The U.S. military confirmed Tuesday that it has begun paying private aerospace companies like True Anomaly and Rocket Lab to perform high-stakes, "Top Gun"-style satellite fly-bys. Defense officials praised the initiative, noting that defending the nation’s vital orbital infrastructure is a task best left to agile startups with aggressive quarterly revenue targets.
The recently unveiled operations will see private civilian contractors manually piloting spacecraft in complex tactical intercept maneuvers against simulated adversaries. Pentagon leadership expressed deep relief over the arrangement, stressing that the same agile engineering frameworks used to optimize ad delivery are perfectly suited for executing kinetic orbital engagements at 17,000 miles per hour.
By trusting these critical interception missions to the private sector, we ensure our orbital dominance is fueled by the ruthless, move-fast-and-break-things mentality that previously brought us algorithmic landlord software.
True Anomaly executives welcomed the expanded military partnership, recently assuring their seed investors that the company's proprietary space-combat roadmap remains fully on track. According to a leaked slide deck, the startup anticipates a 400% year-over-year surge in "tactical satellite neutralization events," provided they can secure enough compute to run the spacecraft’s API without throttling during evasive maneuvers.
Following a successful demonstration mission on Thursday, a Rocket Lab civilian pilot was reportedly forced to pause a high-speed orbital intercept track after reaching the end of their daily allotted screen time.