Russian Kosmos 2612 shadowed the Finnish IceEye satellite. The IceEye is the tool. That delivers intelligence data for Ukraine. The resolution. Of. Those satellites. It is less than 30 cm. A radar satellite could act as a communication platform. If. The radar antenna and computer are programmed to receive and send data in radio transmissions.
This is an interesting detail in its orbital operations. Maybe Russia has plans to attack satellites. This kind of attack can happen using conventional weapons. Those weapons are rockets and colliding satellites. And ASAT missiles. They could use extremely strong radio waves. Or. Russians can use things like nuclear weapons. Those weapons can destroy multiple satellites. And. Some experts call this scenario “Orbital Pearl Harbour”. This kind of strike can destroy multiple satellites.
Including.Reconnaissance and communication platforms. Those platforms play a vital role in modern drone operations. A nuclear explosion in space near Earth is always a catastrophe. That EMP can shut down communications. It can also shut down navigation and many other satellites. On Earth, those orbital detonations can cause damage. They can cut electricity in city areas. Or cut electricity from ships. That are under the detonation areas. The nuclear explosion’s power determines its effect. The famous “Dominick Starfish Prime” test was 1,4 mt. That test shut down electricity from Oahu, Hawaii, in 1962.
At that time. Electric networks were less vulnerable than today. This means. The EMP pulse can destroy all electronics. In. A much larger area than in 1962. The problem is that Starlink provides Very. Good data security and good connections. This makes those satellites pretty good targets. And. This is why new drone makers rethink their relationships with Starlink and Starshield services. The problem is that there are many ways to jam satellites.
One is the targeted EMP that destroys its electronics. But. Another way. It is to create a plasma layer between the satellite and its clients. That thing can be made by using low-yield nuclear weapons.
Another version. It is. To use high-power radio- or microwave transmitters. That ion layer can deny satellite communication. This block can shut down communication from both sides.
And. That’s why Military specialists thought the plasma block was not used in real life.
The plasma block. It denies. An ability. To use radar. The plasma block blocks all radio waves. The thing. That. Makes the situation complicated. Is that. If. The other side doesn’t use satellites. Those plasma systems create plasma in the ionosphere. That means atmospheric satellites at 5- 35 km altitude can partially replace satellites. The atmospheric satellite can be miniature. That hangs in a weather balloon. That kind of satellite could hang that plasma layer below. Another tool is aircraft-based systems. They provide location and control information between drones and operators.
This means Russia may try to shut down Starlink and IceEye satellites. In future conflicts, satellites are primary targets. They offer vital information to the military. Blocking that information protects their own targets. Destroying satellites denies them use in drone operations.
“The J-31 differs from the F-35 in that it has two engines, which in turn reduces its area ruling, making for more efficient supersonic flight, including future supercruise once the J-31 obtains more powerful engines. Hunter Chen” (Popular mechanics)
Invisibility cloaks. Or. Invisibility fabrics are tools. Whose purpose is to improve servicemen's survivability. Those systems are used in Libya and some other modern conflicts. This system also helped the F-15 crew members hide when their plane was shot down in Iran. Snipers. And other operators who want to hide from their enemies are almost certainly using those things. The invisibility cloak. Can be connected.
With new types of recon boats, cars, satellites, and some helicopters. The big problem with those systems is that they cannot hide objects from radar or infrared. The important thing today is invisibility. And. The invisibility cloak can offer visual invisibility for users. This system can make vehicles invisible, but the big problem is: how to install it on high-speed jets.
In normal scenarios. The stealth material absorbs radar signals. This means that the stealth material conducts energy to the battery. Or it transforms it into heat. Then that material must conduct that heat somewhere. No material can absorb energy forever. There is a limit. After. The material reaches that energy limit. The radar-absorbing material (RAM) will be broken.
It is always possible that some stealth fighter gets hit in enemy airspace. This can cause a situation. That allows the enemy to hack the material. And this means that. No part of the stealth airplane must fall into hostile hands.
If. The material turns hot. That heat makes the aircraft visible. In. infrared (IIR) imaging sensors. That technology uses machine vision and AI components to detect targets.
if. The EMP weapon is targeted. At. The area. It can destroy the electronics that those systems use. This is the problem with high-tech systems. The EMP is a high-power radio signal. That. The radio transmitter can create it. It uses high-power impulse capacitors. The EMP can terminate all electronics. And make those kinds of invisibility cloaks malfunction. The EMP can also destroy electronics in drone swarms. The high-power EMP weapon can also destroy electronics in aircraft, cars, boats, and everywhere else. After the EMP strikes, the target seems unharmed. But all computers are destroyed. Because. Of a high-voltage spike. The EMP impulse. Can be sent from high-power radars. So. The EMP weapon can be a radar with extremely high transmission power.
