Anti-satellite weapon
The specter of bombardment satellites and the reality of ballistic missiles stimulated the Soviet Union to explore defensive space weapons.
What is certain is that at the beginning of April 1960, Nikita Khrushchev held a meeting at his summer residence in Crimea, discussing an array of defence industry issues.
Elements within the Soviet space industry convinced Leonid Brezhnev that the Shuttle was a single-orbit weapon that would be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, manoeuvre to avoid existing anti-ballistic missile sites, bomb Moscow in a first strike, and then land.
[12] Although the Soviet military was aware these claims were false,[citation needed] Brezhnev believed them and ordered a resumption of IS testing along with a Shuttle of their own.
As part of this work the IS system was expanded to allow attacks at higher altitudes and was declared operational in this new arrangement on 1 July 1979.
In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union also started developing a counterpart to the US air-launched ASAT system, using modified MiG-31D 'Foxhounds' (at least six of which were completed) as the launch platform.
[16] In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev visited Baikonur Cosmodrome and was shown an anti-satellite system called "Naryad" (Sentry), also known as 14F11, launched by UR-100N rockets.
[17] In the late 1950s, the US Air Force started a series of advanced strategic missile projects under the designation Weapon System WS-199A.
[citation needed] The use of high-altitude nuclear explosions to destroy satellites was considered after the tests of the first conventional missile systems in the 1960s.
During the Hardtack Teak test in 1958 observers noted the damaging effects of the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) caused by the explosions on electronic equipment, and during the Starfish Prime test in 1962 the EMP from a 1.4-megaton-of-TNT (5.9 PJ) warhead detonated over the Pacific damaged three satellites and also disrupted power transmission and communications across the Pacific.
Another area of research was directed-energy weapons, including a nuclear-explosion powered X-ray laser proposal developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1968.
[citation needed]ASATs were generally given low priority until 1982, when information about a successful USSR program became widely known in the west.
The F-15's guidance system was modified for the mission and provided new directional cuing through the pilot's head-up display, and allowed for mid-course updates via a data link.
[citation needed] USA-193 was an American reconnaissance satellite, which was launched on 14 December 2006 by a Delta II rocket, from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
[21] After publicly announcing its intention to do so a week earlier,[22] on 21 February 2008, the US Navy destroyed USA-193 in Operation Burnt Frost, using a ship-fired RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 about 247 km (153 mi) above the Pacific Ocean.
[23] According to the US government, the primary reason for destroying the satellite was the approximately 450 kg (1000 lb) of toxic hydrazine fuel contained on board, which could pose health risks to persons in the immediate vicinity of the crash site should any significant amount survive the re-entry.
The next stage would deploy the larger platforms and the following phases would include the laser and charged particle beam weapons that would be developed by that time from existing projects such as MIRACL.
Research in the US and the Soviet Union was proving that the requirements, at least for orbital based energy weapon systems, were, with available technology, close to impossible.
Ultimately, the Soviet Union approached the point of experimental implementation of orbital laser platforms with the (failed) launch of Polyus.
Research and Development (both of ASAT systems and other space based/deployed weapons) has, however, reported to have been resumed under the government of Vladimir Putin as a counter to renewed US Strategic Defense efforts post Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
These programs include the Experimental Spacecraft System (USA-165), the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE), and the space-based interceptor (SBI).
[34][35] On 15 April 2020, US officials said Russia conducted a direct ascent anti-satellite missile test that could take out spacecraft or satellites in low Earth orbit.
[44][45] In May 2013, the Chinese government announced the launch of a suborbital rocket carrying a scientific payload to study the upper ionosphere.
On 10 February 2010, DRDO Director-General and Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, Dr. Vijay Kumar Saraswat stated that India had "all the building blocks necessary" to integrate an anti-satellite weapon to neutralize hostile satellites in low earth and polar orbits.
[50] In April 2012, DRDO's chairman V. K. Saraswat said that India possessed the critical technologies for an ASAT weapon from radars and interceptors developed for Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme.
The interceptor was launched at around 05:40 UTC at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur, Odisha and hit its target Microsat-R[55] after 168 seconds.
[63] Brian Weeden of Secure World Foundation agreed, but warned about the possibility of some fragments getting boosted to higher orbits.
[72] However, even if the attack is successful, signal degradation only lasts for 95 minutes and backup inertial navigation systems (INS) would still be available for relatively accurate movement as well as laser guidance for weapons targeting.
China would prefer to cut off deployed units from each other and then negotiate with the NCA to have the battle group withdraw or stand down, but ASATs could only achieve the opposite.
[72] On November 1, 2022, a UN working group adopted for the first time a resolution calling on countries to ban destructive anti-satellite missile tests.
