Vivienne Machi is the military space editor for Aviation Week. She has written about U.S. and international military and space tech for nearly a decade from Los Angeles, Washington and Stuttgart, Germany. Her byline has appeared in outlets including Defense News, Via Satellite, Foreign Policy, Defense Daily, National Defense Magazine and Business Insider.
Optical cross-link technology is maturing at a critical juncture, with government and commercial customers pouring billions into proliferated constellations.
The NROL-57 mission was launched March 21 at 2:49 a.m. EDT, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg SFB, California.
The U.S. is fielding proliferated space architectures to support missile warning and missile tracking, surveillance and reconnaissance, and secure comms.
