Technology-Reliant U.S. Warns of Threats to Satellites

[gf0012-aust]

If the Chinese came out and said the same thing about their SAT (the one they later destroyed), there wouldn't be so much fuss about their ASAT test in the West. The Americans, unlike the Chinese, are better at PR. Once they openly implied that there is a danger posed by it to the CONUS, I realized that the PR compaign was under way to prepare the public opinion and the world at large for the shotdown atempt.

Make the effort to understand how this has transpired rather than throw out wild opinion all the time.

The sat is on the decay cycle. in other words there has been no need to do anything about it until now. Its got nothing to do with PR. The US demonstrated ASAT across 2 different mediums over 20 years ago, they hardly need to prove anything.

If they can be modified for ASAT, then their original design allows it! I won't be surprised if the PRC reciprocates by also conducting another BMD/ASAT test at sea!

The original design is Russian, so it probably can, but as for sea based FCS and hand offs, this would be via what systems? But, in the scheme of things so can France, so can the UK, so can Japan, so can Russia and so can Israel.

So what?

 

[Firehorse]

I can make an effort, but having only open-source access it's just getting what "the powers that be" want me to believe. I'm not a "conspiracy" type, but had learned to read between the lines, using my critical thinking skills.

In many ways, the task resembles shooting down an intercontinental nuclear missile, although this target is larger, its path is better known and, if a first shot misses, it will continue to circle the Earth for long enough to allow a second or even a third try.
The weapon of choice, after modifications that are under way, is the Standard Missile 3 on Aegis cruisers. The defensive missiles and supporting radar were being modified and tested to shoot down enemy warheads. So the software is being reprogrammed to home in on the radar and other signatures of a large satellite instead of a ballistic missile, officials said.
Although White House, military and NASA officials described the president’s decision as motivated solely by wanting to avoid a spread of toxic fuel in an inhabited area, the effort has implications for missile defense and antisatellite weapons. ..Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, warned that China would cite the intercept to justify its antisatellite test last year.
“The politics are terrible,” Mr. Lewis said. “It will be used by the Chinese to excuse their hit-to-kill test. And it really strengthens the perceived link between antisatellite systems and missile defenses. We will be using a missile defense system to shoot down a satellite.”In January 2007, the Chinese fired an SC-19 missile at a target satellite orbiting 475 miles overhead. About 1,600 pieces of debris, its remnants, were detected soon after that test. ..Debris from the Chinese test, officials said, may orbit and pose a threat to space vehicles for decades, and debris from the American satellite, if hit by the missile, should fall within weeks.
David C. Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the American satellite was far larger than the one that China destroyed. Mr. Wright predicted the missile strike could produce 100,000 pieces of debris, some smaller than a marble but still dangerous to vehicles in space.
He agreed with Pentagon projections that most of the debris would fall into the atmosphere within weeks. But, he said, a risk remained that some debris could be kicked into a higher orbit. Specialists in spy satellites have speculated that the problem satellite, managed by the National Reconnaissance Office, is an experimental imagery device built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Delta II rocket.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/u...17937-AnbHpETjG424LcNZfValbQ&pagewanted=print

If we are to follow their reasoning, and since the Columbia did break-up on reentry- back then NASA also been warning people about the toxic fuel-they should be ready to shot at every returning space shuttle the moment it starts to break up!

The breakup created a shattering bang that was heard as far away as Arkansas, and scattered a shower of fiery - and potentially toxic - debris from the shuttle across a 500-square-mile swath of eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Chunks of metal crashed into backyards, parking lots and pine forests, as well as a dentist's office, a reservoir and a rooftop. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=115311

IMO, in this latest twist, it's as much a desire to conduct ASAT test as to prevent damages on the ground!

 

[AegisFC]

Here is the transcript of the press briefing, pretty interesting read.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4145

 

[Transient]

If we are to follow their reasoning, and since the Columbia did break-up on reentry- back then NASA also been warning people about the toxic fuel-they should be ready to shot at every returning space shuttle the moment it starts to break up!

What great critical thinking skills. Will you please use your critical thinking skills to think about when NASA realised the shuttle was breaking up?

