Rocket Lab and True Anomaly have completed the threshold-setting phase of the Space Force’s Victus Haze demonstration and will now undertake a series of maneuvers over the next six months in an orbital game of tag, trading roles as chaser and chased.
The mission tests rendezvous and proximity operations, which involve close maneuvers around a target satellite to surveil, assist or in a combat scenario, disrupt it. Unlike past RPO demonstrations that used dead satellites or scripted fly-along payloads, Victus Haze features unscripted maneuvers where neither company knows exactly how the other’s spacecraft will act.
True Anomaly founder Even Rogers told Breaking Defense the two firms will take turns for various roles depending on the mission phase, practicing tactics and operational concepts for dealing with on-orbit threats.
Victus Haze is the second of several TacRS demos. The Space Force has at least three more Victus projects in the pipeline: Victus Sol with Firefly Aerospace, plus Victus Surgo and Victus Salo, characterized as maneuverable, prepositioned space domain awareness missions. Testing on the latter two begins late this year.
The TacRS program has $300M requested through fiscal 2031, reflecting the Pentagon’s growing emphasis on responsive launch and on-orbit maneuverability as counterspace threats proliferate.
