Enlarge / Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, speaks earlier this year at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. (credit: USSPACECOM photo by John Philip Wagner Jr.)

The head of US Space Command said Wednesday he would like to see more transparency from the Chinese government on space debris, especially as one of China's newer rockets has shown a propensity for breaking apart and littering low-Earth orbit with hundreds of pieces of space junk.

Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, said he has observed some improvement in the dialogue between US and Chinese military officials this year. But the disintegration of the upper stage from a Long March 6A rocket earlier this month showed China could do more to prevent the creation of space debris and communicate openly about it when it happens.

The Chinese government acknowledged the breakup of the Long March 6A rocket's upper stage in a statement by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 14, more than a week after the rocket's launch August 6 with the first batch of 18 Internet satellites for a megaconstellation of thousands of spacecraft analogous to SpaceX's Starlink network.

Enlarge / Debris from the upper stage of China's Long March 6A rocket captured from the ground by Slingshot Aerospace. (credit: Slingshot Aerospace)

The upper stage from a Chinese rocket that launched a batch of Internet satellites Tuesday has broken apart in space, creating a debris field of at least 700 objects in one of the most heavily-trafficked zones in low-Earth orbit.

US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military's ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches).

Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said.

Enlarge / Liftoff of ULA's Atlas V rocket on the US Space Force's USSF-51 mission. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

United Launch Alliance delivered a classified US military payload to orbit Tuesday for the last time with an Atlas V rocket, ending the Pentagon's use of Russian rocket engines as national security missions transition to all-American launchers.

The Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:45 am EDT (10:45 UTC) Tuesday, propelled by a Russian-made RD-180 engine and five strap-on solid-fueled boosters in its most powerful configuration. This was the 101st launch of an Atlas V rocket since its debut in 2002, and the 58th and final Atlas V mission with a US national security payload since 2007.

The US Space Force's Space Systems Command confirmed a successful conclusion to the mission, code-named USSF-51, on Tuesday afternoon. The rocket's Centaur upper stage released the top secret USSF-51 payload about seven hours after liftoff, likely in a high-altitude geostationary orbit over the equator. The military did not publicize the exact specifications of the rocket's target orbit.

Enlarge / A top-down view of United Launch Alliance's first Vulcan rocket before its liftoff in January. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

United Launch Alliance is targeting September 16 for the second test flight of the new Vulcan rocket, and a flawless mission could finally set the stage for the first Vulcan launch for the US military by the end of the year.

The US Space Force has contracted ULA's Vulcan rocket to launch the majority of the military's space missions over the next few years. Pentagon officials are eager for Vulcan to get flying so they can start checking off a backlog of 25 military space missions the Space Force wants to launch by the end of 2027.

By any measure, the first Vulcan launch in January was a resounding success. On its debut flight, the new rocket delivered a commercial lunar lander to an on-target orbit. The next Vulcan mission, which ULA calls Cert-2, will be the rocket's second certification flight. The Space Force requires ULA to complete two successful flights of the Vulcan rocket before entrusting it to launch national security satellites.

Enlarge / Heads of state pose for a group photo at an event Tuesday celebrating the 75th anniversary of NATO. (credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

During their summit in Washington, DC, this week, NATO member states committed more than $1 billion to improve the sharing of intelligence from national and commercial reconnaissance satellites.

The agreement is a further step toward integrating space assets into NATO military commands. It follows the bloc's adoption of an official space policy in 2019, which recognized space as a fifth war-fighting domain alongside air, land, maritime, and cyberspace. The next step was the formation of the NATO Space Operations Center in 2020 to oversee space support for NATO military operations.

On June 25, NATO announced the establishment of a "space branch" in its Allied Command Transformation, which identifies trends and incorporates emerging capabilities into the alliance's security strategy.

Enlarge / United Launch Alliance's first Vulcan rocket on the launch pad before liftoff in January. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

The second flight of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket will take off in September with a dummy payload in place of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser spaceplane, preserving a chance for ULA to begin launching US military satellites on the new rocket by the end of the year, officials announced Wednesday.

Tory Bruno, ULA's CEO, announced the change in flight plan for the second Vulcan rocket in a conference call with reporters. There was little hope Sierra Space's Dream Chaser would be ready to make its first resupply run to the International Space Station before the end of the summer.

Dream Chaser had been booked to launch on the second test flight of ULA's Vulcan rocket for the last five years. With the near-flawless inaugural flight of Vulcan in January and a successful second flight later this year, ULA's Vulcan will be certified by the US Space Force to loft the military's most sensitive national security satellites into orbit.

Enlarge / Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year. (credit: Blue Origin)

After years of lobbying, protests, and bidding, Jeff Bezos's space company is now a military launch contractor.

The US Space Force announced Thursday that Blue Origin will compete with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for at least 30 military launch contracts over the next five years. These launch contracts have a combined value of up to $5.6 billion.

This is the first of two major contract decisions the Space Force will make this year as the military seeks to foster more competition among its roster of launch providers and reduce its reliance on just one or two companies.

Enlarge / A Russian Soyuz rocket climbs away from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on May 16.

The launch of a classified Russian military satellite last week deployed a payload that US government officials say is likely a space weapon.

In a series of statements, US officials said the new military satellite, named Kosmos 2576, appears to be similar to two previous "inspector" spacecraft launched by Russia in 2019 and 2022.

"Just last week, on May 16, Russia launched a satellite into low-Earth orbit that the United States assesses is likely a counter-space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low-Earth orbit," said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations. "Russia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite."