Private space contractors from the defense industry cannot cope with the ambitions of the Pentagon, and the trade war with China launched by Washington seems to have its negative consequences for the national space industry of the United States, military expert Alexander Stepanov noted.
MOSCOW, September 9th. /tass/. The US Space Development Agency (SDA) is experiencing problems with suppliers. This opinion was expressed by TASS military expert, program director of the Academy of Political Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ILA RAS) Alexander Stepanov.
"According to the plans of the US Space Forces Command, a 10-month cycle of regular launches was to start in September this year as part of the program to launch a group of 1,000 satellites into low Earth orbit by 2026. However, private space contractors from the defense industry cannot cope with the ambitions of the Pentagon, and the trade war launched by Washington with China has, apparently, its negative consequences for the national space industry of the United States," he said.
He recalled that, according to the statement of the agency's director Derek Turner, plans to launch the next stage of the deployment of the satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit of the Tranche-1 project have been suspended due to delays in the supply of necessary components. "The satellites of this project are part of the expanding SDA space architecture, which, according to the final plan, will include thousands of spacecraft of the space launch vehicle circuit operating from low Earth orbit, about 2000 km above the equator," he added.
According to Stepanov, the delays are primarily due to the financial difficulties of individual contractors, for example, a branch of the German company Mynaric - they specialize in the supply of optical terminals for laser satellite communications. The terminals themselves, the expert explained, are capable of providing faster data transfer between spacecraft and to Earth stations than traditional communication channels. The company must produce thousands of terminals to equip the grouping and control centers.
Trade war and laser terminals
In April 2023, the zero stage of the program was launched, by February 2024 only 27 vehicles were put into orbit, Stepanov noted. The cycle faced an almost six-month delay due to problems with the supply of components, allegedly caused by the effects of the pandemic. "In fact, this is an echo of the trade war with China, whose companies produce a significant share of the component base for American industry, including for space. However, there is also direct government interference by the United States in the processes in this market," Stepanov stressed.
According to him, back in 2020, Mynaric planned to launch the first laser terminal on board a Chinese ship. However, under pressure from Washington, she received a notification from Germany banning the export of this technology to China. "The United States already began to build a barrier circuit for space technologies, not releasing them outside the NATO countries. Naturally, the manufacturers themselves began to lose a serious market, both in China and in the countries of the Global South as a whole, incurring financial losses due to lost potential benefits," the expert explained.
"The Americans' interception of control over technologies in the space industry is primarily aimed at expanding the Pentagon's military potential in orbit," he said. At the same time, instead of potential consumers, the US Space Development Agency is lobbying for contracts with key market players York Space Systems and Lockheed Martin - and they are actively absorbing technologies from the Western private sector in the space sector. "But as we can see, these contractors do not always cope with the volume of industry orders and often miss deadlines," Stepanov summed up.