 

[Firehorse]

I'm talking about the future disasters, if they are to happen with shuttles. And there are many others who don't by this spin:

Russia: U.S. may use satellite blast to test weapon
Sat Feb 16, 2008 12:37pm EST
MOSCOW, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday a U.S. plan to shoot down an ailing spy satellite could be used as a cover to test a new space weapon.
The ministry said there was insufficient proof that Washington's decision to fire a missile at the disabled satellite was to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
"In our opinion, the decision to destroy the U.S. satellite is not as harmless as it is being presented. Especially as the United States has been avoiding talks on restricting a space arms race for quite a long time," the ministry's information department said in a statement.
"Under cover of discussions about the danger posed by the satellite, preparation is going ahead for tests of an anti-satellite weapon. Such tests mean in essence the creation of a new strategic weapon."
.. Some space and security experts have said they did not believe Washington's justification for the plans and argued the Pentagon was more likely testing its ability to target other states' satellites.
This suggestion is rejected by U.S. officials.
It will be the first time the United States has conducted an anti-satellite operation since the 1980s. Russia also has not conducted anti-satellite activities in 20 years.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL16451297

Similarly, debris from a decaying object in space, a satellite for example, can be as dangerous to other platforms in space as a missile fired from Earth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/w...1203190083-3I9hreb5IrGB69gys3c7tw&oref=slogin

Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, said the administration's plans to shoot down the satellite -- using a missile that is part of the missile defense program -- will inevitably be interpreted by some as a test of an anti-satellite system.
"I don't believe our missile defense was developed as a secret offensive system, but this plan [to shoot down the satellite] shows the technology can go either way," Hitchens said. "We've given the Chinese and the Russians more cause for concern, and there could be very unfortunate consequences."
John Tkacik, a China specialist at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that the satellite shoot-down will be seen by Chinese and Russian leaders as further indication that the United States intends to develop its abilities to intercept incoming ballistic missiles that travel through the atmosphere and briefly through space.
"I don't think the U.S. is in fact sending that message, but I'm certain the Chinese will think so," Tkacik said. ..
David Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Navy has no better than a 50 percent chance of hitting its target. He also said he is concerned that a successful strike could push debris further into space and harm spacecraft in low orbit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503249.html

 

[Investigator]

Comments deleted.

 

[Firehorse]

“In my opinion, this decision is imprudent and ill advised,” said Li Bin, an arms control specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “If this satellite is shot down, the toxic fuel will still be there. Therefore, the pollution still exists.”
But, Mr. Li said, destroying the satellite would be an effective way to prevent its technology from falling into the wrong hands.
Just days after China and Russia renewed their call for a global ban on space weapons at a disarmament conference, the United States announced late last week that it was preparing to fire a missile at the crippled reconnaissance satellite by the middle of next week during one of its passes over the Pacific.
The United States opposes treaties or other measures to restrict space weapons.
In what will be a challenging test of antiballistic missile technology, the interceptor will be fired from an American warship just before the satellite is expected to plunge uncontrollably back to earth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/asia/19china.html?th&emc=th

And then there is an issue of costs.

The attempt by the U.S. Navy to use an anti-missile missile to shoot down a potentially hazardous satellite will cost between $40 million and $60 million, Pentagon officials told CNN on Friday.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/15/spy.satellite/?iref=mpstoryview

Would the potential damage costs be comparable with those figures? And lastly, how much would it cost to have dedicated ASAT air-launched missiles & F-15s and/or other fighters on stanbdby when there are many other missions to be flown, in comparison with being able to use existing BMD structures?

 

[Grand Danois]

Mr. Li should know better if he is a specialist. A hit by a KKV will pulverize the sat, making the hydrazine burn or disperse in the atmosphere. Doesn't he know or does he say this with a different purpose than a technical evaluation of potential outcomes?

Responsibility (and liability) increase with ability. The potential loss of a single life from the fuel is enough justification - in Western terms.

