The photographs changed. “This is the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,” Glenbrook went on, “and as you can see, there appears to be another Elektron on a launch pad, on an Angara-5 booster this time. That’s two that can be launched in fairly short order, maybe within days or even hours. The Elektron that was already launched when the ROS undocked from the ISS landed at the shuttle recovery airstrip at Baikonur yesterday. So we’ve accounted for possibly four Elektrons. We believe there are five in the inventory, although there might be more. So we set out to look for the fifth Russian spaceplane. It’s nowhere to be seen in Russia . . .”
Glenbrook changed photos, and another picture of an Elektron spaceplane atop a large Russian rocket appeared. “We found it—not in Russia, but in the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “This is Xichang spaceport in western China. Xichang was used for the largest, most powerful, and most reliable Chinese Long March rocket launches, but all those missions moved to Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island, so Xichang wasn’t being used that much.”
“So the Chinese are allowing Russian spaceplane launches from Chinese launch pads?” Ann remarked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Glenbrook said. He zoomed in the photograph. “Not only that, but these buildings are identical to the buildings in Plesetsk. It’s possible that these are buildings either housing or meant to house a second Elektron spaceplane launch system, and if so, that means there are possibly six Elektrons out there, and there may be more. We’re watching all these sites for future launches and recoveries, but based on our intelligence when those things were first deployed, the Russians can relaunch a spaceplane every ten to fourteen days after recovery. That is extraordinarily fast. It could be faster now.”
He stayed with the Chinese photograph but zoomed in on a different area. “Here’s another interesting development.” He highlighted some objects with a laser pen. “The Russians usually install sophisticated S-400 Triumph surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles at all their spaceports and at major military bases,” he said, “but here we’re looking at the S-500S, the world’s most sophisticated surface-to-air missile, several times more capable and powerful than the S-400 or even our own PAC-3 Patriot. An S-500S is more akin to a medium-range ballistic missile than a regular surface-to-air missile, designed for extreme long-range air and space attack. This marks the first deployment of an S-500S outside of the Russian Federation, and the fact that it is on a Chinese military base is astounding—we assume that now the Chinese can access technical information on the best SAM system ever built.
“The ‘S’ model indicates that it is designed to be effective against space targets—specifically, American space stations, spacecraft, and weapon garages in low Earth orbit, as well as ballistic missiles, low-flying cruise missiles, and stealth aircraft,” Glenbrook went on. “We searched the known S-500 launch sites around Moscow and elsewhere, and our suspicions are confirmed: they’re moving some S-500s normally placed around some of their cities and dispersing them to spaceports. We’re also studying the Almaz-Antney production facilities near Moscow and St. Petersburg to see if there’s any evidence that the Russians are upping their S-500 production. We anticipate they will quadruple S-500S production very shortly, and every Russian military installation in the entire world will have at least one S-500S battery assigned to it.”
“Looks to me like they’re preparing not just for operations in space, but to fight off another assault on their isolated bases,” Ann said. She and Phoenix exchanged knowing glances—the last American attack on a foreign military base from the air was the B-1B Lancer bomber raid on military targets in the People’s Republic of China, led by Patrick McLanahan, whom everyone thought perished in the attack.
“So the intel guys thought as long as we’re looking at other antispacecraft weapons that the Russians or Chinese are deploying, they’d look for fighter-launched antispacecraft missiles,” Glenbrook said. “There are three known bases for the Mikoyan-Gurevich 31D aircraft, which carries the Russians’ frontline antiaircraft and antisatellite missile. We counted a bit more than their usual observed number, and we also counted more Ilyushin-76 aerial refueling tankers at each base. All of the bases are active, and the Russians fly patrols around the clock—at least two antisatellite flights are airborne twenty-four/seven. The bases at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yelizovo Air Base, in the Russian Far East, Bolshoye Savino Airport in west-central Russia, and Chkalovsky Air Base near Moscow are particularly active. They fly patrols and do many training mock launches, zooming the fighters almost straight up to very high altitudes.