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NRO chief: “You can’t hide” from our new swarm of SpaceX-built spy satellites

✇Science – Ars Technica
Stephen Clark

The director of the National Reconnaissance Office has a message for US adversaries around the world.

"You can’t hide, because we’re constantly looking," said Chris Scolese, a longtime NASA engineer who took the helm of the US government's spy satellite agency in 2019.

The NRO is taking advantage of SpaceX's Starlink satellite assembly line to build a network of at least 100 satellites, and perhaps many more, to monitor adversaries around the world. So far, more than 80 of these SpaceX-made spacecraft, each a little less than a ton in mass, have launched on four Falcon 9 rockets. There are more to come.

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© SpaceX

Firefly is building fast and breaking things on path to a reusable rocket

✇Science – Ars Technica
Stephen Clark
A test version of Firefly's Miranda engine fires up on a test stand in Briggs, Texas.

Enlarge / A test version of Firefly's Miranda engine fires up on a test stand in Briggs, Texas. (credit: Firefly Aerospace)

BRIGGS, Texas—The new medium-lift rocket under development by Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman will eventually incorporate a recoverable booster that will return to its launch site in Virginia for reuse.

Firefly has previously suggested rocket reuse is on the roadmap for the new rocket—known, for now, only as the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV)—but officials revealed new details of the plan during a recent visit by Ars to Firefly's rocket factory in rural Central Texas.

“Northrop and Firefly have a similar perspective and that is, for that class of rocket, reusability is a requirement for a bunch of reasons," said Bill Weber, Firefly's CEO. "Economically, it becomes an advantage because we don't have to go build additional floor space... Similarly, the pricing structure for customers starts to get super competitive, which we absolutely love, and we’ll be right in the middle of.”

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