A Long March 2D rocket lifts off from Xichang spaceport Sept. 17, 2023, carrying a second group of Yaogan-39 triplets. Credit: Ourspace By Andrew Jones, Published by SpaceNews, 18 September 2023 HELSINKI — China added to its recent flurry of reconnaissance satellite launches early Sunday, sending three new Yaogan-39 spacecraft
By Patrick Tucker, Published by Defense One, 12 Septembr 2023 Rapid buildup “allows them to see much further with greater precision at day and at night and through all weather,” Space Force intel chief says. New and better satellites are enabling China’s military to project power further into the Pacific
By Andrew Jones, Published by space.com, 11 September 2023 The new satellite adds to China’s Yaogan reconnaissance constellations. China launched a new classified satellite on Sunday (Sept. 10), continuing the country’s recent rapid launch rate. A Long March 6A rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern
By Ian DeMartino, Published by Sputnik, 6 September 2023 The first pilotless vehicles were developed by the United Kingdom and the United States during World War I but they were not used during the conflict. Reconnaissance drones were first used on a mass scale in Vietnam. However, deadly drone use
By Ronan Farrow, Published by The New Yorker, 28 August 2023 How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in. Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and
By Christopher Stone, Published by Defense News, 19 July 2023 Recently, the U.S. Navy thwarted Iranian Navy attempts at seizing a few merchant tankers in the Gulf of Oman. During one incident, the U.S. Navy received a distress call from the Bahamian-flagged oil tanker Richmond Voyager 20 nautical miles off
By Anna Prince and Peter W. Singer, Published by Defense One, 17 July 2023 Caracas’ participation in the International Lunar Research Station is more than merely symbolic. Venezuela recently declared that it intends to cooperate with China and Russia on the International Lunar Research Station, making it the first country to formally do
By Patrick Tucker, Published by Defense One, 4 July 2023 Officials worry China may do for commercial-space capabilities what it did for cheap telecom equipment. China has ramped up its space mission, with plans to surpass 70 launches—commercial and military—this year. And while the Pentagon has been vocal about the
