[FPSPACE] Falcon (Hypersonic Exo-atmospheric vehicle) plan in Pentagon budget, $100 million allocation

[Peter Pesavento]

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pentagon_wants_to_create_super_satellite_1112.
html

 

Pentagon wants to create satellite to fire missiles anywhere on Earth

 

Buried in the 621-page House-Senate conference report on the Defense
Department appropriations bill -- and page
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR200711110
1173_pf.html>  A19 of Monday's Washington Post, is a $100 million request to
enhance space warfare.

As if it didn't already have enough work in Iraq, the Pentagon plans to
divert funds from an appropriation to improve submarine-launched Trident
missiles to develop a "global strike" program which would allow the US to
target and dispatch a "precision-guided" warhead anywhere in the world
within two hours.

"The new program, dubbed Falcon, for 'Force Application and Launch from
CONUS,' centers on a small-launch-vehicle concept of the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency," veteran intelligence reporter
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR200711110
1173_pf.html>  Walter Pincus reveals in today's paper. "The agency describes
Falcon as a 'a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) capable of
delivering 12,000 pounds of payload at a distance of 9,000 nautical miles
from [the continental United States] in less than two hours.'"

"The vehicle would be launched into space on a rocket, fly on its own to a
target, deliver its payload and return to Earth," he adds. "In the short
term, a small launch rocket is being developed as part of Falcon. It
eventually would be able to boost the hypersonic vehicle into space. But in
the interim, it will be used to launch small satellites within 48 hours'
notice at a cost of less than $5 million a shot."

Falcon is part of the $459 billion military bill before Congress.

Pincus says the House and Senate also added $100 million beyond Bush's
request for "space situational awareness," legal jargon for protecting US
satellites in space and being able to attack "the enemy's satellites."

"Enhancing these capabilities is critical, particularly following the
Chinese anti-satellite-weapons demonstration last January," the House-Senate
conferees wrote in the report, referring to a January incident in which the
Chinese targeted and destroyed a weather satellite in orbit.