 

[Firehorse]

That's a valid point- he has his own ax to grind! But, without venturing too far and off- topic, if the Western lifes were so valueable, there would be no "war on drugs" that had cost many innocent lifes, at the same time as many "over the counter" drugs turn out to be dangerous, the US dentists have the highest suicide rate among professionals as they use mercury/silver amalgam fillings, and the refined sugar, which is more dangerous than cocaine, can be bought freely by anyone!

 

[Grand Danois]

That's a valid point- he has his own ax to grind! But, without venturing too far and off- topic, if the Western lifes were so valueable, there would be no "war on drugs" that had cost many innocent lifes, at the same time as many "over the counter" drugs turn out to be dangerous, the US dentists have the highest suicide rate among professionals as they use mercury/silver amalgam fillings, and the refined sugar, which is more dangerous than cocaine, can be bought freely by anyone!

Who said "Western lives ?"

Nope, that is relativism (in the popular sense). It is also a discussion of what can be controlled. And also a question of managed and accepted risk wrt the dentists. Improving knowledge etc.. Basically it is not evidence of double standards.

You have to compare equal to equal.

 

[Firehorse]

If that SAT "poses danger to USA", then it's the Western lifes that are primaraly at stake- to drive the threat home. When it's in the interests of certain circles, they'll use the "sanctity of life" to justify anything. In reality, it's their lifes and pocketbooks they are most concerned about! I would have more respect for them if they did 1 of 2 things: stop pretending that this planned shootdown attempt is nothing more than to prevent damages to innocents; or just let that SAT fall and then pay the victims, in accordance with the international law and treaties, for "collateral damage", like they do in the war zones.

 

[Grand Danois]

If that SAT "poses danger to USA", then it's the Western lifes that are primaraly at stake- to drive the threat home. When it's in the interests of certain circles, they'll use the "sanctity of life" to justify anything. In reality, it's their lifes and pocketbooks they are most concerned about! I would have more respect for them if they did 1 of 2 things: stop pretending that this planned shootdown attempt is nothing more than to prevent damages to innocents; or let that SAT fall and then pay the victims for "collateral damage", like they do in the war zones.

Read my prev reply. You've created false premise, with the aim of doing a strawman.

 

[Firehorse]

Well, I read it again- they just think it can be controlled. Who is to say that the outcome of this ASAT attempt will be less damaging in the long run? Even the independent experts aren't so sure! If you feel that I missed something, please PM me.

 

[Grand Danois]

Well, I read it again- they just think it can be controlled. Who is to say that the outcome of this ASAT attempt will be less damaging in the long run? Even the independent experts aren't so sure! If you feel that I missed something, please PM me.

Actually we don't know if it can be controlled. The Americans say they can - and I expect them to be right - otherwise they wouldn't try it.

But things can go wrong. We'll know by the end of the week.

 

[merocaine]

Looks like the US has 3 strikes on this before they run out of converted sm-3's,
wouldn't be surprised if they zap it on the first strike.

Anyway this is going to be a great test for the BMD system, and has some serious wow factor as a nice add on to!

 

[kamikazeranger]

woah, woah, woah, slow down..... who mentioned aurora bombers ealier? that has no effect on the balistic and satalite capabilities of the united states.

 

[Firehorse]

While U.S. officials have depicted the attempt solely as a precaution against the slim chance that the satellite's hazardous rocket fuel could harm people on Earth, the test will inherently have spillover military consequences, the experts said.
To accomplish this week's task, for example, the Navy has modified its Aegis anti-missile radar system for satellite tracking, making clear that a system designed for missile defense can be transformed into an anti-satellite system in a short time.
The attempted shoot-down will also enable the Pentagon to practice using, in an urgent scenario, key elements of its space defense apparatus, including the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and its sophisticated space identification, tracking and targeting system.
The attempt will further provide an unscripted opportunity to see whether ship-based missiles can blow up the satellite just as it reenters Earth's atmosphere -- a key moment in any attempt to intercept an intercontinental missile that might someday be launched against the United States.
"Whatever their motivation for shooting down the satellite, it's clear that this will be quite useful to the military," said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on military space issues and a department head of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
When asked last week about Chinese and Russian capabilities to harm our satellites, Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, told the House Armed Services Committee, "It would not be that difficult to inflict significant, serious damage to our capabilities over [a] couple of days." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902510.html

