France and U.S. militaries complete rendezvous maneuvers in orbit
According to a statement by France’s military, the U.S. and France have successfully completed planned rendezvous maneuvers by two of their satellites in orbit.
These operations also apparently included the United Kingdom.
While the neither the US nor its allies have made public the satellites involved in any of the joint RPOs, the private space tracking firm COMSPOC said Sept. 19 that the maneuvers with the UK involved a US Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) neighborhood watch bird. The GSSAP satellite, USA 271, began moving on Sept. 5 and on Sept. 12 stopped just 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) from the UK’s SKYNET 5A military communications bird, the firm explained.
COMSPOC also watched the Franco-American pas-de-deux, which a company spokesperson told Breaking Defense involved another GSSAP, USA 324, and France’s SYRACUSE 3A. The satellites performed three sets of maneuvers: Nov. 11-14; Nov. 22-23; and Nov. 28-29, according to COMSPOC’s observations. “In all these movements, SYRACUSE 3A seems to lead and USA 324 seems to follow as the maneuvers performed by USA 324 is lagged by a day,” the spokesperson said, with the closest approach being about 25.1 kilometers (15.6 miles). [emphasis mine]
I have highlighted the distances above because these military maneuvers are actually quite unimpressive when compared with similar recent commercial rendezvous and proximity tests in orbit. The just completed Impulse/Starfish test for example got within 1.25 kilometers. And in 2024 Japan’s Astroscale did proximity operations within 50 meters of an old abandoned upper stage.
I suspect the best thing these militaries could do is to stop wasting money trying to do this themselves, and just hire the commercial companies instead. They’d do much better.
According to a statement by France’s military, the U.S. and France have successfully completed planned rendezvous maneuvers by two of their satellites in orbit.
These operations also apparently included the United Kingdom.
While the neither the US nor its allies have made public the satellites involved in any of the joint RPOs, the private space tracking firm COMSPOC said Sept. 19 that the maneuvers with the UK involved a US Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) neighborhood watch bird. The GSSAP satellite, USA 271, began moving on Sept. 5 and on Sept. 12 stopped just 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) from the UK’s SKYNET 5A military communications bird, the firm explained.
COMSPOC also watched the Franco-American pas-de-deux, which a company spokesperson told Breaking Defense involved another GSSAP, USA 324, and France’s SYRACUSE 3A. The satellites performed three sets of maneuvers: Nov. 11-14; Nov. 22-23; and Nov. 28-29, according to COMSPOC’s observations. “In all these movements, SYRACUSE 3A seems to lead and USA 324 seems to follow as the maneuvers performed by USA 324 is lagged by a day,” the spokesperson said, with the closest approach being about 25.1 kilometers (15.6 miles). [emphasis mine]
I have highlighted the distances above because these military maneuvers are actually quite unimpressive when compared with similar recent commercial rendezvous and proximity tests in orbit. The just completed Impulse/Starfish test for example got within 1.25 kilometers. And in 2024 Japan’s Astroscale did proximity operations within 50 meters of an old abandoned upper stage.
I suspect the best thing these militaries could do is to stop wasting money trying to do this themselves, and just hire the commercial companies instead. They’d do much better.
