Just hours after a Navy missile interceptor struck a dying spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean, a senior military officer expressed high confidence early Thursday that a tank filled with toxic rocket fuel had been breached.
The State Department sent cables to all embassies yesterday instructing diplomats to explain to foreign governments how the upcoming attempt to shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite is different from China's destruction of one of its orbiting satellites early last year.
The U.S. already has a counter-space strategy that is different from the kinetic method employed recently by the Chinese, according to knowledgeable space experts and former intelligence officials. They say the United States has adopted a method that relies on spy satellites' most vulnerable aspect: the need for constant housekeeping from the ground.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe that China has successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon by destroying one of their old weather satellites. The test, if confirmed, would be an order of magnitude more provocative than earlier reports of Chinese blinding lasers being used against U.S. satellites.
The author explores ways to secure valuable space resources against 'assymetric attack' and suggests that a space surveillance system, similar to the proposed system for observing and tracking Earth-crossing objects, is the best solution.
A Russian company is using anti-satellite weapons technology developed by the Soviet Union to launch microsatellites using a MiG 31. The Soviet Union developed the ability to launch an anti-satellite missile from a fighter jet in response to U.S. tests with an F-15 in 1985.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is planning a small experimental satellite that would orbit in close proximity to a host spacecraft and keep tabs on their surrounding space environment. These experiments are controversial because these satellites could be used as anti-satellite weapons.
Orbiting Earth for six months, the U.S. Air Force XSS-11 (Experimental Satellite System-11) has achieved an early objective—to rendezvous with other space hardware. The XSS-11 is shaking out technology and techniques for future military space purposes, be it for in-space servicing and repair of other satellites to up-close inspection of objects in space.
The US Air Force has successfully launched an XSS-11 micro-satellite that could lead to an autonomous robotic mechanic that fixes satellites in orbit. However, some critics charge that the real motive behind the technology is to demonstrate an anti-satellite weapons capability.