Lifeboat Foundation

For more than 50 years, near space has been viewed as a vast resource to exploit with few limits. In reality, near space is a very scarce resource. While international agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention take steps to protect this precious resource, no single global body is responsible for ensuring the long-term sustainability and safety of near space.

The current surge in the exploitation of outer space means that this lack of a global framework for space sustainability must be addressed immediately, or it will be too late; near space will be cluttered and unrecoverable. We are seeing increased use of near space for tourism and other business ventures and the deployment of megaconstellations comprising tens to hundreds of thousands of satellites. And this is just the start. Last month, we witnessed a Russian anti-satellite test that left portions of near space cluttered with orbital debris. Failure to implement a global framework with an enforcement mechanism for space sustainability could severely impact the ability to fully utilize the resource in the near future.

Today near space activities are subject to disparate space sustainability requirements, generally reliant on the requirements of the object’s launching state or conditions imposed by countries in which entities have market access. Some countries have developed well-crafted requirements for at least some space objects, but others have not. In addition, except for the items covered in existing treaties, like launching state liability, there is almost no harmonization on requirements, which further jeopardizes space sustainability.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ac9RBmY9Vd0

On October 15, 2020, the European Union imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials and a leading Russian research institute over the alleged use of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Russia dismissed as baseless the EU’s allegations that it had not complied with its obligations, under the convention it ratified in 1997, to discontinue its chemical weapons program. Russian officials said the country had nothing to do with Navalny’s poisoning and implied that if any party had used nerve agents on him, it would have been Western secret services. Vladimir Putin, who in 2017 had personally watched over the destruction of the last remaining Russian chemical weapons stash, ridiculed the findings of four separate laboratories, confirmed by the OPCW, that a Novichok-type organophosphate poison was identified in Alexey Navalny’s blood.

Two years earlier, in 2018, Russia had dismissed as unfounded allegations that its military intelligence had used Novichok to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Similarly, Russia had then stated that it had no ongoing chemical weapons program and had destroyed all of its prior arsenals; while alluding that UK agencies may have used their own stash of Novichok to poison the Skripals in a false-flag operation.

Continue reading “Russia’s Clandestine Chemical Weapons Programme and the GRU’s Unit 29155” »

“Specialists of the Central Military District’s search/rescue and parachute service have been relocated in full to the Republic of Kazakhstan to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent capsule with space tourists from Japan on its board,” the press office said in a statement.

The Central Military District has redeployed additional personnel from the Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals to bolster the basic group that provided for the safe launch of the Soyuz spacecraft. In particular, about 50 more rescuers have been redeployed to Kazakhstan together with eight Mi-8 helicopters and two PEM-1 and PEM-2 ‘Blue Bird’ search and evacuation vehicles, the statement says.

Overall, the search and rescue operation to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent module involves about 200 rescuers, 12 Mi-8 helicopters, two An-12 planes and an An-26 aircraft and over 20 motor vehicles, including six pieces of ‘Blue Bird’ rescue and evacuation equipment.

All good things come to an end.

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have proved to be something of a revolution in many aspects of our modern world. Among the most dramatic, in the field of combat.

The ability to project power at a distance without risking a human’s life is an incredibly technological feat. It could be so revolutionary, in fact (if some experts are to be believed), that it could put an end to more than a century of aerial dominance in warfare.

Continue reading “Will the Emergence of Drones Mean the End of Crewed Aircraft?” »

The US Navy announced it tested anti-submarine laser weapons in the Gulf of Aden — report.

#news #trending #currentevents.

Continue reading “US tests anti-submarine LASER weapons in the Gulf of Aden” »

Having completed sea trials, it will now have its combat system activated.

Back in December of 2017, we brought you news of the U.S. Navy’s stealth destroyer the U.S.S. Monsoor breaking down during sea trails. At the time, we asked the question if this event would spell the end for Zumwalt-class destroyers?

Continue reading “The Navy’s Last Stealth Zumwalt Destroyer Comes with 80 Megawatts of Power” »

The 41-year-old computing method can decode encrypted messages and help detect hidden military vehicles such as stealth aircraft.

And it’s likely to meet its 2024 deadline.

United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), a subsidiary of Rostec, the Russian state corporation that supports military manufacturing, has unveiled the first flight prototype of its S-70 Okhotnik combat drone, Tass reported. The unveiling that took place on Tuesday was attended by Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, Alexey Krivoruchko.

Continue reading “Russia’s Heavy Stealth Drone ‘Hunter’ is Ready for Its First Flight” »

By TASS Russian news agency

The source said:

“The flight development tests from an underwater carrier are planned to be resumed no sooner than in 2024. They will be carried out from the Project 885M submarine Perm that will differ from its predecessors by a slightly modified design. If the submarine is not be ready for the Tsirkon test-launches in 2024, they will be resumed in the first half of 2025,”