"Essentially, speculations about the danger of the satellite hide preparations for the classical testing of an anti-satellite weapon," a statement reported by Itar-Tass news agency said.
The Russian defence ministry argued that various countries' spacecraft had crashed to Earth in the past, with many using toxic fuel on board, but that this had never before merited "extraordinary measures". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7254540.stm

Here is a different angle:

The hydrazine explanation seems far-fetched, but the alternative explanations make even less sense. The U.S. doesn’t need to do this to impress the Chinese. They were already impressed by earlier successful tests, including the last one where an SM-3 missile launched from an Aegis cruiser hit a warhead 87 miles above the Pacific Ocean. This didn’t get a lot of public attention, but the Chinese military was sure to have followed it closely, if only because the U.S. has a cooperative missile defense program using Aegis with Japan, which the Chinese think could be used to defend Taiwan. .. The notion that secret high tech gizmos would fall into the wrong hands has some merit, but not enough to justify a shoot-down. There are always pieces of wreckage when a satellite falls to the ground. When they fall in the Canadian Arctic, the U.S. and Canada collect the pieces. When a nuclear powered satellite built by the Soviet Union crashed in Canada in the 1970s, the Soviets said they didn’t want the pieces back. When a Chinese rocket carrying a Western-owned communications satellite blew up shortly after launch, the Chinese carefully collected all the pieces and tried to examine them before turning them back, but the most sensitive items were charred and cracked beyond recognition. The probability of gaining useful information from the crash is low, as the best technology would have to survive reentry and the debris would have to fall in an opponent-controlled area. The probability of surviving reentry and landing in a hostile controlled area are too low to explain the decision to shoot down.
The one scenario that doesn’t get as much attention is planetary defence, possibly because it sounds silly. The notion that the U.S. should add intercepting meteorites or asteroids before they strike the earth to its defense missions seems pretty far-fetched. These events are so rare as to be improbable. On the other hand, supporters say, an asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs, drastically changed the environment, created a year-long winter and so on. It still sounds far-fetched. On the other hand, a 200-foot wide meteorite that struck Tunguska Siberia in 1908 had the effect of a nuclear explosion (without the radiation aftereffects). If there was warning that a similar event was about to occur over a populated area, it would be nice to have the ability to stop it. It's not worth spending much time worrying about being hit by asteroids, however, or even by satellites, but having spent all that money on missile defense, it’s nice that it finally has some practical use.
http://news.google.com/news?btcid=f1dc7c2674b26f1a

Well, I forgot to mention that, if the earlier ASAT method, using an F-15 or F-16 , was still available, why not use it now? Having run out of the Earthly reasons, he appeals for extraterrestrial ones! nfloorl: :shudder

Admin: Again you fail to understand or comprehend the rules about respect and decorum. Come back in a week.

 

[radiosilence]

The AP is reporting the Satellite was hit but no word on whether the tank containing toxic fuel has been destroyed.

A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite;_ylt=A9G_RmYk9bxHei8BJxd.m_8A

 

[Firehorse]

When not too long ago NK was testing its new ICBM, there was some talk about US to try shooting it down. That BM failed, but this time, the opportunity presented itself- either by design or coincidence.

First, all informed technologists understand that any ballistic missile defense (BMD) system that can shoot down long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) also has the potential to shoot down satellites in low-earth-orbit (LEO)-such satellites travel slightly faster than ICBMs and move in similar altitudes above the earth. [As I've said earlier! Regardless, being a non-expert gives me a fresh perspective! ]..6-weeks crash effort made clear that for about $25 million, such software upgrades can give an anti-ICBM capability to the Aegis ships now operating around the world-a good buy by any reasonable measure.. http://www.aim.org/guest-column/make-navy-missile-defense-all-it-can-be/

I think these quotes neatly summarize the latest ASAT/mission implications for the US in space:

