privately held sister company of Virgin Galactic, to participate with its LauncherOne to provide on-demand launches. Virgin Orbit is dedicated to launching small satellites via its LauncherOne rocket, which is launched in midair off a modified Boeing (BA) 747 jumbo jet.
Space-based communications are seen as key enablers of the Pentagon's emerging warfighting doctrine of "multidomain operations," which would require air, land, sea, space and cyberspace assets to network directly with each other.
Virgin Galactic shares tumbled 9.1% to 33.87 on the stock market today after more than tripling in the prior two months alone. Lockheed closed up 0.4% to 427.80.
SpaceX Starlink Constellation Grows
SpaceX, founded by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has said it needs 400 Starlink satellites for "minor" broadband internet coverage and 800 for "moderate" coverage. The company eventually plans to deploy over 40,000 satellites to offer space-based internet service.
SpaceX launched its latest batch of Starlink satellites on Monday bringing the total number of satellites in orbit to over 300.
But that's not all for military use. SpaceX plans to start delivering internet services to customers via Starlink this summer, Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said at a private investors meeting hosted by JPMorgan earlier this month, according to Bloomberg.
SpaceX is reportedly looking to raise $250 million in financing by selling shares at $220, sources told CNBC. That would value Musk's space company at $36 billion.
Meanwhile, an IPO of the SpaceX Starlink business reportedly could be in the works, perhaps in the next several years.
"Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public," Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said at a private investors meeting earlier this month, according to Bloomberg. "That particular piece is an element of the business that we are likely to spin out and go public."
https://www.investors.com/news/spacex-starlink-satellites-virgin-orbit-massive-live-fire-air-force-exercise/
Roper: Air Force’s ‘Massive’ Second ABMS Demo to Include Live-Fire Exercises
The Air Force plans to take lessons learned from its initial Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) demonstration last year to up the ante for its second test this spring with more capabilities and data points, the service’s acquisition executive said Feb. 21.
“The event that we have coming up April 8 is going to be massive,” Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper said at a media roundtable at the Pentagon. Among the new test elements will be live-fire exercises such as taking down an unmanned aerial vehicle, a cruise missile shootdown, and service-wide activities taking place all across the country, including at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, Nellis AFB, Nevada, Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, and White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
It will be the second in a series of technology sprints the Air Force is setting up every four months to quickly and iteratively test ways to build its ABMS architecture, where every U.S. military sensor is connected and warfighters can more quickly communicate, share data and make decisions across battlefields.
The first demonstration, conducted in December 2019, was performed in partnership with U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), and involved using a radio and antenna system dubbed GatewayONE built by Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Honeywell [HON], to pass data back and forth between an Air Force F-22 Raptor and a Navy F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (Defense Daily, Jan. 22).
The joint force test included Army and Navy assets such as the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), and demonstrations that linked SpaceX’s Starlink low-latency broadband internet system to an AC-130 gunship. Roper told reporters in January that the demonstration almost went too well, and he expected more failure than what actually occurred.
“My hope for this event, unlike the first event, is that we have an equal measure of things that fail for things that succeeded,” he said Friday.
Space X’s Starlink satellites will participate “to a greater degree” in the April exercise, and hopefully connect to additional air- and land-based platforms, Roper said. The Air Force is in talks with Virgin Orbit about including the company’s LauncherOne two-stage orbital launch vehicle in the exercise. “It helps [the company] because they’re thinking through” concepts of operation, Roper said. “It helps us think about, how would the force be different if we’re able to launch satellites on demand?”
As a result of the December demonstration, Air Mobility Command is considering placing the GatewayONE translator on a KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueler, “and hanging it on the tanker so that the tanker can become a translator and has a different role on the battlefield,” he added. “That’s something that wouldn’t exist right now had the first demonstration not been done.”
https://www.defensedaily.com/roper-air-forces-massive-second-abms-demo-include-live-fire-exercises/air-force/
https://twitter.com/TonyBeast1957/status/1230934496926670848
Conservatives poised to make gains in Iran elections amid sanctions, domestic problems
SOMAYEH MALEKIAN
February 22, 2020, 11:07 AM
Iran held its 11th parliament election on Friday amid the toughest sanctions on the country and after a few hectic months, domestically. The competition for more than 290 seats in the parliament seems an already-won game for the conservative parties in the absence of many well-known reformist candidates.
The initial, yet unofficial, results indicate that the conservative party candidates are likely to take all 30 parliament seats in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported on Saturday.
Iran's Guardian Council is run by conservative officials and is responsible for supervising the election process, as well as approving the Islamic Republic’s qualification standards for candidates. Many of those registered as reformists in Friday's election – including about 90 of the current reformist-majority incumbents – were barred from running by the council.
The move discouraged many reformists from casting votes.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/conservatives-poised-make-gains-iran-elections-amid-sanctions/story?id=69143693
ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Did Sen. Warner and Comey Crush Assange Immunity Deal?
The U.S. was in talks for a deal with Julian Assange but then FBI Director James Comey ordered an end to negotiations after Assange offered to prove Russia was not involved in the DNC leak, as Ray McGovern explains.
In light of news that Julian Assange’s lawyers have raised an alleged pardon offer by Donald Trump to the WikiLeaks publisher in exchange for clearing Russia of any involvement in WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic Party emails, we republish this article by Ray McGovern, which first appeared on June 27, 2018. It provides light on another angle in which Assange was being offered “limited” immunity in exchange for Assange testimony showing Russia was not his source on the emails, which was then crushed by a former FBI director and a U.S. Senator. It also shows that Assange’s prosecution is political, a point his attorneys are expected to make at next week’s formal extradition hearing. The U.S.-British extradition treaty excludes political crimes.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/22/did-sen-warner-and-comey-collude-on-russia-gate/
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/394036-How-Comey-intervened-to-kill-Wikileaks-immunity-deal
Nevada CHAOS
https://twitter.com/lbarronlopez/status/1231303530561953792