{"id":760524,"date":"2026-07-13T14:53:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/760524\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:53:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:53:20","slug":"getting-ready-for-lunar-planetary-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/760524\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting ready for lunar planetary defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Development in space is gaining serious momentum. Impressively, NASA recently\u00a0unveiled plans<\/a>\u00a0for a new moon base \u2014 the first concrete step toward permanently moving human civilization off Earth. However, as we become an interplanetary species, it is important to protect this multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment while building a habitable environment.\u00a0That starts with bolstering the Space Force\u2019s ability to detect and counter asteroid threats to American lunar infrastructure.<\/p>\n

This is important because a permanent lunar presence also means a permanent target.\u00a0During their lunar flyby this Spring, the\u00a0Artemis 2 crew witnessed<\/a>\u00a0and documented six separate meteorite impacts on the lunar surface. In March of 2022, a Chinese\u00a0Long March 3C rocket crashed on the moon<\/a>, creating a double crater, and on August 5, 2026 a\u00a0SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is projected to impact\u00a0<\/a>the far side of the moon at 5,500 miles per hour. Those impacts are minor inconveniences compared with what could happen if the lunar surface is impacted by a large asteroid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The recent case of Asteroid YR4 illustrates the concern.\u00a0In late December 2024, when NASA scientists discovered YR4, there were initial fears that the nearly 200-foot-wide asteroid could collide with Earth. But as time passed, its orbit instead appeared to be heading toward intersection with the moon. Thankfully, in March, the James Webb telescope confirmed that\u00a0YR4 would not strike the moon<\/a>\u00a0and destroy billions of dollars of infrastructure in geostationary and low Earth orbit. But the \u201cnear miss\u201d also offered a stark lesson: The Space Force was not ready to defend the nation\u2019s interests in space, nor was it sufficiently aware of those threats.<\/p>\n

This is a serious problem. The prevailing\u00a0law (known as Title 10)<\/a>\u00a0requires that the Space Force \u201cprotect the interests of the United States in space.\u201d Those threats include asteroids. A surprising number of guardians, however, are unaware of their statutory and presidentially-specified duties. Every White House\u00a0since 2016<\/a>\u00a0has had planetary defense strategies assigned to the Department of Defense. For example, the most recent 2023\u00a0National Preparedness Strategy & Action Plan For Near-Earth \u041eb\u0458\u0435ct Hazards And Planetary Defense<\/a>\u00a0contains 14 presidential taskings for the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Analysis by the scientific community suggested that, if YR4 had struck the trailing edge of the moon, it would throw up 100 million tons of ejecta. Within days, 10 million tons of it would fall directly on Earth. Moreover, as the ejecta fell toward Earth, it would pass through our satellite infrastructure, exposing our satellites (and astronauts) to the equivalent of a decade of exposure in just days \u2014 as much as 1,000 times the background micrometeoroid levels. For some perspective, even a tiny grain of sand traveling at hypersonic velocities can destroy a satellite.<\/p>\n

Such an event could be catastrophic, threatening vital military communications, missile warning and nuclear command and control satellites in geostationary orbit. In middle Earth orbit, it would threaten GPS (and all dependent services). And in low Earth orbit, the densest region, it would threaten spy satellites, civilian Earth observation satellites and broadband internet such as Starlink, the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope, new private space stations and even private spaceflight participants. The costs would be measured in lives and in hundreds of billions (potentially trillions) in lost vital infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But if the scientific community has a clear understanding of the\u00a0threat<\/a>\u00a0and possible\u00a0responses<\/a>, the United States defense community is less attuned to the risk \u2014 at least so far. America\u2019s adversaries, by contrast, are responding to the threat. Notably, the Chinese Space Force has already started planning a\u00a0broad system<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0begun hiring<\/a>\u00a0for its own planetary defense Force, and is planning a\u00a0kinetic interception test next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We would do well to follow suit. Fundamentally, the planetary defense mission offers a vital opportunity for the Space Force to enhance its capabilities and competencies. Congress, meanwhile, has an\u00a0opportunity<\/a>\u00a0to advance the cause by pressuring the Defense Department to ensure the Space Force is fulfilling its statutory duties to protect American interests in space. Once it does, it needs to fully fund and resource the planetary defense mission, because the need is pressing \u2014 and potentially transformative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peter A. Garretson is a Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. where he co-directs the organization\u2019s Space Policy Initiative. He is the co-author of\u00a0\u201cScramble for the Skies\u201d,\u00a0\u201cThe Next Space Race\u201d,\u00a0\u201cSpace Shock\u201d,\u00a0and the recently released\u00a0\u201cSpace Nuclear Weapons Analysis\u201d\u00a0AFPC Special Report.<\/p>\n

SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community\u2019s diverse perspectives. Whether you\u2019re an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion (at) spacenews.com<\/a> to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. If you have something to submit, read some of our recent opinion articles<\/a> and our submission guidelines<\/a> to get a sense of what we\u2019re looking for. The perspectives shared in these opinion articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent their employers or professional affiliations.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Development in space is gaining serious momentum. Impressively, NASA recently\u00a0unveiled plans\u00a0for a new moon base \u2014 the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1767,51725,79,722,193,146812],"class_list":["post-760524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-opinion","tag-planetary-defense","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space","tag-yr4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760524","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=760524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}