The Future of War

This is the third in a four-part series exploring the broader consequences of building for asteroid mining. Resource extraction is our mission, and the technologies and operational capabilities required to achieve it have applications that extend far beyond mining itself. Read the first post here and the second post here.

For nearly seven years, an unidentified object drifted through cislunar space. Astronomers first detected it in 2015, during a search for potentially hazardous asteroids, and provisionally designated it WE0913A. But it was not an asteroid. It was a spent rocket stage that analysts initially concluded was the upper stage of a Falcon 9. By late 2021, calculations revealed where it was headed: directly into the Moon.

Weeks before the predicted impact, spectral analysis identified the object as the third stage of the Long March 3C rocket used for China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission, although China disputed the attribution. 

On March 4, 2022, WE0913A struck the lunar far side near Hertzsprung crater. A few months later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter located the impact site, and what it found raised more questions than it answered: the object had produced an unusual double crater, suggesting there was additional mass on the front of the booster that has never been publicly accounted for. 

The episode exposed a fundamental weakness in humanity’s understanding of activity beyond geostationary orbit. WE0913A was not attempting to conceal its identity. It was a large piece of abandoned hardware, launched on a publicly known mission by a country with a major space program. Yet for years, this multi-ton object moved through the Earth-Moon system without a reliable identity.

If humanity struggled for years to identify a discarded rocket body, imagine the challenge of determining intent of an active, maneuvering spacecraft in a contested cislunar environment.

That uncertainty has consequences. When national security decision-makers cannot confidently determine what an object is, where it is moving, or why it is maneuvering, they must make decisions with incomplete information. Spacecraft may be forced to maintain excessive standoff distances because the risk of collision cannot be accurately assessed. An unpredicted maneuver may be interpreted as threatening even when it is benign. A routine approach could be mistaken for an antagonistic act. In a contested environment, uncertainty can quickly become miscalculation, and miscalculation can become escalation.

The first requirement for operating beyond GEO is therefore understanding. The United States needs a persistent ability to detect, track, identify, and characterize objects across cislunar space. Once an object’s behavior and intent are better understood, leaders can determine whether any response is warranted. If it is, they must also have a spacecraft capable of responding on an operationally relevant timeline.

Both requirements depend on the same underlying condition: presence. 

From uncertainty to understanding

WE0913 is an illuminating example of what rapid responsiveness in cislunar space should be able to accomplish.

When an unidentified object appears beyond GEO, we can provide two options. The first is to launch a commercially available spacecraft on a dedicated mission. The second is to retask one of our spacecraft that is already operating in deep space. 

In the case of a dedicated mission, AstroForge is able to produce a deep space spacecraft in fewer than ten months. Once complete, that spacecraft could be integrated onto a launch vehicle in roughly one month and reach cislunar space within about a week of launch. From there, it could immediately begin maneuvering toward the anomalous object and begin direct observation.

Depending on the mission configuration, optical imagery could reveal the object’s dimensions, attitude, and other characteristics; thermal observations could help operators understand whether its behavior is consistent with a discarded rocket stage or an operating spacecraft; and hyperspectral imagery could help characterize the surface materials and distinguish major components. 

The second option is even faster. When multiple AstroForge spacecraft were already operating throughout deep space, operators could simply retask the vehicle that is most favorably positioned vis-a-vis the target. The response timeline would no longer need to include spacecraft production, launch, or Earth departure, but would compress to a matter of days. 

In either scenario, the objective is the same: reduce uncertainty and empower decision-makers.

A domain we cannot yet see clearly

Humanity has mastered the ability to launch objects into space, but we have not yet mastered the ability to maintain custody of them once they are there. That gap will become increasingly apparent as governments and commercial companies send more missions to the Moon, Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, and other destinations beyond GEO. Some objects will transmit cooperative signals and follow well-understood trajectories. Others may remain silent, maneuver unexpectedly, or operate in ways that are difficult to distinguish from natural objects or debris.

The region is unforgiving in ways that are easy to underestimate, making maintaining awareness in this environment nearly impossible. The volume of space in the cislunar domain is roughly a thousand times larger than all the orbital space below GEO, and nearly all the infrastructure humanity has developed to detect and track spacecraft was designed for regimes closer to the planet. 