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Bill Clinton, said he suspected one of the unstated U.S. goals on Wednesday was to strut an ability to shoot down a satellite from any ocean on earth.
"It was a bad idea," he said. "It will make it easier for other countries to justify shooting down satellites for whatever supposed reason, thereby increasing the likelihood of an arms race in space."
"I'll bet you a dinner that the Russians will do it next," he added in an E-mail interview.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2144210520080221?sp=true

Ever since President Ronald Reagan launched “Star Wars,” countries such as Russia and China have been suspicious that the real aim of the U.S. missile defense program was to develop offensive technology to control space. Russian and Chinese officials often have argued that U.S. missile defense interceptors are really anti-satellite weapons in disguise. Not to indulge what is arguably paranoia, but the use of the SM-3 interceptor – designed to shoot down intermediate range ballistic missiles – to hit the ailing spysat threatens to validate these fears. With a relatively simple software switch-out (software that Cartwright said took only three weeks to develop), the SM-3 will be able to target a satellite. Cartwright stressed that this is a one-time mission for the Navy’s interceptor, and that the satellite-targeting software is not compatible with the software necessary for the interceptors to target incoming missiles so would not be replicated through the fleet. But the fact of the matter is that the software wasn’t all that hard to develop, and it now exists. And while the SM-3 missiles don’t have the range to reliably target most active satellites, the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse interceptors in silos at FortGreeley and Vandenberg do.
And about that Chinese ASAT test. It is also clear that the move to target US 193 will be read by many abroad as a deliberate “signal” to Beijing that the United States can rapidly match, indeed outstrip, any ASAT capability the Chinese may be building. (All we need is software!) Even if there was no intention by the White House or the Pentagon to saber rattle, that will be the perception – especially as the announcement of the planned intercept attempt came only two days after Russia and China put forward a proposed treaty to ban space weapons at the UN Conference on Disarmament. The geopolitical risk here is twofold. First, it is likely to increase the Sino-American tensions in space and spur negative reaction in China (and perhaps also Russia), such as galvanizing research on ASATs into pursuit of an operational program. Second, it sends a signal that destructive ASAT tests are OK, as long as they are low in altitude and can be given plausible deniability by the rational of “saving lives.” The United States might regret setting that precedent if the planned Iranian satellite “fails” and Tehran decides to destroy it with its Shahab. The proliferation of debris-creating ASAT technology is in no one’s self-interest, because sooner or later, someone will be tempted to use it. And as the Chinese test proved in spades, that would threaten us all. http://www.ploughshares.org/news.php?id=507

"They're going to use this as a test of an anti-satellite system to destroy the satellite," said Ivan Oelrich, a security expert at the Ploughshares-funded Federation of American Scientists, in a Reuters interview. "I'm concerned about the implications this will have with the Chinese and the Russians for starting an anti-satellite arms race, which will do nobody any good but will particularly threaten the United States because we are far and away the biggest presence in space," he said.
Michael Krepon of the Henry L. Stimson Center, another Ploughshares Fund grantee, is not buying the government’s rationale for shooting down the satellite. “Keeping space from becoming a shooting gallery is a critically important goal,” he maintains. “The Pentagon’s ASAT [anti-satellite] test will be designed to mitigate debris, while raising international concerns that the Pentagon is using a failed satellite to hone its space warfare skills. The ostensible reason for the ASAT test – to protect human beings from the satellite’s unused supply of deadly fuel – is unpersuasive. If this man-made object causes human casualties or fatalities, they will be the first in the history of the space age.
http://www.ploughshares.org/news.php?id=506

Yet, even the successful mission in no way proves that the United States is safe from nuclear attack or that it can do what it wants in space.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/22/america/satellite.php

 

[Schumacher]

There's at least the offer by the defence chief to share data with China, I wonder if there's any follow up to the offer.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080222/NEWS01/802220383/1001/NEWS01

'.......Yesterday, the Beijing government asked the U.S. to release data on the shootdown, and the Communist Party's newspaper blasted what it called Washington's callous attitude toward the weaponization of space.

Asked about China's concerns, Gates told reporters during a visit to U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith that the United States is prepared to share with China some of the information about the shootdown, but he was not specific. He said some was provided beforehand.........'