Huddled beside an airstrip in southern Germany, a handful of anti-Communist warriors prepared to fire the first shots of the Cold War. A CIA officer from the Munich Operations Base was in charge. The Hungarian crewmen he had recruited stood nearby in flight suits. With them were two Ukrainian exiles who had volunteered to parachute into their homeland. They were code-named Apostle 1 and Apostle 2. Each carried forged identity papers, a miniature radio transmitter, a pistol, a machine gun, hand grenades, a purse full of gold coins, and a poison pill to be taken in case of capture. An unmarked C-47 transport plane was waiting. The CIA officer overseeing this operation, a twenty-six-year-old Yale graduate named Stephen Tanner, watched the plane take off and disappear into the night. It flew over East Germany and Poland, then crossed into Soviet airspace. As it approached the Ukrainian city of Lviv, a cargo bay swung open. The two Ukrainians jumped into the darkness. Their mission was to link up with partisan fighters, seize territory, and establish a clandestine base through which the CIA could send them weapons. That flight, on September 5, 1949, was the first American act of covert war in Ukraine.

The two would-be commandos who jumped that night were an advance guard for what became Project Aerodynamic, the most ambitious and furthest-reaching project the CIA ever launched inside the Soviet Union. Its aim was to foment subversion in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Behind it lay a simple calculation: The Soviet Union is America’s mortal enemy; its greatest internal threat comes from Ukraine; the CIA should do everything possible to intensify that threat. From their base in Munich, Tanner and other CIA officers anxiously awaited messages from the two Apostles. None came. An after-action report concluded tersely that “the Soviets quickly eliminated the agents.” It added, though, that this mission “sparked considerable interest at headquarters.” Losing two agents was hardly enough to derail such a promising project. On May 19, 1950, another C-47 took off from the same base in Germany. This time it carried four Ukrainian volunteers. They parachuted into western Ukraine with a cargo their CIA overseers had packed. It was enough to arm a potent guerrilla band, including fifty submachine guns, thirty rifles, twenty-five pistols, and a hundred phosphorus grenades. The four volunteers hit the ground. They radioed news of their safe landing with cargo. Then they disappeared. Later that summer, two more Ukrainian volunteers bade their comrades an emotional farewell. According to a CIA cable, “a round of drinks was served, toasts were made…hands were shaken, tears were shed.” Their plane departed at 6:55 p.m. on August 12. The pilot missed their drop zone in Ukraine, and they jumped twenty miles away. Neither was ever heard from again.

well, I guess feeding Ukrainians into a Russian/Soviet meat-grinder is an old American tradition…

These flights were the centerpiece of a far-reaching operation in which the CIA sought to foment armed uprisings in Soviet-controlled territory. Between 1949 and 1952, the CIA dropped about eighty-five men, all equipped for guerrilla warfare, behind what was then called the Iron Curtain. Three-quarters were quickly captured or shot. “You’ve got to have a few martyrs,” reasoned Allen Dulles, chief of covert operations for the CIA. “Some people have to get killed.” Project Aerodynamic was a match made in covert-action heaven. Thousands of Ukrainian partisans had refused to lay down their arms after their Nazi allies surrendered on May 8, 1945. They wanted to keep fighting the Red Army— if they could find a new sponsor. At that same moment, the CIA was looking for a force that it could use to strike against the Soviet Union from within its own territory. Aerodynamic was the progeny of this union. It set off three-quarters of a century of American intervention in Ukraine.

Fear and uncertainty marked the first encounter between Americans and anti- Soviet Ukrainians. In the autumn of 1947, two years before the first CIA airdrop into Ukraine, officers from the Army Counter Intelligence Corps in occupied Germany learned that a band of armed Russians had appeared in the countryside near Munich. At first they thought this might be an advance guard preparing the ground for a Red Army invasion. A patrol was sent to investigate. Soldiers scoured the hills and meadows around the Bavarian village of Waldkirchen. Early on the morning of September 10, they heard voices. They closed in on a campfire around which men wearing military uniforms were singing in what sounded like Russian. After a moment of tension, the soldiers willingly surrendered their machine guns and hand grenades. These thirty-five men, along with four other members of their band who were picked up nearby, were brought to an American base and debriefed for three weeks. It turned out that they were not Red Army soldiers, but Ukrainians who had consecrated their lives to fighting the Red Army. They belonged to a partisan force that was unknown to most outsiders: the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Their commanders had ordered them to walk westward, find Americans, and seek help for the partisan rebellion. One of the partisans told an interrogator that the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was “engaged in armed combat with Soviet troops in the Ukraine at present” and that more Ukrainians were “ready to revolt” if given support. An officer who helped supervise the interrogations cabled to Washington that the Ukrainians were offering services “which may be of interest to you and may tie into an idea which, I believe, is being worked on at home at the present time.” “If, as I understand, there is some planning going on with regard to how such groups as referred to above might be best used in our interests,” he suggested, “it might be useful to follow up this matter.”

