The US military mission in space began without anyone noticing

Apparently that’s what happened last week. Rocket Lab relaunched its software to commercial customers last week, but the company announced it was suspending it last Tuesday “to do some billing,” without providing additional details. Safety alerts began appearing on airline and marine websites a few days later, just hours before the Victus Haze trigger window opened on Friday.

The launch time, which is expected to be around 6:20 a.m. EDT (10:20 UTC) on Friday, is scheduled to coincide with the orbit of one of New Zealand’s True Anomaly satellites. True Anomaly’s Jackal-0004 satellite was launched from California on May 3 on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Publicly available data has shown that Rocket Lab’s Victus Haze Puma satellite came within 100 kilometers of the Jackal satellite just eight hours after launch. according to Jonathan McDowellan astronomer who professionally tracks astronomical events using open data.

Based on previous statements by government officials, the Victus Haze mission will be carried out with additional procedures to bring Rocket Lab’s Puma satellite closer to the Jackal of the True Anomaly. In the end, the satellites are expected to switch roles, with Jackal as the inspector and Puma as the target.

True Anomaly, a Colorado-based company that builds highly flexible satellites for national security, he announced last Thursday that its latest Jackal spacecraft has met its “testing objectives” after reaching orbit in early May to demonstrate the satellite’s capabilities for “end-to-end non-contact and near-field operations.”

“The wolf has been fully deployed and is preparing for the next phase of operations,” True Anomaly said, without specifying what the next phase would entail.