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Preparing For Satellite Defense
Taco Cowboy sends a report into China's development of anti-satellite technology, and efforts by the U.S. and Japan to build defenses for this new potential battleground. Last year, China launched what they said was a science space mission, but they did so at night and with a truck-based launch system, which are not generally used for science projects. Experts believe this was actually a missile test for targets in geostationary orbit.
U.S. and Japanese analysts say China has the most aggressive satellite attack program in the world. It has staged at least six ASAT missile tests over the past nine years, including the destruction of a defunct Chinese weather satellite in 2007. ... Besides testing missiles that can intercept and destroy satellites, the Chinese have developed jamming techniques to disrupt satellite communications. In addition, ... the Chinese have studied ground-based lasers that could take down a satellite's solar panels, and satellites equipped with grappling arms that could co-orbit and then disable expensive U.S. hardware. To defend themselves against China, the U.S. and Japan are in the early stages of integrating their space programs as part of negotiations to update their defense policy guidelines. ... Both countries have sunk billions of dollars into a sophisticated missile defense system that relies in part on data from U.S. spy satellites. That's why strategists working for China's People's Liberation Army have published numerous articles in defense journals about the strategic value of chipping away at U.S. domination in space.
Make all the promises and treaties you want; when we get to space, we will militarize space.
make more fiber optics, space is so 1970s and retro and obsolete.
Hell we could even get rid of remote sensing by swarming a bunch of blimps. Our information processing technology has grown much faster than any other technology.
It's easier to stitch together 5 million pictures from blimps than it is to make a whole Star Wars laser defense fantasy for stupid old boxes floating in orbit.
New since, umm, the 1960's? 1980's, anyway. The US has tested several different ASATs over the years, and has long had countermeasures. I assume other countries have countermeasures as well.
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a mine shaft gap.
It's not like we need a specific defense against these attacks. It's an act of war between two nuclear powers -- a disabled satellite would be the least of our concerns.
Without military satellites, how can we protect ourselves from the Nazis from Moon?
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
Kessler syndrome. Thanks, China!
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This puts a new spin on the phrase "sitting duck".
We'll need to break through the space junk to get to the moon or Mars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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Did the Men in Black fail their mission? Which timeline is this again?
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Tell me again how the US has no capabilities of taking down satellites?
Obviously they would build anti satellite missiles and test them.
For the same reason the US and other countries keep stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
When the shit hits the fan you need to knock out your opponent as fast as possible.
Given that the US is almost assuredly got armed satellites in orbit, and the US Airforce has a unmanned space shuttle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
I think it's a bit silly to call this anything other than "Common sense" on China's part. At the very least during an armed conflict the US could use these satellites to spy on China... at worst they could nuke them from orbit. If they didn't have an anti-satalite program they'd be remiss in their duties I'd think.
The US has military satellites for a reason.
Given that the US has a reputation for invading countries they don't like it only makes sense to defend against them and there are several potential strategies for doing so.
I feel much better about China going the defensive route (get ready to blow up the satellites) rather than the MAD route (start stockpiling nukes).
Space is already militarized.
Most military assets are not in geostationary orbit. You get a better view from closer up, and you move around to cover more area.
Geostationary orbit is mostly for communications.
there should be some treaties in place that would only allow space warfare if they properly handle the resulting space junk, otherwise space will become a no man land. perhaps this would result in non explosive/kinetic attacks, capture and burn in the atmosphere attacks, and repositioning attacks.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The entire western world is thankful for the teachings of Sun Tzu. One cannot blame China for following a good defensive strategy.
By the way, the article makes it sound like it was an offence by China, but the initial offence is the one of nations putting spy satellites into space in the first place. It is then just twisted and ironic, if not funny, to see how the US and Japan seemingly want to defend themselves against China's defence plans, when it took some more spying to find out about the launch.
Be glad they are not stupidly trying to set up nuclear missiles on Cuba in order to get a "head start" in a nuclear world war like the Russians did.
satellites equipped with grappling arms that could co-orbit and then disable expensive U.S. hardware
They watched Outlaw Star decided that they had uncovered a Top Secret military program and then decided to copy them verbatim. Can these guys do ANYTHING original?
I wonder, how much high tech military gear (including drones) the US can operate if their GPS system goes down?
Sure those things are not in low orbit but you start at lower orbit and work for outward from that. Plus the US has been wasting money on space based weapons systems since the 1980s and those were low orbit. Spy satellites are not the big deal.
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Why? There's no oil in space.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
"To defend themselves against China, the U.S. and Japan are in the early stages of integrating their space programs as part of negotiations to update their defense policy guidelines." ... with parts made in Red Communist China.
If the US makes it very clear that an attack on space-based infrastructure will initiate a nuclear response against mainland China, that should take care of it.
> including the destruction of a defunct Chinese weather satellite in 2007 Which was highly irresponsible and obnoxious on their part because to sprayed deadly space debris all over the place....
This would not even be an issue today had Reagan been allowed to see SDI come to fruition.
China is approaching this the correct way: use inexpensive means to cripple expensive systems. They can knock down twenty sats for the price it takes to put one in orbit, never mind the cost of the hardware. Adding more expense to the assets is the wrong way to defend against this; the correct way is to develop cheaper assets. We need to be able to match or exceed their knock-down capacity with our replacement capacity. If we can deploy replacement assets faster and cheaper than they can knock them out of the sky, then their entire premise falls apart, and their offensive capability is effectively neutralized.
