US military to prepare for a first ever space drill and conduct in-orbit combat exercise 

Space military force, is now preparing for mission ‘Victus Haze’

In an announcement by the Space Systems Command (SSC) on Thursday, Space Force, United States’ space military force, is now preparing for mission ‘Victus Haze,’ the world’s first attempt at any orbital combat. It will do so by using space vehicles manufactured by the two companies that Space Force has recently signed contracts with— Rocket Lab and True Anomaly— that must “demonstrate, under operationally realistic conditions, US Space Force’s ability to respond to irresponsible behaviour on orbit.”

True Anomaly and Rocket Lab have each been awarded around $30 million dollars for the mission with a grand total investment of $62 million dollars by the US Space Force in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). True Anomaly and Rocket Lab will both build rendezvous and proximity operation capable space vehicles and command centres, slated to be ready for demo by late 2025.

True Anomaly and Rocket Lab’s involvement

According to PR Newswire, True Anomaly’s Jackal will be one of the two premiere projects for this mission, alongside Rocket Lab’s yet to be announced vehicle. Once built, the vehicles will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station or Vandenberg Space Force Base to demonstrate rapid response to any kind of simulated on-orbit threats. 

True Anomaly, alongside it’s selection for Victus Haze, has also been awarded a $1.63 million through the SpaceWERZ Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) challenge. In effect, True Anomaly’s Jackal will be demonstrating rapid integration of payloads and prove its utility as a cost-effective, multi-tasking spacecraft made especially for various types of space security missions. 

Rocket Lab has been contracted to construct a spacecraft using it’s Electron rocket, which is the only reusable orbital-class small rocket. 

According to Spacewatch Global, once the building phase is completed for both these companies, the vehicles will then enter the hot standby, activation, alert and launch phases alongside several other successive phases. 

Mission Victus Haze

The goal of the mission is to use the two spacecrafts to simulate high stakes and potentially dangerous situations in space. This comes after Space Force’s previous initiative of depicting an orbital battle where one spaceplane intervened to protect a friendly satellite from an ‘adversary’ satellite. Mission Victus Haze is to follow along the same guidelines, including scenarios where satellites pose danger to US spacecrafts or foreign satellites or engage in spacecraft espionage against US military satellites.

“The commercial space industry is advancing at an unprecedented pace that will provide the Space Force additional options to quickly respond to adversary aggression,” said Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough, SSC’s materiel leader for Space Safari.

Birchenough added, “VICTUS HAZE will demonstrate and prove capabilities to be used for future TacRS operations in direct support of urgent Combatant Command on-orbit needs.”

This marks the first ever space-oriented military mission in the world and will, if successful, define a landmark case for future innovation in this sector. 

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