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The scant details about the timing of the launch order and the rapid delivery schedules are intentional, as the service wants the mission to closely resemble the operational conditions under which it would use the capability, dubbed Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lt. Col. Mackenzie Birchenough, who leads the TacRs program, described the service as being in the \u201cwalk\u201d phase of a \u201ccrawl, walk, run\u201d trajectory. Victus Nox will be its second such mission \u2014 the first occurred in 2021 \u2014 and the Space Force is planning a third effort for next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe ultimate goal for us is to get to an enduring TacRS capability by the 2025 or 2026 timeframe,\u201d Birchenough said during an April 20 panel at the Space Symposium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An \u201cenduring\u201d capability would be used for two primary purposes: to quickly launch satellites in response to threats in space \u2014 whether man-made or environmental \u2014 and to augment a system that was degraded or destroyed, she said. That could mean having a spare satellite on orbit that could be turned on or maneuvered into position as needed, working with commercial partners to buy data in a crisis or, as in the case of Victus Nox, have a satellite on the ground that\u2019s ready to be launched on demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re moving away from what the idea may have been in years past of you\u2019re just going to buy a bunch of satellites and they\u2019re going to sit in some actual barn somewhere . . . to the idea that we can pull something off that production line very quick and have it ready to go,\u201d Birchenough said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While a 24-hour turnaround time is the goal for Victus Nox, Birchenough said she expects the service will, one day, move even faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you ask folks out here today if they thought it was realistic that we\u2019re going to hit 24 hours sometime in the next six months, I would probably get some varying responses,\u201d she said. \u201cI think being able to shorten those timelines is definitely possible. And from an operational standpoint, I think the need is going to be less than 24 hours in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The upcoming Victus Nox mission and another effort planned for next year will inform the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space acquisition strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":71712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":23,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,29,33,36,23,102],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3468],"class_list":["post-49847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-home","category-newsletters","category-space","category-space-symposium"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZF7JDESDXRD2FOJAS6JOSMCV4E","arc_canonical_url":"\/battlefield-tech\/space\/2023\/04\/25\/victus-nox-mission-to-push-space-force-closer-to-on-demand-launch\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n