High-intensity warfare is not limited to combat on land, sea, or air, but also in space. To slow down an enemy army, separate units from their command, or even prevent civilians from communicating, all you have to do is destroy commercial or military satellites.
How? Each country develops its own method even if that means, for some, breaking the 1967 Space Treaty that regulates the use of weapons in outer space. The means are numerous: missile, nuclear bomb, laser beam, cyber attacks or even organizing a collision that could pass for a simple accident.
Science fiction? Not really. These methods have been tested or are being developed by countries (China, Russia, the United States, India or France) to launch attacks or deter attacks against their interests. It is difficult to know precisely who does what. Depending on their defense or intimidation strategy, States leak information, some of which is verifiable.
But the danger is real. On Thursday, Konstantin Vorontsov, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, issued a threat against Western satellites used to provide communications or intelligence to the Ukrainians.
antisatellite missiles
Asat (anti-satellite activities) are ballistic missiles modified to shoot down space targets. Four countries have already tested these machines: the United States, China, Russia (and the former USSR), and India.
The United States had stopped the tests in 1985 but resumed them in 2008 after the arrival of China to this weaponry in 2007 with the destruction of a meteorological satellite. According to a Pentagon report published in 2021, Beijing now has an arsenal to destroy satellites located in low Earth orbit.
In 2019, India shot down one of its low-orbiting satellites from a distance of 300 kilometers with an Asat during an exercise dubbed “Mission Shakti” (“strength” in Hindi). The information was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The operation only lasted three minutes.
Russia continued the anti-missile programs of the USSR. Two tests were carried out in 2015 and 2021. This latest test, targeting an old decommissioned satellite, sparked an international outcry. The debris has put the ISS on high alert over fears it could damage the space station.
10 megaton nuclear warhead
All countries that have the atomic weapon could use it against orbital targets, but to date, only one would seek to develop such a device. According to Asia Times, China would have carried out simulations to destroy constellations of satellites at different altitudes. These experiments would be carried out by the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, a research institute under the People’s Liberation Army.
A 10-megaton warhead exploding at a height of 80 kilometers would cause a gigantic radioactive cloud capable of destroying satellites. A nuclear explosion in space would not have the desired effect because the lack of air would not generate the necessary cloud to destroy the targets.
cyber attacks
Cyber attack is the most discreet and least dangerous means because it does not produce debris. On the other hand, it is effective in dismantling a satellite or changing its orbit to send it to the far reaches of the galaxy.
All countries participating in the conquest of space have the capabilities. The most recent and well-known use is the cyberattack that Russia launched in Europe an hour before launching its assault on Ukraine. The cyberattack targeted the KA-SAT satellite network, operated by Viasat.
According to a statement from the European Union, this “attack caused significant interruptions in communications that affected public services, businesses and citizen users in Ukraine, but also in several EU member states.”
A blinding laser beam
Instead of destroying a satellite, it is better to make it deaf, dumb and blind. This is the principle of “electro-optical warfare”. This is the path chosen by France to protect its spacecraft from satellites that would like to get close to them in order to hack or damage them.
with L’onera (National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research), the Ministry of the Armed Forces is working on a laser capable of neutralizing an enemy satellite without physically destroying it. This defensive weapon will be able to hit targets located between 400 and 700 km in altitude.
France is not the only country that has developed a defensive laser. General Michel Friedling, who heads the Joint Space Command (CIE), indicated in 2018 that Russia has Sokol airborne lasers on the Ilyushin 76 platform, as well as a laser called Peresvet, which “could have anti-satellite capability.”
Last July, “The Space Review” detected in official documents published in Russia an investigation into a new anti-satellite laser whose launch platform will be installed on a site under the Krona space center.
China is also said to have an anti-satellite laser weapon. Beijing is keeping quiet about it, but according to US Space Force Commander John Raymond, it is developing a beam to blind enemy satellites. “It is clear that China plans to use these threats against us in a conflict,” John Raymond said when he took office in 2019.
Collision or space attack
Alongside these technological innovations, more rudimentary methods are being explored and perhaps even already in use. At the head, the collision between two spacecraft that could pass for a simple accident without fear of triggering a conflict.
In 2009, the American satellite Iridium 33 and the Russian Cosmos 2251 collided in low Earth orbit north of Siberia. Officially, it was an accident that still created space debris.
This debris projected at lightning speed and gravitating around the earth becomes projectiles in turn. In March 2021, a Chinese satellite disintegrated after colliding with a piece of an old Russian rocket.
To avoid these situations, CNES monitors the low-orbiting satellites under its control and performs the necessary avoidance manoeuvres.
Finally, attack satellites are also being developed. According to the Pentagon report on the Chinese space threat, Beijing is developing satellites that can attack others. These devices could be used to protect the Chinese space station.
Source: BFM TV