Closer to Earth, the United States maintains extensive catalogues of satellites and debris. Their trajectories can be observed repeatedly and, in many cases, predicted with reasonable confidence. Beyond GEO, that task becomes much harder. Objects appear extremely faint, if they appear at all, and they move under three-body dynamics – trajectories shaped by the interacting gravitational forces of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun in combination – so they may follow paths that bear little resemblance to conventional Earth orbits. Such paths can make the assumptions built into traditional tracking systems less useful. 

Ground-based sensors also face basic physical limits. Many were built to observe closer orbital regimes, while the geometries and distances involved in cislunar space create major coverage gaps. GPS signals do not stretch far beyond GEO. In addition, at sufficient distance an artificial object and a small celestial body can appear as the same low-magnitude point of light moving against a field of pinprick stars. WE0913A is proof of this fact. 

A persistent commercial layer can help provide that presence: smaller spacecraft already operating in deep space that can respond to emerging needs and navigate with limited support from Earth.

 AstroForge is building those capabilities because asteroid mining demands them.  

The demand signal for greater awareness is growing

The Space Force has spent several years expanding its conception of the operational domain beyond geostationary orbit, and it now uses the term xGEO to describe that region, which includes cislunar space, lunar orbit, and the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Space Force units used NASA’s Artemis I mission to test their ability to maintain custody of a known, cooperative spacecraft as it traveled around the Moon, and that exercise has been a springboard into further work in this area.

More recently, cislunar capabilities have become explicit national priorities. In December 2025, the White House issued an executive order directing a sustained presence beyond Earth orbit. That document also called for a more responsive national security space architecture built partly through the integration of commercial space capabilities. Within months, the USSF stood up a Cislunar Coordination Office on the acquisition side, supported by a task force charged with building out cislunar capability and identifying where industry can contribute.

In recent months, the government has gotten more specific about the capabilities it needs. U.S. Space Command’s FY28 space technology priority list names “cislunar and xGEO characterization, navigation, and communication and control technologies” as areas of interest. Cislunar is a named focus area in the SPACECOM commander’s priorities, and the Space Force’s own long-range planning documents treat the region as part of the future operational landscape. 

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman put it plainly: “Wherever U.S. interests go, so will go the U.S. Space Force.” 

The demand signal is clear. Yet the operational capabilities required to meet it are lacking.

The first requirement: information

Making that model real begins with information. Asteroid missions confront the problem by necessity. A spacecraft approaching a small bodies cannot assume its target will appear exactly where ground-based observations predicted months or years earlier. It must detect the faint object, estimate its motion, and continually refine that estimate on approach — millions of kilometers from Earth, with no GPS and no ground station in the loop for every decision. 

AstroForge is developing a multi-object tracking architecture designed to acquire and maintain tracks on unknown, uncooperative objects without prior knowledge of them. This detection and tracking layer is the first step toward distinguishing routine activity from an anomaly, and an anomaly from a credible threat.  

AstroForge’s spacecraft can contribute to this awareness in several ways. They could carry dedicated government sensors as hosted payloads. They could also contribute observations collected through their native optical-navigation systems. A spacecraft traveling through cislunar space could observe an object from a geometry unavailable to a telescope on Earth.

Commercial spacecraft would supplement, not replace, exquisite national security systems built for specialized national-security missions. These systems will remain necessary for the most demanding and sensitive missions. Instead, commercial space systems would provide a minimum viable layer of awareness while more specialized architectures are designed, funded, built, and deployed. 

Autonomous navigation enables persistent presence

Providing awareness in deep space requires spacecraft that can operate with limited support from Earth.

Near Earth, spacecraft can rely on mature tracking networks, frequent communication, and positioning and timing infrastructure developed over decades. Those assumptions weaken as spacecraft move farther away. GPS fades. Communications become delayed and intermittent. Ground-based observations may provide less precise information about a spacecraft’s position relative to nearby objects. In a contested environment, interference and jamming threaten to compound these limitations.

Ultimately, a spacecraft cannot provide persistent awareness or responsive maneuver if it must wait for an operator on Earth to make every navigational decision. 

It must estimate its own position using onboard sensors, determine the location and movement of nearby objects, identify deviations from its expected trajectory, and make or recommend corrections. It must continue operating through long periods of limited communication and in regions where no established navigation infrastructure exists.

