US to Monitor Space Between Earth, Moon, and Beyond

The U.S. military will monitor the space between the Earth and the moon, above the space where traditional satellites remain in orbit around the planet, according to a video released by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

"Until now, the United States space mission extended 22,000 miles above Earth. That was then, this is now," a narrator says in the clip. The AFRL also operates the Cislunar Highway Patrol System, or CHPS, which monitors the space that holds satellites and orbital debris and is described on the AFRL website as "a spaceflight experiment designed to demonstrate foundational space domain awareness capabilities in the cislunar regime."

The video states that "the Air Force Research Laboratory is extending that range by 10 times, and the operations area of the United States by 1,000 times, taking our reach to the far side of the moon into cislunar space, far beyond the crowd."

Brian Weeden, the director of program planning for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, told Ars Technica that the program is "the first step for them to be able to know what's going on in cislunar space and then identify any potential threats to U.S. activities."

According to the video, CHPS "will bypass thousands of government and commercial satellites as it makes its way to a rarely-before-visited domain 272,000 miles from Earth."

It adds, "The U.S. Space Force will ensure the peaceful development of space, keeping our missions safe and secure in these distant frontiers. The responsible use of space and unfettered access to space domain awareness ensures collision avoidance, on-orbit logistics, communication, navigation and maneuvering, all critical to the United States and allied space commerce, science and exploration."

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