Space warfare
On October 31, 2023, during a Yemeni missile strike on Israel, Israel's Arrow 2 system intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Yemen by Houthi rebels; this successful interception occurred outside of Earth's atmosphere thus making it the first recorded practical instance of space warfare during an active conflict.
[1][2] On April 14, 2024, Iran launched more than 120 ballistic missiles at Israel, making it the first large-scale incident in which a space weapon was used.
It was thought, at the time of its introduction, that the plane’s service ceiling of 24,000 metres (80,000 ft) would render it immune to Soviet aircraft, missiles, and radar.
Three years before the incident, in 1957, a modified R-7 rocket carried the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into an orbit hundreds of kilometers above sea level, notably beyond the reach of any existing weapons system.
While Sputnik 1 held no military value, only transmitting radio signals back to Earth for three weeks, its launch sparked the beginning of the Space Race.
A 1976 Soviet report suggested that the design of the Space Shuttle had been guided by a requirement to deliver a payload- such as a bomb- over Russia and return to land after a single orbit.
While early efforts paralleled other space-to-space warfare concepts, the United States was able in the 1980s to develop ground-to-space laser anti-satellite weapons.
According to Israeli officials, the interception occurred above Earth's atmosphere above the Negev Desert, making it the first instance of space combat in history.
[21][22] On November 21, 2024, as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia launched a new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, striking Dnipro.
Analysts stated the missile used a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), likely marking their first use in combat.
Space-based missiles were not attempted due to the Outer Space Treaty, which banned the use, testing or storage of nuclear weapons outside the Earth's atmosphere.
[29] Systems proposed ranged from measures as simple as ground and space-based anti-missiles to railguns, space based lasers, orbital mines and similar weaponry.
Deployment of these systems was seriously considered in the mid-1980s under the banner of the Strategic Defense Initiative announced by Ronald Reagan in 1983, using the term "evil empire" to describe the Soviets (hence the popular nickname "Star Wars").
Weapons like the space-based laser was rejected, not just by the government, but by universities, moral thinkers, and religious people because it would have increased the waging of the arms race and questioned the United States' role in the Cold War.
[31] With the end of the Cold War and continued development of satellite and electronics technology, attention was focused on space as a supporting theatre for conventional warfare.
To this end, the US (and presumably other countries) is researching groups of small, highly mobile satellites called "microsats" (about the size of a refrigerator) and "picosats" (approximately 1 cubic foot (≈27 litres) in volume) nimble enough to maneuver around and interact with other orbiting objects to repair, sabotage, hijack, or simply collide with them.
Though such systems not yet functional, the US Defense Intelligence Agency notes that several actors, including the United States, PRC, Russia, and France, are actively pursuing these capabilities.
The vast distances pose big challenges for targeting and tracking, as even light requires a few seconds to cover hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
A projectile from a railgun recently tested by the US Navy would take over 18 hours to cross that distance, if it travels in a straight line at a constant velocity of 5.8 km/s along its entire trajectory.
General William L. Shelton has said that in order to protect against attacks, Space Situational Awareness is much more important than additional hardening or armoring of satellites.
Protecting these assets might seriously motivate nations dependent upon them to consider deploying more space-based weaponry, especially in conflicts involving advanced countries with access to space.
These weapons are usually either ballistic or anti-ballistic interceptor missiles, which ascend directly from Earth to intercept their target and have been adapted to the anti-satellite role.
While this option comes with the benefit of leveraging existing technologies and a certain element of surprise, as an attack cannot be detected until a missile has exited its silo, there are significant downsides.
While these co-orbital systems provide more utility when compared to more direct and destructive options, their advantages are contingent on being maneuverable and inconspicuous.
Given the increasing paranoia surrounding co-orbital anti-satellite, it is hard to believe that the major players in space will fail to notice the deployment of “research” satellites.
Fictional space warfare includes anticipated future technology and tactics, and fantasy- or history-based scenarios in a scifi setting.
E. E. Smith's Lensman is an early example, which also inspired the term space opera due to the grandiose scale of the stories.
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series is a notable example in that it makes a conjecture as to what sort of tactics and training would be needed for war in outer space.
Characterization can vary wildly from malevolent forces attacking sympathetic victims to apathetic bureaucracies to more reasonable entities focused on social progress, and anywhere in between.
Writers such as Larry Niven have developed plausible interplanetary conflict based on human colonization of the asteroid belt and outer planets via technologies using currently known physics.
