Why I Think SpaceX is Launching Zuma
for the Missile Defence Agency
By Roger
Vine
I have been
interested in spaceflight for most of my life and I’m a keen follower of events
in New Space. Something that caught my attention in recent weeks is an upcoming
SpaceX launch. The launch in question is a mystery satellite called ‘Zuma’.
There has
been a lot of speculation about Zuma because it’s unusual in a number of ways.
We suspect it’s a government launch, but no agency has owned up to it. Some of
the space press speculated it was for the National Reconnaissance Office, but
they usually own up to their launches and they’ve denied this one.
I think I
know who owns Zuma and what it is. Let’s review what we know about Zuma:
1) It was a late addition to the SpaceX
manifest
2) The launch was organised (and the
satellite probably built) by Northrop Grumman
3) Zuma was given a tight deadline –
supposedly the end of the month (i.e. 30th November 2017)
4) Zuma will launch on a new Falcon 9 core,
presumably one intended for some less important launch
5) The Falcon 9 booster will return to
Cape Canaveral, not to SpaceX’s recovery barge. This suggests Zuma is headed
for low Earth orbit and isn’t especially heavy.
Now consider
some other circumstantial evidence:
1) Northrop Grumman described the launch
as a ‘monumental responsibility’. That’s a pretty strong statement about a
satellite.
2) SpaceX delayed the launch, not for
operational reasons, but for ‘additional mission validation’
3) Northrop Grumman is heavily involved
in missile defence. It was praised for having placed a billion dollars of
subcontracts in that area and it has developed satellites for strategic defence
initiatives: most notably one of the trial satellites for the Space Tracking
and Surveillance System (STSS).
Finally,
think about the political moment. North Korea has threatened the US with
nuclear weapons and threatened to test an ICBM with a live nuclear warhead in
the Pacific. This year, NK has already tested an ICBM over Japan and detonated
what was probably a two-stage thermonuclear bomb. Currently the US has three
battle groups in the north Pacific, including destroyers equipped with the
Aegis missile defence system.
All this circumstantial evidence
suggests that Zuma is a launch for the Missile Defence Agency.
More
specifically, I suspect that it is the production version of the low earth
orbit component of STSS. This is designed to detect and track missile launches
early in their flights and perhaps to characterise them and their targets. STSS
is designed to give better accuracy and fire control to missile defence elements
such as Aegis and THAAD. This would be an absolutely vital capability were
North Korea to launch a live ICBM into the pacific – the US would need rapid
understanding of where it was headed, to Guam or the open ocean. It would also,
much more soberingly, provide an essential capability for
defending the US homeland against a nuclear strike by North Korea.
Does Zuma
suggest that something is about (in the next few months) to happen? That North
Korea is about to live test a nuclear ICBM? Or that America is planning a
strike against NK? I fear it might.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/15/top-secret-zuma-payload-puzzles-satellite-trackers/
http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/MissileDefense/Pages/default.aspx