Also, cutting launch costs by an order of magnitude would have beneficial effects in many different areas, even outside of defense.
...sprayed deadly space debris all over the place....
Which killed George Clooney and almost got Sandra Bullock too.
is that the anti-sat systems are really only useful in a FIRST ATTACK.
China is NOT thinking of MAD. They are planning and designing a first strike system.
This WILL lead to a war between the wests and China, along with China's Allies (north Korea, Iran, and whom ever else China is sharing nuke secrets with).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The route that they are going, is NOT defensive. It is OFFENSIVE. Look, lets say that the west decides to launch against China. By the time that China realizes this, the ICBMs are on their way and have already switched off from sats and are working with intertia systems.
Where anti-sat systems come into play, from a military pov, is knocking out the enemies eyes and communications PRIOR to your launching first strike.
China is busy developing a first strike set-up, that is useless for defense.
In addition, it is now known by the general public that China has active nuclear work going on. They can claim only 300 warheads, but, why hide a nuke facility underground and by a lake then? There was no reason for it, UNLESS you are up to things that get around treaties.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Haven't we been here before ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Money spent on space used to be dual-use (civilian and military). Now it's single-use (military), and the civilian stuff is private.
You do realize that even with the Chinese ASAT test a VAST majority of the debris in orbit is US and Russian right? Not saying that we're not risking a Kessler Syndrome if we're stupid enough to use LEO as a battleground, but the US and Russians made quite a bit of progress towards it before the Chinese even launched their first mouse.
http://www.datapult.info/sites/default/files/4DA0AE3267200BB2.1.png
China is a threat. A very big and very real threat.
Can we just nuke them right now and get this over and done with before they get too powerful?
While we are at it, can we nuke the middle east too?
Those barbaric terrorists all need to die.
This will make the world a much safer place. Fuck the environment, its all moot if you are dead or a slave to some bullshit religious asshole.
So, how long do you think it will be before Kessler syndrome finishes the job all these anti-satellite weapons and tests start? As one professor back in college (the class was 'War in the Nuclear Age') pointed out, you could take out all of geosync orbit with a large bag of sand if you got it going in the opposite direction from Earth's spin. LEO and MEO are both crowded enough that we could get a spontaneous Kessler syndrome even if we don't keep blowing the satellites up there into shrapnel. I suppose we can start replacing the critical satellites in inch-thick titanium, but when every launch requires a heavy lift launch vehicle we're going to lose a lot of satellite functionality.
But having assets in place might assist in their defense. If you start attacking us space assets, it is a fair bet that the us will consider that an act of war. I will bet you money there are some military sats in orbit that have offensive capabilities. Start shooting at sats, and you might get a 10 pound tungsten bar de-orbited on your ground based laser or ASAT launcher. Being is space is a POWERFUL position on the military game board.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The SR-71 never had predetermined orbits and was more "maneuverable" than any satellite.
In a contest for intel, does the SR-71 (or something like it - a drone perhaps) still have a place in the war theatre?
Why keep the human? The goal is to minimise risk of mission failure due to comms being interrupted, etc.
Your entire tone is aggressive and one-sided.
For instance your last paragraph. You are aware that the US has multiple underground facilities, yes? And that they generally don't like to advertise them? So is the US trying to "get around treaties?"
China is on a track to become a world power. Any such power is going to work on military technologies both defensive and offensive. If I were them I'd do it too, and so would you. Even if you develop a military system you never use, it can act as a deterrent, or develop tech that you can use elsewhere.
Rather than worry about Chinese military capability you instead ought to worry about their civilian government. You'll get farther that way. Hey you might even get a representative government for a billion+ people. Or would you rather be the modern day Edward Teller?
GPS is *NOT* needed for Nuc Sub navigation. It *IS* used for Nuclear Submarine navigation, but they also have SINS (Ships Inertial Navigation Systems), ESGM (ElectroStatic Gyro Monitors), and precision navigational sonars. The ESGM is a small marble-sized beryllium ball, in an evacuated chamber, suspended by high voltage electrostatic charges, and rotated to RF frequencies. It has (for all practical purposes) *NO* gyro drift. This enables the SINS to use it as an internal/on-board heading reference for extended periods of time, and thus keep the SINS quite close.
Speaking as an ex Nuc Submariner and SINS Analyst: in a nutshell, a SINS will give you two out of three of the following: Speed, Position, or Heading, if you have at least one of the others. With ESGM, you constantly have a good heading, and thus you can go a pretty long time without a position fix.
Sure GPS makes it easier, and a bit more accurate, but it isn't needed.
Certainly long enough to keep things accurate between SONAR fixes.
Let's just blow those little bowl-cutted, bow-legged, slanty eyed aggressive assholes into oblivion. It's time they learned their morally bankrupt policies of theft, sabotage and manipulation will not go unpunished.
I have 1 Firestorm and 2 normal interceptors defending each of my sats. All armed with EMP cannons and Plasma guns. Let them Aliens come!!!
-- 29A the number of the Beast