ELRIC Satellite

While the Interplanetary Wars of the 2160s are technically the first "space war", the moment had been long prepared for. National governments had been experimenting with technology designed to weaponise space since the mid-twentieth century, ranging from the placement of military communications satellites in orbit to the conception of the Space Shuttle to deliver a payload from outside of the planet's atmosphere, allowing it total access to any point on the planet. Many of these technologies would be de-weaponised, and used for peaceful purposes for the rest of their service lives - without the satellite research of the Cold War, international communication would be a long and expensive process, and it expanded mankind's reach beyond its own planet for the first time.

Launched in 2090, the ELRIC Satellite, the acronym standing for Exoatmospheric Lidar Radar and Interplanetary Coordination, was launched by the fledgling Sierra Space Systems corporation. As a precursor to its future KKV-class satellites, the ELRIC was designed to fulfil another niche in the arsenal of hopeful exoatmospheric powers, such as Russia, founding colonies on Mars, the European Union who had staked claims on the moons of Jupiter, and the joint US/Japanese establishment of a lunar colony. In such a climate, the ELRIC would fill the role of surveillance satellite - despite its name, it would be equipped with a wide range of gear, including high-resolution thermal and infrared photography, the titular LDAR and Radar, among others, with a "secure" uplink to a ground-based stationary or mobile military installation. Coated with a patented durable stealth metamaterial, combined with a conical frame that deflected radar and LDAR, the satellite would be virtually undetectable, and extremely flexible in the range of orbital heights it could maintain.

Unfortunately for SSS, the first prototype was destroyed by a collision with unaccounted space debris, effectively ending the project. Later, the concept would be re-examined by Misriah Armouries, headhunting staff who had worked on the project, to produce the successful STARS series of military satellites. Legal action by Sierra Space Systems would continue well into the 2180s, eventually dismissed by the International Courts due to key conceptual differences between the two. Nevertheless, SSS would continue to unofficially claim responsibility for the success of the STARS right up until its dissolution and purchase by Misriah itself.