Robert Weller

This is wild... Russia seems to be threatening a *commercial* satellite that provides imaging services to Ukraine: ▸ starting about two weeks ago, Russia started maneuvering five (!) of their classified satellites to the same orbital inclination as the ICEYE satellite ▸ these burns were big, on the order of 100 m/s, clearly using chemical propulsion given the speed of the burns — very expensive and deliberate maneuvers ▸ as of last Friday, all five Russian satellites are now co-planar, at ~97.8° inclination, with three of ICEYE's satellites, and aligned in other orbital elements (e.g. RAAN) that make it clear they're specifically targeting this set ▸ I am a little skeptical that Russia is specifically targeting -X36 — there are two other satellites at the same inclination/RAAN (-X37 and -X38) — but the Russian sats are now all within striking distance of -X36, which is why people are concerned about it specifically; the closest cross-track distance is an estimated 500 meters (!!), all while the satellites are orbit 550 kilometers above Earth ▸ Russia has unleashed a cyberattack on a commercial satellite before (Viasat), and it is official Russian policy that commercially-owned infrastructure that aids in military efforts "may be legitimate target[s] for a retaliatory strike.” ▸ there's speculation that this could be a precursor to an RPO mission (meaning: physically grabbing the satellite or some other kind of non-kinetic attack like blinding/jamming) Worth tracking closely. And unfortunately more evidence that space is militarizing, fast.