The RF Defense Ministry has been left with no spy satellite in orbit. The last anchor of Russia's surveillance, US-PU satellite of electronic intelligence, moved down from the orbit at night from Friday to Saturday, as the service life of that satellite, which took off from Baikonur May 2004, came to a natural end.
The U.S. is showing reluctance to provide Japan with a system that would give it missile-launch data directly from a U.S. early-warning satellite, complicating Japan's plans to deploy Aegis missile defense cruisers.
The United States and Russia could take thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert by introducing an early warning system of sensors that monitor each other's land-based intercontinental missiles, according to former senator Sam Nunn, who once was chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
Two planned U.S. Defense Department satellites are behind schedule and over budget, jeopardizing White House plans for a ground-based missile defense system.
The United States and Russia are close to finalizing a memorandum of understanding on jointly building and operating two experimental satellites to track ballistic missile launches.
The author argues that the U.S. should continue funding for the RAMOS project, a cooperative effort with Russia to enhance early warning satellite technology.
The article presents an overview of the history of development and the current status of the Soviet and Russian early-warning system, which was built to provide the Soviet strategic forces with information about a missile attack in an event of a nuclear conflict with the United States. Two main components of this system are considered?the network of early-warning radars and the space-based early-warning system, which includes satellites on highly-elliptical and geosynchronous orbits. The system appears to be capable of detecting a massive attack, but cannot be relied upon to detect individual missile launches.
Since 1992, American and Russian scientists have been quietly sketching out a space-based missile watching satellite system. This cooperative project may take on more urgency given U.S. terrorist attacks and the White House stay-the-course attitude in working on anti-ballistic missile defensive measures.
Experts caution that the most threatening scenario for cataclysmic nuclear war is an accidental nuclear launch from Russia due to their deteriorating early warning system.
James Carroll argues that renewed efforts by the United States towards sharing early warning data with Russia would be "a step toward needed technical cooperation, but also toward deeper mutual understanding."