US Military Announces Plans for Satellite Orbiting the Moon

The US military is looking to have spy satellites patrol the Moon, according to a recently shared video.

The US Air Force Research Lab uploaded a two-minute video about the project this week.

The United States space mission was extended 22,000 miles above Earth.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is extending that range by ten times and the operations area of the United States by 1,000 times, according to the narrator.

There are very little details on the project. According to an extremely brief description on the AFRL website, the CHPS is a spaceflight experiment designed to demonstrate space domain awareness capabilities in the cislunar regime.

It is an ambitious new project that raises ethical questions about the legality of establishing a military presence around our closest orbital neighbor, especially now that there is a renewed push to return astronauts to the moon.

A number of US military branches are collaborating on the project. The US Space Command will figure out how to best use the satellite, while the Air Force will work with other organizations and contractors to develop it.

Brian Weeden is the director of program planning.

The AFRL is interested in showing small satellites for other cislunar missions.

The US military was caught off guard by the sudden rush to the moon.

We thought that there could be adversary activity out there that could pose a threat to our space systems, but we were wrong.

The pace of activity causes us to say, "Well, we had a plan to get after cislunar space domain awareness, but now we need to accelerate our plan because things are happening much faster than we expected."

It is not clear when or if a cislunar satellite will ever launch. The AFRL is looking for contracting partners to help develop the technologies.

The lab is looking to award a contract this summer and launch some time in 2025.

The US Space Force plans to start patrolling around the Moon.

Space Force members were annoyed that nobody took the matter seriously.

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