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May 13, 2006

From 'Blackstar' to New Constellations

 

 

According to Aviation Week in March the pentagon’s much anticipated Two-Stage-to-Orbit Blackstar has been shelved for budgetary reasons.

 

But could it be the prototypes were merely concept vehicles using what now by military standards would be obsolete technology? If such were the case, it may actually mean that something else is rather imminent. With American military technology literally decades ahead of its civilian counterpart, this is not only possible, but even likely.

 

Aviation Week has been following the saga of the Blackstar for 16 years now, and, as far as anyone on the outside knows, it has never seen anything beyond testing and simulation, though some theorize it may have become operational in the ‘90s.

 

But why mothball a project that could allow for surprise sub-orbital or low-orbital flights over countries like Iran, China, and Russia. According to the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, these and other countries have gotten good at playing satellite cat-and-mouse, this in part due to the highly predictable nature of spy satellite orbits. Aviation Week:

 

The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights.

 

Well, assuming someone else didn’t see the vehicle-carrying plane take off or the vehicle launch from that plane.

 

So if the Blackstar is to be shelved (assuming it has been), what might that next-generation technology look like and what advantages would it offer? Well, certainly AI comes to mind. AI technology the military is comfortable talking about has proven to be more than impressive both in aerial reconnaissance, on the ground, and even in combat roles. Taking into account Moore’s law that says technology doubles every two years, and factoring that exponentially for the military’s knack for unimaginable black R&D development which in theory then would grow the gap between civilian and military technology every year, and the fact we are on a war footing, it’s easy to imagine we wouldn’t mothball a tool that is needed without finding something else to do the job even better.

 

When you have some developers openly discussing the need for us to respect silicon-based intelligence in the same fashion we do carbon-based intelligence, it also lends one to consider just what may have brought such developers to wax philosophical about a few circuit boards with wings and camera lenses, and more to the point, what might be just around the corner.

 

Indeed, every aspect of reconnaissance and autonomous vehicle technology we know about has undergone a virtual revolution in the past decade; everything from digital imaging and other sensory, automation, and efficiency, to the ability to actively evade defenses and engage them without the need for human intervention.

 

That said, obviously any speculation a Blackstar successor would be fully automated is just that. Additionally, some of Blackstar’s possible missions and the cost-need for duel-use technology may well require such a replacement to Blackstar also to be manned, or, as the case is with some of the automated Stryker vehicles the Army is testing, able to function with or without men onboard.

 

On the other hand, another advantage we’ve seen over the past ten years is the advantage implicit in being small; lower all-around costs and better stealthing: The vehicles are less expensive to develop and are much smaller and more difficult to track than a large bird like Blackstar. If such a vehicle were completely automated, the advantages both in terms of detectability and predictability would be obvious. And we already know this because of the resounding successes of currently tested autonomous aviation technology, such as the X-45A, and technology currently fully in use. With smaller aircraft also comes the ability to land on shorter landing strips, providing better flexibility and possibly better secrecy.

 

Another advantage: fuel costs and efficiency, along with possibly much longer missions.

 

And a smart strategic paradigm shift might explain why a spy plane would no longer be the vehicle of choice for flying cargo into space.

 

And of course protecting human assets can’t be ignored either. In fact, Israel is currently undergoing a bit of a revolution that may wind up completely automating much of its air force. Right now, the Israelis use of drones now accounts for 65% of its flights: 18,000 of its 28,000 known missions. Granted, the missions these drones are currently fulfilling over the West Bank differ in some respects, it seems the concept would logically carry over to larger-scale tasks.

 

Whatever happens to the Blackstar (and whatever is next in the air or on the drawing board) of course we’ll have to wait a couple of decades to truly know (barring some major conflict or other events), but rest assured that even with intelligence supplied by Chinese, Russian, and other sources, Iran need only know one thing: that we know.

 

 

Posted by Martin at May 13, 2006 07:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: Debbie at May 14, 2006 03:34 PM