Americans had just begun fighting the Cold War. Their great handicap was that they knew almost nothing about what was happening inside the Soviet Union. Now they learned that Ukrainians were waging war against the Red Army. This was an intelligence bonanza that opened new landscapes of possibility. Some of the CIA’s most impassioned Ukrainian agents had fought alongside the Nazis just a few years earlier. Among them were veterans of SS Einsatzgruppen — mobile death squads assigned to massacre Jews and other civilians. This history troubled some of their American handlers, but not enough to disrupt their partnership.

Across Europe, American intelligence officers scoured teeming displaced persons camps looking for Ukrainians who were willing to join a covert anti-Soviet war. Recruitment was easy. Hundreds of thousands of young men — not just Ukrainians but refugees from all over the continent — were huddled in the bleak purgatory of these camps. The best they might hope for was work clearing rubble or picking crops. When men introducing themselves as part of the “American Intelligence Service” offered them paying jobs with good living conditions, plus the prospect of returning to war against Bolshevism, many jumped to accept. Vetting was minimal, so recruits included more than a few who had worked with the Nazis as militia members, police officers, and executioners. One recruiting officer said his job was easy: “You’d go to a refugee camp and say, ‘Here, Joe, you want to join a special project?’ Most of these people were, like, the homeless.” This recruitment laid the foundation for Project Aerodynamic. Over the following years, it would overlap with other CIA projects using various cryptonyms, among them Acrobat, Androgen, Antler, Cartel, Carthage, Crust, Outbound, PDDynamic (PD was code for the Soviet Union), Plumb, and Red Sox. The goal — using Ukraine as a platform for covert war against Moscow — never changed.

The Space Force’s multibillion-dollar effort to build a satellite network that rapidly moves data over high-speed laser links will require an entirely new set of satellites and significant extra funding to connect with other military space systems, Breaking Defense has learned. In effect, this new group of satellites will serve as translators between different sets of optical waveforms — two or three missile warning/tracking constellations in the short term, and others in the future — in order to ensure multiple systems can talk to each other. That connectivity is a vital part of supporting Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative that the network is supposed to help speed into existence, multiple sources said. The Space Force plans to orbit an “operational prototype” of the Space Data Network Backbone being built by SpaceX by 2027. The large constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) will serve as the data backhaul layer — essentially, the central communications traffic router — of the service’s planned SDN architecture, a space-based network of networks designed to connect sensors to shooters. The Space Force envisions the SDN as a hybrid constellation comprising military and commercial communications satellites that eventually will be able to share data across missions, including missile warning, tracking and targeting as well as both air- and ground-moving target indication. As a top priority, the SDN will focus on connecting to the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Tracking Layer satellites for detecting and tracking missiles to be stationed in LEO and Space System Command’s (SSC) similar Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking- Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) birds.

SpaceX won a $2.29 billion contract in May to fast-track development of the SDN Backbone to meet President Donald Trump’s 2028 deadline for implementing Golden Dome. The Space Force has not publicly disclosed how many satellites the backbone will include, but the effort is a restructured version of the earlier MILNET constellation, which a Space Force official said last year would comprise more than 480 satellites. The SDN Backbone’s central feature is the use of lasers for satellite-to-satellite communications. Laser links, which function via optical communications terminals (OCT) on board satellites, allow the transmission of bigger volumes of data faster and more securely than the radio frequency links carried by traditional communications satellites. However, SpaceX is using proprietary OCTs on the SDN Backbone satellites, dubbed by the company as “Plasers,” that cannot directly exchange data with those equipping both the SDA and SSC missile warning/tracking satellites, according to multiple industry, former government and current Space Force sources. To complicate matters, these sources said, the OCTs used by SDA and SSC also are incompatible.

To address this lack of connectivity, the Space Force is considering a constellation of 12 to 13 additional satellites that could allow otherwise incompatible OCT payloads to exchange data, two industry sources and one former Space Force official said. The proposed satellites, known as Space Exchange Points (SEPs) or “translator satellites,” are expected to cost somewhere $12-14 million each, these sources said. That means the satellite project itself would cost north of $100 million, but the sources said that the overall cost of the wider overhaul could reach up to $1 billion — quite the price tag especially at a time the Pentagon is expected to get less funding than it asked for from Congress. Even aside from the extra costs, however, several sources expressed frustration with the situation with regard to the Space Force’s two new missile warning/tracking constellations, saying it could have been avoided had the Pentagon focused on standardization at an earlier date. Instead, the service is now having to scramble to fix a problem that, the sources emphasized, never needed to happen. An SSC spokesperson declined to comment on the compatibility of its MEO birds with SDA’s LEO satellites or SpaceX’s Plaser and also declined to comment on the SEP program’s end goals and projected costs. SpaceX did not respond to a detailed inquiry from Breaking Defense.

