China test ASAT II
- Thread starter bd popeye
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AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Ironic one of the points brought up in the Q&A was that the Chinese had the inability to predict consequences. Like Iraq? Like being comforted by the prejudice of Chinese backwardness that an ASAT test could not be accomplished for at least ten years? I could go on...
Infra_Man99
Banned Idiot
Yes, that video is filled with Western propaganda to make China look bad, as pointed out by the above message.
Another point I would like to make is that China is responsible for a fraction of the space junk floating around the Earth. Almost ALL of the space junk has been created by the US, Russia, and EU.
Thankfully, China understands this and will continue its space programs, like a full range of satellite technology.
Another point I would like to make is that China is responsible for a fraction of the space junk floating around the Earth. Almost ALL of the space junk has been created by the US, Russia, and EU.
Thankfully, China understands this and will continue its space programs, like a full range of satellite technology.
Well I thought that the video was spot on on many things.
This short text with the video pretty much describes this.
"Further, such explanations view China as a unified, rational decision maker, rather than a complicated bureaucracy in which conflicting interests compete for attention and resources, and mistakes can be made."
I myself often use this viewpoint trying to make heads and tails of China's arms programs.
This short text with the video pretty much describes this.
"Further, such explanations view China as a unified, rational decision maker, rather than a complicated bureaucracy in which conflicting interests compete for attention and resources, and mistakes can be made."
I myself often use this viewpoint trying to make heads and tails of China's arms programs.
Infra_Man99
Banned Idiot
These are some of the points I disagree with the video:
1. The video shows: The two guys are professionals in China, and the two professionals even question their own expertise.
My Disagreement: Living and working in China for 12 years does NOT make you a professional about China. Look at most Americans who have spent most of their lives and jobs in America, and see how many Americans are clueless about America. Look at how Americans and Europeans have warred and worked in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia for centuries, and see how clueless many of these Americans and Europeans are about these regions. Rumsfeld was suppose to be a professional with a long, INSIDER experience dealing with the Middle East. Look at dumb Rumsfeld is now. Of course, some Americans stil believe Rumsfield is a genius. My point is that living and working in a nation does not make you a professional about the nation.
2. The video shows: The two pros said that China received more international condemnation than China expected.
My Disagreement: I read international news and based on my news, most nations did not condemn China. Overall, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East had a response ranging from "interesting" to "now that the US told us about this test, please give us more information" to "Wow, China has proved that the US does not own space. China has given us hope to compete in space, too." Japan, Western Europe, and America were the ones who condemned China, but even then, Western Europe was not united. Another disagreement is that they have no evidence that China was caught off-guard about "international condemnation."
I don't want to write the many things I disagree with this video. I will say something positive in that the video's two "professionals" were spot on about how America and the European Union are using little information about China to make broad and detailed opinions about China, and America and the European Union should stop doing this if they are interested in building a real, if not better, relationship with China.
1. The video shows: The two guys are professionals in China, and the two professionals even question their own expertise.
My Disagreement: Living and working in China for 12 years does NOT make you a professional about China. Look at most Americans who have spent most of their lives and jobs in America, and see how many Americans are clueless about America. Look at how Americans and Europeans have warred and worked in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia for centuries, and see how clueless many of these Americans and Europeans are about these regions. Rumsfeld was suppose to be a professional with a long, INSIDER experience dealing with the Middle East. Look at dumb Rumsfeld is now. Of course, some Americans stil believe Rumsfield is a genius. My point is that living and working in a nation does not make you a professional about the nation.
2. The video shows: The two pros said that China received more international condemnation than China expected.
My Disagreement: I read international news and based on my news, most nations did not condemn China. Overall, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East had a response ranging from "interesting" to "now that the US told us about this test, please give us more information" to "Wow, China has proved that the US does not own space. China has given us hope to compete in space, too." Japan, Western Europe, and America were the ones who condemned China, but even then, Western Europe was not united. Another disagreement is that they have no evidence that China was caught off-guard about "international condemnation."
I don't want to write the many things I disagree with this video. I will say something positive in that the video's two "professionals" were spot on about how America and the European Union are using little information about China to make broad and detailed opinions about China, and America and the European Union should stop doing this if they are interested in building a real, if not better, relationship with China.
Everything here is the same as in the previous video. Simply confirms the obvious; China simply has to imperatively empirically test everything.
Did 'naive engineers' spur China's anti-satellite test?
21:42 07 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga
China tested an anti-satellite weapon in 2007 simply because it was ready to test after 20 years of development – and not as a deliberate provocation, an expert on Chinese space policy said at a US Senate hearing on Wednesday.
