Sweden and the US based military satellite – New Technology

Sweden and the USA is about to develop a small satellite for military purposes. A trial version to be launched in 2016, should be able to signal scout the areas of the planet and take pictures in space.

Armed Forces finances for the first time the development of a military satellite. This is done in collaboration with AFRL, Air Force Research Laboratory, the US Air Force Research Lab, whose research group is in Albuquerque in New Mexico.

The project will states determine which military use they can of nano-satellites – a satellite that may weigh up to 10 kg. Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, FMV, leading the development project on the Swedish side, but also försvarsmyndigheten FOI participate as well as the FRA, the National Defence Radio Establishment.

– The idea is to develop a technology demonstrator. We want to try to learn and acquire skills in this area, says Lieutenant Colonel Arne Norlander, at the Armed Forces command staff.

The satellite will this summer undergo tests in a vacuum chamber. And just over a year, in 2016, the Sparc 1, as the small test satellite units, to be in orbit around the Earth.

– We hope it will get to go “piggyback” on the back of an American launcher. But the queue right now to get the place, says Eva Bernhard Daughter, space manager at FMV.

Exactly when and from where Sparc 1 will be postponed is not decided. Possibly it will be from the military launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Sparc 1 becomes as big as a shoe box, and will that contain hard-packed, space-resistant and miniaturized electronics. A power system with solar panels, batteries and circuit boards must ensure that the satellite will be powered when it circles the Earth in an orbit.

But the may not have its own propulsion system, but will use the momentum from the launch.

– We hope it will stay in orbit for so long that we have time to do the experiments we do, before approaching the atmosphere and burn up, says Eva Bernhard Daughter.

Along planning Sweden and US is also hanging loads on the satellite. They involve a signals receiver, an optical sensor and a software radio, which will be used to communicate with the satellite and transmitting the satellite data.

According Eva Bernhard Daughter comprises the optical sensor of a star-end camera to take pictures of each other satellites and space debris is located. At the same time, it is possible that the camera can physically look down on earth, she says.

– But it will be tested to see objects in orbits – not objects on earth, she says.

The project Sparc-1 belongs to is called Napa, Nano Satellite And Plug and-play architecture, has been ongoing since 2006. The technology means that components are standardized so that they can be put together like Lego pieces, reducing construction costs.

2013, the parties reached the third phase of the project, Napa3, which runs until 2018-2020. It is now the satellite will be tested in space. The price for this phase is $ 12 million or 90 million.

Behind the Napa 3 is a Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Sweden for collaborative research from 2011, and a project agreement between AFRL and FMV, from 2013.

– For our part, we want to explore whether it is possible to use this technology for signal intelligence purposes, says Fredrik Wallin, spokesperson of the FRA.

He says the hope is that nano-satellite will be able to provide the Armed Forces Strategic intelligence information especially for areas of action or conflict, located at large distances from Sweden.

FRA also seem to cooperate with his US counterpart NSA in terms of Napa3. Documents from the US signals intelligence authority leaked by Edward Snowden – and revealed by SVT’s Mission Review – shows that the FRA and the NSA share information about Napa3.

The agenda for a meeting in the US in spring 2013, then-FRA-chief Ingvar Åkesson update high NSA managers about the state of the project. Fredrik Wallin would not confirm that the intelligence organizations collaborating on the satellite signalspaningsdel.

– The type of information I can not comment, he said.

If it eventually becomes an operational military satellite remains to be seen. Eva Bernhard Daughter at FMV makes clear that at present there is no decision to develop such.