Different Standards Block Connectivity

The crux of the connectivity problem is that the SpaceX, SDA and SSC OCTs are based on different technical standards governing the precise optical waveforms used, and thus how many gigabits of data per second the laser links can transmit, sources explained. Part of the reason for the standards mismatch is the decision made some time in 2025 by the Department of the Air Force to flip from using SDA’s Transport Layer of data relay satellites as the SDN backbone to instead relying on SpaceX’s constellation — at the time dubbed MILNET and already in use by the National Reconnaissance Office. By that time, SDA already had been developing both the Transport Layer and the Tracking Layer satellites based on its own open-source OCT standard, a first version of which was published in 2022. “The optical waveform/terminals on SDA’s Transport Layer and Tracking Layer satellites, which carry the SDA OCT Standard, are not directly compatible with the Plaser waveform,” an SDA official confirmed. The disconnect between SDA and SSC on OCTs is harder to justify, one former Pentagon official said, given that both developmental programs began at roughly the same time in 2019 — and thus could have worked together to develop compatible OCTs. However, one industry source said, a possible argument for the differences is that SDA has been focused on developing OCTs optimized for its LEO-based satellites, whereas SSC is concentrating on operations in MEO where satellites are farther from the Earth and farther from each other than in LEO.

The Space Force is not unaware of the challenge it faces. G.P. Sandhoo, head of both SDA and the Space Force’s new Missile Warning and Tracking Portfolio Acquisition Executive office, on Oct. 28 told a panel at Silicon Valley Space Week conference in Mountain View, Calif., that his shop will eventually need to figure out how to integrate data from sensors carried by satellites in different orbits, according to an article in Space News. The SDA official added that “interoperability” between the OCTs for the LEO and MEO missile warning/tracking constellations is currently “being evaluated” by the Space Force. One solution is simply for the SEP satellites to carry both SDA and SSC standard OCTs, along with software to transmit their data to the SpaceX Plaser and the SDN Backbone satellites. Another potential solution is for both the LEO and MEO constellations to use a new version of SDA’s optical waveform standard, called v.4.0.0, that potentially could resolve the problem in the future, according to current and former Space Force officials. That standard was developed in consultation with SSC, the former Space Force official said, and has “two modes:” the first essentially is the same standard SDA is using for “LEO to LEO and LEO to ground” communications; the second would allow LEO to MEO optical data transmission. Thus, it could be used to directly link LEO and MEO missile warning/tracking satellites, and avoid having to add a third OCT payload onto the SEPs. The SDA official said the version 4 standard “is not yet on contract to be fielded in any SDA Tranches, but is in consideration for Tranche 4.”

Translator Sats To The Rescue?

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The concept of a translator satellite is not a new idea. SDA in 2022 was working on the idea to allow data from commercial satellites eventually to flow into the Transport Layer. But questions remain about how difficult it will be to implement. “Reasonable people will disagree on how difficult it is,” one former Space Force official said. “[T]he technical challenges from the hardware side are pretty straightforward. … But there is some networking translation that has to happen in addition to just the hardware configuration.” In addition, the official said, the SEP satellites as currently designed are not compatible with either SDA’s Tracking Layer satellites or the Transport Layer, which is being transferred to SSC for further development as a separate so-called enclave of the SDN specifically focused on connecting to legacy military platforms such as fighter jets. Which raises the question of whether yet more development and funds will be needed.

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As for the Transport Layer, the shift of the program to SSC has thrown the program’s scope, schedule and funding up in the air. The Pentagon’s 2027 budget request shows funding continuing for the Transport Layer’s first two tranches, but no funding for SDA’s earlier planned Tranche 3 and beyond.

SpaceX’s Starship Flight 15, it is the second orbital mission for the launch vehicle. The booster was originally planned to be recovered, but was aborted into the Gulf of Mexico. However, the abortion was not successful and the booster exploded while trying to come to a soft landing. After an abort the flight termination system is supposed to intentionally explode the vehicle, but this explosion was not caused by that. SpaceX hasn’t successfully caught a booster since flight 8, back in March 2025 and even then that was with a Block 2 booster, not the newer block 3 version. It turns out that “move fast and break things” maybe isn’t the best way to develop a launch vehicle.