The new quantum stealth systems. They can make all electromagnetic waves slide over the surface. If. That surface cannot be impacted by electromagnetic radiation. That radiation cannot transport energy into the aircraft’s structure. So. That means. Quantum stealth should protect against lasers. And. Other directed energy weapons. The ability. To turn light away from the target. It makes it invisible. But. This ability. Like counter-radiation. It makes it possible. To. Turn the laser beams away. This requires a counter laser beam. That has the same wavelength. With. Attacking lasers. The loyal wingman drone can block the laser beam. That destroys the loyal wingman drone. But it leaves the aircraft time to point its own weapon at the laser. This means that. The last ultimate solution. It is replaced. By. Another ultimate solution. And. In the world of military. There is an endless race between the ultimate attacker and the ultimate defender.
“By bending light around an object, the science of transformation optics could enable the first working 3D cloaking device. A new advance in metalenses, if successfully applied, could extend a cloak to the visible light portion of the spectrum, enabling the first true "invisibility cloak. Credit: Hyperstealth Biotechnology. ("BigThink, The sci-fi inspired “cloaking device” makes invisibility possible
The cloak can be covered. Using carbonite class. That class can offer a hard shell for those vehicles. Carbonite class is the hardest material for spacecraft. This kind of material can form a new type of armour. The carbonite class can protect the invisibility cloak. The big problem is that. The material can be seen on radar. The fact is that. Most of the cheap drones use regular CCD cameras. And that kind of invisibility cloak can protect against regular CCD cameras. But the problem is that. The drone swarm can involve different types of drones. Each drone can have different types of cameras. This makes them hard to feint.
New quantum technologies are making traditional stealth materials useless. Modern missiles use artificial intelligence and multi-sensor homing systems. This means. They are immune to traditional infrared jamming systems, including torches. The jammer systems and other active tools are effective. But the problem is the active radio transmission. Anti-radiation missiles can turn those jammers against their users. An infrared jammer also sends IR radiation. That radiation can jam traditional IR-homing missiles. Optical fire control with laser and microwave systems can use those jammers as targets.
Things like plasma-stealths are under development. Plasma stealth is a tool that can protect aircraft against radar. The big problem is that. Plasma denies radio waves from traveling through it in both directions. This effect causes radio silence. When. Spacecraft arrive in the atmosphere. Friction raises its temperature. And it turns the air around it into plasma. This plasma layer denies radio communication. Through. It. This plasma layer makes it hard to develop hypersonic aircraft. And it makes it hard to develop plasma stealth.
The answer can be lidar. Laser radars can see through this layer. Hypersonic cruise systems can use AI-boosted lidar. And. Optical sensor systems can see targets. Another possibility is this. The aircraft uses loyal wingman-type drones to drop. Other drones to operational areas. Those drones can mark targets. That is one version os the new types of systems. The hypersonic drone travels over the target area. It drops those marker drones. And then the next wave sends weapons to targets.
“This artist's concept of JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission shows the deployed spacecraft, Mars, and Mars's largest moon, Phobos, all together. MMX will orbit and survey Phobos from up close before deploying a rover to scout out the surface, and then land on it to collect samples and return them to Earth: the most ambitious sample return mission yet to be conducted in space exploration history.” (BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
JAXA's mission to Mars is to bring 15 grams of Martian moon dust to Earth. This mission is the next step in Japanese space innovation. The last mission brought samples from asteroids. The new mission is more difficult. The 25 kg IDEFIX rover collects samples from Phobos. The new mission is called Mars Moons eXploration (MMX). The spacecraft uses multiple sensors. Researchers hope. That. They can solve the secrets of the carbon asteroid called Phobos. The thing. That makes Phobos and Deimos very interesting is this. They are carbon asteroids. Maybe. Mars captured those asteroids. Or, in some other models, a cosmic catastrophe separated them from Mars. In some models, Phobos is like a pile of gravel. In some other models, it’s like some diamond. A third model suggests that Phobos is sand. That ice binds together.
The MMX can answer that question. If Phobos is dense material, it could have formed when a cosmic catastrophe threw it away from Mars. The gravity could destroy the pile of gravel. MMX can also answer the question. Do those moons, Phobos and Deimos, have the same origin?
Their surface is covered by dust. That makes it hard to get data from their surface. That. Dark. Or brown dust is the reason. For. Why those moons are classified as “carbon asteroids”. The dust is similar to that that covers our Moon. But the main part of those moons' surface It is hidden under that dust.
