Posted on February 17, 2008 - by Venik

Space Arms Race is Coming

The US decided to shoot down its own old spy satellite before it crashes into Earth. The official reason: the satellite contains about a ton of toxic fuel. Very few take this explanation seriously. In the entire history of the space age not a single human being has been hurt by the falling man-made space debris. The chance of being harmed by a piece of a falling space vehicle is estimated at one in a trillion.

The announcement of plans to shoot down the satellite comes less than a month after China has successfully shot down its own old weather satellite at an altitude of over 500 miles above Earth using a ground-launched missile. Clearly, the US felt obligated to respond. Now there is a good chance that Russia will conduct a similar test of its anti-missile capabilities in the next several months.

Virtually all modern weapon systems rely on satellites for navigation and communication. Defense experts agree that anti-satellite capability is essential to defeating a hi-tech adversary. In just over ten years since becoming fully operational, the GPS evolved from an auxiliary method of navigation in weapons to the primary navigation system. Everything from strategic bombers to individual soldiers now depends on satellite navigation for achieving its combat objectives.

Development of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons started in both the US and the USSR in the 1950s before the first satellite was ever launched by the Soviets in 1957. In the 1980’s both countries developed effective air-launched ASAT systems carried by F-15s and MiG-31s. The USSR also dabbled heavily in ground-based directed energy anti-satellite weapons. For the past twenty years or so both Russia and the US maintained an unofficial moratorium on testing ASAT systems.

It seems now that the result of this cool down period in ASAT development allowed China to catch up. Now both the US and Russia have no choice but to speed up R&D efforts and to resume testing. Hopefully, following the upcoming US ASAT test and the expected Russian test later this year, all three space race contestants will get the ASAT buzz out of their systems and put further testing on hold for another twenty years. However, this does not seem likely. The future probably holds an escalating space arms race that will cut deep into the budgets of all parties involved.

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