Asteroid mining requires this autonomy by design. A mining spacecraft must navigate toward a poorly characterized object, update its understanding as new observations become available, and approach without colliding with or losing custody of its target. The same ground-independent navigation required to reach and operate around an asteroid enables spacecraft to observe, reposition around, and respond to other objects beyond GPS range.

Autonomy is therefore not a separate benefit. It is the foundation that allows commercial spacecraft to provide both awareness and response.

The second requirement: responsiveness on an operational timeline

Detecting an unknown object is only the beginning. While a distant observation may reveal the presence of an object, it may not reveal whether the object is operational or what capabilities it carries. Resolving those questions may require a closer look.

Asteroid mining means approaching, matching, inspecting, and operating around an uncooperative object in deep space. That is rendezvous and proximity operations by definition. A spacecraft architecture capable of doing this routinely around asteroids can do it for other objects.

The Space Force has placed increasing emphasis on tactically responsive space: the ability to react quickly to events in an adversarial environment. Most responsive-space demonstrations so far have focused on shortening the time needed to integrate and launch a spacecraft. But beyond GEO, that solves only part of the problem. A rocket may leave the pad within days, but the payload can still take weeks or even months to reach an object in cislunar space. In distant regimes, in other words, rapid launch can still mean a slow operational response.

The acquisition timeline can be even longer. Defining requirements, awarding a contract, designing a bespoke spacecraft, completing testing, and placing the system into operation may take years. By the time a dedicated capability arrives, the operational need may have changed or the opportunity to respond may have passed.

That process may be necessary for the most demanding national-security missions, but it creates a gap between the recognition of an operational need and the arrival of a dedicated capability. Commercial spacecraft can compress both timelines. 

The Space Force’s commercial strategy reflects understanding of that gap. The service has called for commercial capabilities to be integrated directly into operational architectures and has identified industry as a source of faster iteration, lower cost, and innovation. Its leaders have also acknowledged that traditional acquisition models alone cannot provide the speed, scale, resilience, and adaptability the service requires. Cislunar space may be where that shift is tested first. 

Companies operating for commercial purposes can build common spacecraft platforms, fly them repeatedly, improve them across successive missions, and distribute development costs across multiple customers and applications. Commercial products can therefore serve as minimum viable capabilities when the alternative is no capability at all. They can provide initial coverage, collect data, support training, demonstrate concepts of operation, and give government users practical experience before a bespoke architecture is fully deployed.

Purpose-built systems provide specialized performance. Commercial systems provide speed, optionality, distributed capacity, and presence. A resilient architecture will need both.

AstroForge intends to fly repeated missions into deep space as part of our goal to mine the mineral wealth of the Solar System for the benefit of Earth. Every mission creates another opportunity to improve our spacecraft, expand our operational knowledge, and establish infrastructure beyond GEO.

The value of a commercial spacecraft is not limited to the performance of a single sensor or vehicle. Its value also comes from being present in a domain where very few assets exist, being able to move when new information emerges, and being replaceable or expandable on commercial timelines.

The future in deep space

The expansion of strategic competition beyond GEO does not make conflict there inevitable. Better awareness can actually help prevent it.

When decision-makers lack reliable information, they are more likely to assume the worst: a poorly understood maneuver may appear antagonistic, and a routine approach may be interpreted as an attack. Better information creates room for more measured decisions by helping operators determine what an object is, where it is going, and whether intervention is actually necessary.

If action is warranted, presence provides options. A nearby spacecraft can gather more information, reposition, approach, inspect, relay communications, or support another government asset. Without that presence, leaders may be forced to choose between acting with incomplete information and doing nothing while waiting for a new capability to arrive. 

Commercial deep space activity can also become the training environment in which the United States and its allies learn how to operate beyond GEO. It is likely that the future of cislunar war-gaming will increasingly require live, on-orbit exercises, as the Space Force did with Artemis I. This could be anything from retasking a nearby spacecraft, performing inspection, testing autonomous PNT, or maintaining custody. But this will not be possible if we are not there. 

WE0913A spent nearly seven years moving through the Earth-Moon system without anyone reliably knowing what it was. The next unknown object beyond GEO may not be an abandoned rocket body. And when it appears, the United States should not have to begin building its response from Earth. AstroForge is working to provide the persistent presence needed to understand what is happening — and the mobility and autonomy needed to respond.