The D Brief: Helene recovery; 100 new spy sats; Post-strike assessment in Israel; ULA certification launch; And a bit more.

Hurricane Helene’s death toll across the southern U.S. has now risen to 215, making it the deadliest storm to hit the mainland since Hurricane Katrina almost 20 years ago. (Hurricane Maria remains the deadliest, with nearly 3,000 who perished in Puerto Rico alone.)

Just over a week after landfall, more than 740,000 people across five states are still without power. That includes 500,000 in the Carolinas and 200,000 in Georgia, according to PowerOutage.Us. 

For the U.S. military, “More than 6,700 National Guardsmen from 16 states have been spearheading recovery efforts across the Southeast region in support of their governors, providing critical aid to those impacted by this storm's devastation,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday. That includes service members who lost their homes but are still reporting for duty, according to Col. Paul Hollenack of the North Carolina National Guard. (Task & Purpose has more on that.) 

One thousand active duty troops from Army base Fort Liberty have also been tasked to assist with recovery efforts, Singh said. They’ll be working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Volunteer pilots are bringing out their Cessnas to assist as well, with more than 350 flights ferrying supplies throughout the region via North Carolina’s Concord-Padgett Regional Airport as of Thursday. “Another 215 supply flights using helicopters have taken off from Hickory Regional Airport, which is about 60 miles northwest of Concord,” NBC News reports. 

• If you or someone you know is a pilot who’d like to assist, read more via Operation Airdrop, here. 

Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Frank Konkel and Audrey Decker. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1957, the Soviets became the first to put a satellite into orbit with the successful launch of Sputnik 1, triggering what science historians refer to as the “space race.”

Changing times in the spy satellite business: Until recent decades, the National Reconnaissance Office wouldn’t acknowledge even one satellite it had in space. Now, the intelligence agency is speaking publicly about launching dozens in the past year and a half, Defense One’s Audrey Decker reports.

“From last June to December of this year, we'll have probably launched 100 satellites,” Christopher Scolese, director of the NRO, said at an event Thursday in Washington. The agency’s first batch of operational satellites in this constellation launched in May, and the agency has since launched two more batches, Decker writes. But officials haven’t disclosed the number of satellites in those first launches or how many the constellation will have in total. 

“What are they going to be doing? They are part of the proliferated architecture to go off it and get us reasonably high-resolution imagery of the Earth at a high rate of speed,” Scolese said. Continue reading, here. 

New: Despite an abnormality during launch, ULA sent its heavy-lift rocket into space Friday, declaring the second certification flight “successful” even though some material broke off one of its solid rocket boosters. Footage of the flight illustrated the anomaly, which could have changed the trajectory of the vehicle. Company CEO Tory Bruno said they did have “an observation on SRB number one” and will look into the abnormality. 

Background: ULA’s much-anticipated rocket flew for the first time in January, but had to complete a second certification flight before it can start flying missions for the Space Force. The company is on a tight timeline to get Vulcan certified because it has to launch two Space Force missions, USSF-106 and USSF-87, by the end of the year. The problem with the booster could complicate Pentagon certification, depending on the investigation. 

Official reax: “We are already starting to review the performance data from this launch, and we look forward to Vulcan meeting the certification requirements for a range of National Security Space missions,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, Space System Command’s Program Executive Officer for Assured Access to Space, and Commander of Space Launch Delta 45, said in a statement. 

Additional reading: 

• “Collapse of national security elites' cyber firm [IronNet] leaves bitter wake,” the Associated Press reported Friday;
• “Marine Corps’ newest rotational force arrives in Philippines for 6 months of training,” Stars and Stripes reported Friday. 
• “Lawmakers consider making military leave more equitable for feds with non-traditional work schedules,” reported sister publication Government Executive Friday;
• And “Senators want answers from DOD on quantum sensing efforts,” Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Thursday. 

Iranian missile attack, post-strike assessment. While Israeli troops continue attacking alleged militants in southern Lebanon, satellite imagery released Thursday seems to suggest a key Israeli air base was particularly bombarded with Iranian ballistic missiles during Tehran’s multi-wave barrage at about 7 p.m. local time Tuesday. AP on Thursday published imagery taken by the commercial firm Planet Labs over Israel the day prior—roughly 24 hours after the Iranian attack. 

At least three military and intelligence bases appear to have been hit, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery published Friday. That includes the southern Nevatim air base; Tel Nof base, in central Israel; and Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters, near Tel Aviv.

Expert reax: “Our first count is that 32 missiles struck Nevatim air base,” which hosts Israeli F-35 jets, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute for Strategic Studies wrote on social media Thursday, illustrating those 32 apparent strikes with yellow pins. “This should be no surprise,” he said, noting, “there is plenty of video showing the missiles raining down on Nevatim.”

“They landed multiple hits in the area of F-35 hangers, with one possible direct hit, but not a lot of damage,” said researcher Decker Eveleth.

Why the apparent success rate? Hard to know for sure, Lewis notes. But he suggests a few possibilities, including Iran using “Better missiles (more Fattah-1s instead of Emad).” He also points to certain apparently “exaggerated expectations for [U.S.-made] SM-3 and [Israeli] Arrow-2/3” interceptors. “They’re good, but c’mon,” Lewis writes.

“I don't think we've seen the maximum scale of [Iranian] attack by any means,” another expert, Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Reuters this week. That’s partly due to Iran’s maneuverable warheads, as Lewis explained in a bit more detail, here. 

Also visible in satellite imagery: Apparent Iranian launch points, including from a missile base south of Shiraz, as Decker and researcher Sam Lair pointed out with supporting imagery. 

Big picture consideration: After recent success against Hezbollah, Israel’s military appears to be caught in a “long game” with no clear outcome, the New York Times reported Thursday from Jerusalem, citing the opinion of retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

For example, with history as a guide, “After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it took [Israel] 18 years to withdraw forces from the Lebanese side of the border,” Isabel Kershner of the Times writes. But considering the even longer history of internecine warfare around Palestine, it’s anyone’s guess how long the present conflict will endure. “We are still in the middle of the movie,” Orion said. More, here. 

Related reading: 

• “Missile attack on Israel lays bare deep divisions among Iranians,” the BBC reported Thursday; 
• “How the U.S. Worked Overtime to Deliver Weapons to Israel,” via ProPublica reporting Friday.

Lastly this week: We recently learned that after years working at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a former war crimes lawyer with the United Nations has decided to go an entirely different direction with her life, and has pivoted to the almost impossible business of stand up comedy. 

Her name is Jess Salomon, and one of her hour-long sets filmed last year in New York was recently posted to YouTube. Much as we’re tempted, we won’t spoil any of the jokes (though one of our favorites is in the first five minutes). Feel free to check it out for yourself, here. Or don’t. It’s your weekend; enjoy it as you like. 

Thanks for reading, and you can catch us again on Monday!