“The relative sizes of the asteroid-like moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos is the innermost moon of Mars, while the smaller Deimos is more than twice as far away. Despite their appearances as looking similar to asteroids, it’s thought that Phobos and Deimos were once joined by a larger, third, inner moon, which has since decayed and fallen back to Mars. All are thought to originate from a giant, ancient impact.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.” (BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
“This artist’s concept shows Japan’s Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft, carrying a NASA instrument to study the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. The mission will contain a sample return component, and after collecting material from Phobos in 2027, it should return that component to Earth in the year 2031. We could know if Mars possessed ancient life, and if Phobos is made out of Martian material, just 5 years after the successful launch of MMX.”(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
The probe itself carries multiple very high-accuracy sensors. The list of those sensors is from the BigThink web magazine.
TENGOO is a high-resolution camera, resolving features as small as 40 centimetres (16 inches) on the surface, and can scout out a safe landing site.
OROCHI is a multiwavelength and wide-angle imager, perfect for identifying organic matter and water-rich material.
LIDAR is a laser altimeter that will measure altitude and reflectivity everywhere on the surface.
MIRS is an infrared spectrometer that will map out the distribution of any water-related substance over the entire surface.
MEGANE is a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer that can map out the chemical elements composing the Martian moons.
CMDM is a dust monitor that can detect any dust rings around Mars, down to a minimum size of as little as 10 microns.
MSA is a mass spectrometer that will measure ions released by the moon itself, revealing the presence and cycles of ices.
(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
“Rather than only the two Martian moons we see today, Phobos and Deimos, a collision followed by a circumplanetary disk may have given rise to three moons of Mars, where only two survive today. The idea is that Mars’s once-innermost moon was destroyed and fell back onto Mars long ago. This hypothetical transient moon of Mars, proposed in a 2016 paper, is now the leading idea in the formation of Mars’s moons, and helps explain the enormous differences in topography between Mars’s northern and southern hemispheres. Credit: LabEx UnivEarthS | Université de Paris Diderot.”(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
“This cute little guy is a model of the IDEFIX rover: a small rover designed to be landed on Phobos in advance of the main sample collection and return lander. The IDEFIX rover is 23 kilograms in mass, which would have the equivalent weight on Phobos of just 15 grams. By characterizing. the moon’s soil in advance and testing the ability to operate a wheeled vehicle on an ultra-low-density body, it will pave the way for the success of the sample return portion of the MMX mission. Credit: Artvill/Wikimedia Commons. “(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
“The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument, part of Mars Global Surveyor, collected over 200 million laser altimeter measurements in constructing this topographic map of Mars. The Tharsis region (centre-left) is the highest elevation region on the planet, while the lowlands appear in blue. Note the much lower elevation of the northern hemisphere compared to the southern, with a mean difference in elevation of around ~5 km, thought to arise from the fallback of a third, large, former Martian moon.
Credit: Mars Global Surveyor MOLA Team.” (BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
“This close-up image of asteroid Itokawa was taken by the Hayabusa spacecraft in 2005 near its closest approach to the asteroid. Different parts of the asteroid have different densities, indicating that it formed as a contact binary from two predecessor “dirty snowball” asteroids. Itokawa likely has a history where several different smaller objects merged together to form what we see today: a common story among asteroid belt and Kuiper belt objects in our Solar System. Itokawa was the first object beyond Earth’s orbit to be successfully landed on, sampled, and to have its material returned to Earth.
Credit: JAXA “ (BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
The mission's purpose is to find out:
Was Mars ever home to life?
Was Phobos the result of a Martian impact or an asteroid capture event?
When will deposited Martian material display signs of being hydrated versus anhydrous?
(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
The problem is that the sensors must dig through the dust. Before. They can see Phobos’s surface. The probe uses a small rover to collect those samples. The probe drops that rover on Phobos. Before. It lands. The IDEFIX is the first rover to travel so far in the solar system.
The Big Think magazine describes IDEFIX like this:
And, in addition to all of those, IDEFIX is the small, mobile rover that will land on and explore the surface of Phobos before the main spacecraft lands to collect data and samples fit for the sample return component. There are three main drilling, sampling, collection, and return instruments:
CSMP, which will excavate the surface of Phobos to a depth of 2 cm (just under 1 inch), filling a core soil tube for the sample return capsule.
P-SMP, which will collect surface material pneumatically by injecting nitrogen gas on sub-second timescales.
And SRC, which is the sample return capsule that will store the samples collected by CSMP and P-SMP and return them to Earth’s surface.
(BigThink, MMX mission to reveal the origins of the Martian moons)
This kind of system requires highly advanced artificial intelligence and advanced mission planning. This sample-collecting system can collect data for new missions. Its purpose could be to return samples from Mars. Those samples can tell us whether Mars was once alive. And they can also answer questions. Why is Mars dry? Maybe. There was liquid water. Only for a short time. There is a possibility. That. Prokaryotic bacteria formed on that planet.
