Washington: – Space Safari Unit, a part of the US Space Force, launched a military satellite named Odyssey. Sources informed that Odyssey is from the surveillance satellite category and will identify and monitor the threats in space. This is the first instance of the US Space Force launching an independent satellite into space.
Odyssey satellite was launched from the Vandenberg base of the US Space Force on Sunday. The officials from the Space Force informed that the satellite was launched into space with the help of L-1011 Carrier Aircraft of the Northrop Grumman company and Pegasus Rocket. The statement issued by the Space Force states that the objective of the Odyssey mission was to develop and launch a satellite in the shortest possible time.
As per the information given by the US Space Force, Odyssey was developed and launched within one year. It usually takes a few years to build, test and launch a satellite. But the US Space Force developing and launching a satellite within one year becomes a noteworthy achievement. The US Space Force stated that the new unit, Space Safari has been formed with this objective.
Meanwhile, NATO has taken the initiative to stop the increasing Chinese and Russian activities in space. Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATO, announced that Article 5 of NATO would include the space sector. Article 5 has the provision that any attack on a member country will be considered an attack on the organisation, and all the member countries will retaliate against it. Currently, Article 5 includes conventional attacks and cyberattacks. But before the NATO meeting on Monday, it was announced that Article 5 would also include the space sector. Jens Stoltenberg said, ‘Any attack on a satellite or any other systems in space or an attack originating from space will invoke Article 5’. Before this, in 2019, NATO declared the space sector as the fifth war domain.
Nearly 2,000 satellites are orbiting the earth, and about 1,000 satellites belong to the NATO member countries.
