Transcript Space Weaponization?

Space Weaponization and Space
Control: Who’s Doing What?
Dr. S. Pete Worden
Director, NASA Ames
SETI Institute
10 Dec 2008
Outline
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Global Controversy
What is a “Space Weapon?”
What is “Space Control?”
Force Application/Missile Defense?
Who’s Doing What?
– USA and Others
• Do Space Weapons make any sense?
(probably not for the foreseeable future)
– On-Orbit Servicing (OOS)
– other dual use
– “Intent”
• Conclusions
Global Controversy:
US Air Force Master Plan:
A Provocative Document
US National Space Policy
“Consistent with this policy, the
United States will: … deny, if
necessary, adversaries the use
of space capabilities hostile to
U.S. national interests”
Global Controversy: Space
Weaponization?
Bush likely to back weapons in space
Arms race feared over 'death stars' and 'rods from God'
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday May 19, 2005
The Guardian
Russia and China push for treaty
banning weapons in space
•
Russia and China released a working paper on
June 9, 2005, asking that the UN Conference on
Disarmament take up discussions of a treaty that
would thwart the weaponization of space. At
present, there is no treaty that would prevent any
country from doing so…
(UPI, June 20, 2005) – Center for Defense
Information Security Update 9 Jul 2005
Military Space Definitions
USA
Areas of Space
Weapon Possibilities
Types of Weapons
• Space to Space
– Space Directed Energy – microwaves, lasers, particle
beams
– Kinetic Energy Interceptors
– Space-based missile defenses
• Space to Ground
– Directed Energy
– Kinetic Impactors – “rods from God”
• Ground to Space
– Direct ascent and co-orbital Anti-satellites (ASAT)
– Ground-based missile defenses
– Nuclear weapon pumped radiation belts
Not Space Weapons?
• Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) –
GLONASS, GPS, GALILEO
• Surveillance and Reconnaissance
• Information Operations – Control of
Military and Political Information
• Ground to Ground (ICBMs and other long
range missiles – not considered space
weapons!
IF THE GUNSIGHT IS IN SPACE BUT NOT THE GUN IS THAT A SPACE
WEAPON?
Defensive Counter Space
(DCS)
• Electronic protection – designed to deny
hostile users use of satellite capabilities –
example; GPS encrypted signals
• Warning sensors – US CEASE - Compact
Environmental Anomaly warning sensor
• Escort protection
Escort Protection - Dual
Use?
• XSS-11(US DoD) XSS-11's objective is to demonstrate key elements of
extended proximity operations using microsatellites. An agile, capable, affordable microsatellite
will rendezvous with a resident space object and perform extended proximity operations including
standoff inspection and circumnavigation.
• DART (NASA) DART will rendezvous with the target satellite, the Multiple
Paths, Beyond-Line-of-Site Communications (MUBLCOM) satellite, also built by Orbital Sciences.
Launched in May 1999, the MUBLCOM satellite was outfitted with equipment designed for future
use with a video guidance system such as the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS)
onboard DART.
Past Offensive Counter
Space (OCS) – 1960s-80s
• US F-15 MV Antisatellite (ASAT)
• Soviet Union co-orbital ASAT
• Debris issues!
Recent Offensive Counter
Space (OCS) – 2008
Chinese Test (2007)
• Intercepted Chinese
weather sat: FY-1C
• 3000 debris >5cm
• Increase of ~20%
• Conjunctions up >30%
US Action (2008)
• Intercepted NRO sat USA-193
• Less debris (lower orbit)
• Still increased risks to ISS
Offensive Counter Space
(OCS) - Electronic Warfare
• Counter Communications System – declared
operational 2004
• Counter Surveillance and Reconaissance System –
Terminated by US Congress and US DoD
• Numerous instances of non-US satellite jamming in past
15 years – example Indonesia-Tonga “Satellite War”
1992-96
• Non-state actors – Falun Gong vs China
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong-based satellite operator accused the
Falun Gong spiritual group, banned in China as an "evil cult," on Monday of
hacking into one of its satellites to illegally beam transmissions into
mainland China. July 5, 2005
Missile Defense - OCS
• Ground and air-based missile defense
(and some air defense) systems of USA,
Russia and China have the potential as
ASATs
• Space-based missile defenses
controversial
– US Near Field InfraRed Experiment (NFIRE)
NFIRE – A “Tempest in a
Teapot” or a Dangerous
Initiative?
• US Missile Defense
Agency experiment
• Pushed by 1980s missile
defense enthusiasts
• Mandated by US
Congress to be strictly a
sensor test
• Doesn’t make any sense
as a missile defense
system against current
“threats” such as North
Korea vice other
approaches
Force Application
• Space-Based Lasers – Effort
terminated (weapon would weigh 100
tonnes, be vulnerable and probably
easily countermeasured) US and
Soviet efforts
Capistrano Test
Center
Was it launched?
Rods from God?
• Kinetic energy at high velocities (10+
km/sec) approaches nuclear energy –
10 tonnes dropped from the
moon=10kilotons
• Weapon concept is to place package in
GTO or HEO orbit and de-orbit on need
• Time to Target – 12 -24 hours
• Ground-launched missiles far quicker
(10-60 minutes) and more effective –
mainstay of Chinese long-range strike
force
– US Hypersonic development program
– Russia, China, India similar programs
One High Altitude Nuclear Detonation
Impacts Multiple Systems
• High-altitude nuclear tests of 1958 and 1962 demonstrated wide-area effects
with significant military impacts for numerous systems.
– Radars:
Blackout, absorption, noise, clutter, scintillation
– Communications:
Blackout, scintillation fading, noise, connectivity
– Optical Sensors:
IR, Visible, UV backgrounds, clutter; g noise
– Satellites:
Trapped radiation; radiation damage to electronics
– Electronics & Power: Electromagnetic pulse; electrical systems damage
ORANGE
3.8 MT at 43 km
TEAK
3.8 MT at 76.8 km
KINGFISH
__ MT at __ km
CHECKMATE
__ MT at __ km
From Defense Threat Reduction Agency/Mission Research Corp briefing, 15 Jan 2003
STARFISH
1.4 MT at 400 km
Observations
• Too much rhetoric on all sides
– Space Weapons zealots are “scaring the animals”
– Alarmists enjoy being scared
• Space Control is a subset of security related information
control
• “Weapons” generally don’t make much sense from a
cost or effectiveness standpoint
• The USA is not actually doing much in the way of
weapons in its $45B space program – and certainly not
“rushing” into a space arms race
• Many nations are developing relevant “dual use”
capabilities
• Significant need and opportunity for rational dialogue