Project Heyoka

#**Department of Defence**
*The Pentagon, Arlington Virginia*


In this new era of strategic competition the United States must, and will utilize all forms of technology to keep the people of the free world safe. Although areas in which we may explore may be morally and ethically grey we must explore them. For freedom itself is at stake, and the United States will do anything to protect freedom.

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#Project Heyoka

Project Heyoka will seek to construct and launch a kinetic bombardment system. Based on the cold war [Project Thor](http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_Project_Thor_would_fire_tungsten_poles_at_targets_from_outer_space_999.html) project Heyoka will consist of a series of satellites in low earth orbit. These satellites will be armed with telephone pole sized rods of tungsten. These rods could be deorbited and precisely guided onto a target as small as a ship. Which they would hit at 3 km/s and with a force equal to 11 tonnes of TNT as well as penetrating up to 100 meters underground.

The Predecessor to project Heyoka, project Thor never resulted in any deployment mainly due to the expensive cost to launch the satellites and the end of the cold war. Now we are in yet another cold war but this time launch prices have dropped (By the private space companies that call America home) to approximently $130 a kilo. With this a drop in launch price it is estimated that a rod from the Heyoka program could be put into orbit at $14 million each. Each Heyoka Satellite will carry six rods plus a command and control system leading to a total unit launch cost of $90 million. The rods will cost $3.5 million dollars each with the command and control  systems costing $30 million dollars the entire unit will cost $141 million dollars to build and launch. The Satellite will make use of space stealth systems first developed by the [misty](https://gizmodo.com/misty-stealth-satellite-hides-perfectly-while-watching-5162837?IR=T) satellites. This System will make the satellites almost invisible to earth based observers.

Launches of Heyoka Satellites will be into standard spy satellite orbits (96-142 degrees) the satellites will then move to there target orbit from their with the aid of a kick stage carried inside the launch vehicle. This combined with the stealthy properties of the satellite should allow the US Government plausible deniability in regards to the nature of the satellite. As an additional security measure no government agency will claim the launch as there's. In a similar way to that of the [Zuma mission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(satellite)).

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Program Details:
Program cost | $4 Billion ( This has been reduced due to the lower R&D required due to project Thor's extensive study of the concept)
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Unit cost | $141 million
Program End date | Q4 2039
First Launch | Q1 2041
Agency Responsible | USAF Space command (Will transition to USSF)
Prime Contractor | Lockheed martin
Facility | Lockheed Skunk works
Clearance level | Top Secret (Code word)