<\/p>\n
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n
The Space Force has delayed its next Tactically Responsive Space\u00a0mission, Victus Haze, until 2026, as one of its launch providers continues to recover from a rocket anomaly that occurred earlier this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Space Force had planned to fly the Victus Haze mission earlier this year, part of a larger effort to\u00a0refine\u00a0its ability to ready spacecraft and rockets for launch on rapid timelines.\u00a0The service first\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0this\u00a0concept in 2023<\/a> when it worked with spacecraft and launch firms to deliver a satellite in months and launch it\u00a0with just over a day\u2019s notice.\u00a0\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n In 2024, USSF and the Defense Innovation Unit\u2014the Pentagon\u2019s commercial technology hub\u2014selected Firefly Aerospace and Rocket Lab to provide launch services for Victus Haze<\/a>. Rocket Lab is to fly one of its own payloads from one of its pads in Virginia\u00a0or New Zealand, and\u00a0Firefly\u00a0will integrate and launch a payload built by\u00a0True Anomaly, a\u00a0Denver, Colo.-based\u00a0space startup.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Then in April,\u00a0Firefly\u2019s Alpha rocket\u2014which flew the first\u00a0TacRS\u00a0demo and is on deck to launch Victus Haze\u2014had a mishap, losing the rocket and its payload.\u00a0In late September, Alpha experienced a separate\u00a0anomaly during a\u00a0preflight\u00a0ground\u00a0test and lost its first stage as a result.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The company has since been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to launch, but Space Systems Command Director\u00a0Lt. Gen. Philip\u00a0Garrant told reporters Dec. 10 his team is working closely with Firefly to\u00a0monitor\u00a0its \u201canomaly resolution activities\u201d and has pushed Victus Haze to 2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want it to be successful, we want it to have learning,\u201d Garrant said during a media briefing at the\u00a0Spacepower\u00a0Conference in Orlando, Fla.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0continue working closely with the launch provider and industry to make sure that they\u2019re successful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Space Force describes Tactically Responsive Space as the ability to respond to threats against U.S. space systems. Potential TacRS missions could include\u00a0launching spacecraft on short notice, buying data from a\u00a0partner during a crisis or conflict, or\u00a0maneuvering prepositioned systems to augment a degraded satellite.\u00a0\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n For the first\u00a0TacRS\u00a0mission, Victus Nox,\u00a0contractors received notification from the service that they were entering a \u201chot standby stage,\u201d during which they\u00a0awaited\u00a0a\u00a0launch alert. When the alert came, they transported the satellite, built by Millennium Space\u00a0Systems, and completed prelaunch activities in just\u00a058 hours. Once they\u00a0received final\u00a0orders, Firefly launched the satellite 27 hours later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Victus Haze is meant to build on the success of that first mission.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0also more complex, featuring two rockets and two payloads that will\u00a0perform maneuver demonstrations and collect space domain awareness data once in orbit.\u00a0Garrant intentionally\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0provide more specificity on the expected Victus Haze launch date since the mission is designed for a rapid call-up period. <\/p>\n The service has two more\u00a0TacRS\u00a0missions planned after Victus Haze: Victus Sol and Victus\u00a0Surgo.\u00a0Both missions are expected to launch in 2026, with Surgo flying later in the year. An SSC spokesperson said the Victus Haze delay\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0impact\u00a0that timeline since the missions are independent. Firefly is on contract to fly the Victus Sol mission; the service\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0announced contractors for Victus\u00a0Surgo.\u00a0A fifth mission, Victus Salo, is also planned for\u00a0late\u00a0fiscal year 2026, but the service did not say whether its schedule has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Space Force plans to transition\u00a0TacRS\u00a0from\u00a0a\u00a0demonstration\u00a0effort to operations next year.<\/a>\u00a0The service\u2019s fiscal year 2026 budget includes $168 million for\u00a0TacRS\u2014$33 million in base funding, plus $135 million in reconciliation funds<\/a>\u2014a significant increase from the $30 million to $40 million Congress has appropriated over the last few years.\u00a0Beyond\u00a0planning for\u00a0a busy run of missions, USSF plans to use that money to\u00a0fund ground infrastructure, launch range improvements, and software that could support future\u00a0TacRS\u00a0missions.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6198,79,193,175027,175028,175029],"class_list":{"0":"post-351617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-firefly-aerospace","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-tacrs","12":"tag-tactically-responsive-space","13":"tag-victus-haze"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}