Ship 42 did successfully reach orbit and deployed 26 Starlink satellites. It will attempt recovery sometime on Saturday.

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology recently received official approval from the Central Government to develop the Long March 9 super-heavy lift vehicle. It will be have two versions. The first version will have three stages, with first stage reusability. It will be capable of launching 50 tons on a trans-lunar injection. It will be responsible for building Chinas Lunar base. The first launch is currently planned for 2030. The second version, CZ-9B, will be 2 stages and fully reusable. It will be primarily used for launching satellites constellations into LEO. Its first launch is currently slated for 2032.

The first stage will be recovered down range on a drone with a wire system similar to Long March 10A and B. This is more efficient than starship because it uses less fuel than a return to launch site maneuver like starship uses. The reusable second stage is thought to use landing legs, but that may be subject to change.

Slightly outdated render, the middle two stage partial reusable version has not been approved.

Just because it was recently officially approved doesn’t mean development just started. China has been developing a super-heavy launch vehicle for at least a decade and coalesced around the current design around 2021. The Joint Workshop Rocket Base Project (much cooler name than the GigaBay or whatever SpaceX calls it) which will build and assemble Long March 9 broke ground back in April. The YF-215 methalox engine completed its first full-scale tests last year.

China Manned Space Agency officials reaffirmed their goal to conduct a manned lunar landing no later than October 2029. They also provided some new information on the planned missions.

The first crewed mission will land 2 Taikonaut’s for 3 days while one remains in orbit. Successive missions will last longer until they are limited by the lunar day-night cycle. That would be 14 days of sunlight.

CMSA also provided some concepts for future long term missions. These included a pressurized rover laboratory, a lunar resupply lander, and modules for the future International Lunar Research Station. While the station will be mostly Chinese, Russia will likely supply the nuclear power component and I’m sure there will be a variety of other small contributors such as Pakistan. Though it was stressed that the station would only be established once crews are heading to the surface regularly.

It goes without saying that the Bundeswehr is not a safe workplace for people who are attached to life and limb. It is also known that women in the military are exposed to far greater dangers than their male counterparts, even in peacetime. In addition to the harassing training conditions and the degrading rituals in the barracks, which can affect everyone, soldiers increasingly have to expect sexualised attacks and evenremoveds. Most of these incidents are never reported, let alone solved. This is now confirmed by a dark field study by the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr.

According to the study, young female soldiers up to the age of 24 are the most affected. Of this group, “60 percent (…) have experienced at least one form and 27 percent at least two forms of sexualised offences within twelve months”. The forms are categories in which assaults are recorded. A distinction is made between verbal, visual and physical assaults. Sexual violence constitutes the fourth category. In total, almost every second woman (around 40 percent) had corresponding experiences within the Bundeswehr in the past twelve months. Based on the total length of service, the proportion of those affected even rises to 70 percent. Among the most affected ranks are female team soldiers; among the troop units, the “units to be sailed” stand out.

Research by WDR, NDR and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” illustrates which sexual attacks threaten the Navy. The case of a non-commissioned officer who had gone to the women’s deck at night drunk and half-naked to grab a sleeping soldier between the legs was investigated. He pinched her so hard that the physical pain continued the next day. The case was summarily settled in October 2025 with a criminal order.

Another assault was documented during the Afghanistan operation in Mazar-i-Sharif. There, a sergeant hadremovedd a civilian employee after a carnival party. The affected woman had shown “violent crying, very strong trembling and noticeable stuttering” during the following interrogations, reportstagesschau.de. She could hardly talk about the details of theremoved. The sergeant received a suspended sentence of two years.

The lack of consequences shakes confidence in the reporting system. According to the study, however, the fear of “causing a stir”, the willingness to “endure and accept certain behaviours” and “the regulation of the incident by the persons concerned themselves or by others” also play a major role when it comes to the non-reporting of incidents. Only a fraction of the assaults that take place are reported.

After the publication of the study, War Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) spoke of “unpleasant truths”. It is about “nothing less than respect for human dignity” and, of course, about the operational readiness of the troop: “How should the soldier then be able to rely on the one who treats him like that in an emergency?” So countermeasures have to be taken.

Prevention and education are to be improved with an “Action plan for the prevention of and for dealing with sexualised misconduct in the Bundeswehr”. However, it is doubtful whether measures such as the “disclosure of misconduct in front of the squad” or the evaluation of the “preventive work of superiors” can contribute to a higher level of security and willingness to report when making career decisions.

At least the troop has found a measure against the bad image. Shortly after the publication of the study, the Bundeswehr launched its own online shop. Among other things, squeaky ducks with an assault rifle and a Bundeswehr uniform can be bought there to relieve children and young people of their fear of the troop.