China blasted one of its own satellites to bits with a missile in January 2007, creating thousands of pieces of space debris that could slam into other satellites. The act sparked international outrage and prompted speculation about China's motivation for the anti-satellite (ASAT) test.
For several years prior to the test, China had been pushing for an international ban on weapons in space, a move the US had been resisting. Some observers suggested the test was meant to persuade the US to reconsider.
But an expert on China's space programme said on Wednesday that analysts are now leaning towards the view that the engineers running China's ASAT programme simply wanted to verify that the technology worked, and that Chinese decision makers naively failed to anticipate the international outrage that the test provoked.
"It's difficult to get into Chinese intentions because we simply don't know – there are many different scenarios that have been laid forth," Joan Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, US, told the US Senate committee on space and aeronautics.
'Time to test'
"I think the one that's increasingly gaining credibility is in fact that during the 1980s, when the US had an active ASAT programme, the Chinese started one as well – it was a technology development programme that took basically 20 years to reach fruition," she said.
The test was naively approved by a leadership that simply did not understand that it would cause international outrage, she suggested. "The engineers who [were] in charge of that technology development programme put it forward as, 'It's time to test'," she said. "I think they severely underestimated international response. I think they now regret underestimating that response."
China had carried out previous "non-impact" ASAT tests that stopped short of actually hitting a satellite in orbit. Perhaps the lack of international condemnation of these earlier tests lulled China's leadership into thinking it could also carry out the impact test with little outrage, Johnson-Freese said.
But other experts doubt that the "naive engineers" theory can completely explain the test, arguing that the demonstration was part of a larger military development programme.
No threat
At the hearing, held mainly to discuss the future of NASA, Johnson-Freese was also asked to describe where China's human spaceflight programme is headed. "We will likely see another [crewed] flight from China this coming fall, with probably a move towards docking with a small space laboratory to follow and … a space station down the road," she said.
China has not officially announced plans for a human Moon landing, she added, although the country is widely believed to have ambitions for such a mission. "They don't like to announce anything until it's sure they have the technology to carry it through," she said.
Despite China's ambitious plans, she played down suggestions that the country's space programme is now competitive with that of the US.
"Personally, I hate to see the US and Chinese space programmes characterised as competitive," she said. "They [China] fly two manned spaceflights over a five-year period and are perceived to be beating the US space programme – that's just wrong."
Did 'naive engineers' spur China's anti-satellite test?
21:42 07 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga
China tested an anti-satellite weapon in 2007 simply because it was ready to test after 20 years of development – and not as a deliberate provocation, an expert on Chinese space policy said at a US Senate hearing on Wednesday.
China blasted one of its own satellites to bits with a missile in January 2007, creating thousands of pieces of space debris that could slam into other satellites. The act sparked international outrage and prompted speculation about China's motivation for the anti-satellite (ASAT) test.
For several years prior to the test, China had been pushing for an international ban on weapons in space, a move the US had been resisting. Some observers suggested the test was meant to persuade the US to reconsider.
But an expert on China's space programme said on Wednesday that analysts are now leaning towards the view that the engineers running China's ASAT programme simply wanted to verify that the technology worked, and that Chinese decision makers naively failed to anticipate the international outrage that the test provoked.
"It's difficult to get into Chinese intentions because we simply don't know – there are many different scenarios that have been laid forth," Joan Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, US, told the US Senate committee on space and aeronautics.
'Time to test'
"I think the one that's increasingly gaining credibility is in fact that during the 1980s, when the US had an active ASAT programme, the Chinese started one as well – it was a technology development programme that took basically 20 years to reach fruition," she said.
The test was naively approved by a leadership that simply did not understand that it would cause international outrage, she suggested. "The engineers who [were] in charge of that technology development programme put it forward as, 'It's time to test'," she said. "I think they severely underestimated international response. I think they now regret underestimating that response."
China had carried out previous "non-impact" ASAT tests that stopped short of actually hitting a satellite in orbit. Perhaps the lack of international condemnation of these earlier tests lulled China's leadership into thinking it could also carry out the impact test with little outrage, Johnson-Freese said.
But other experts doubt that the "naive engineers" theory can completely explain the test, arguing that the demonstration was part of a larger military development programme.
No threat
At the hearing, held mainly to discuss the future of NASA, Johnson-Freese was also asked to describe where China's human spaceflight programme is headed. "We will likely see another [crewed] flight from China this coming fall, with probably a move towards docking with a small space laboratory to follow and … a space station down the road," she said.
China has not officially announced plans for a human Moon landing, she added, although the country is widely believed to have ambitions for such a mission. "They don't like to announce anything until it's sure they have the technology to carry it through," she said.
Despite China's ambitious plans, she played down suggestions that the country's space programme is now competitive with that of the US.
"Personally, I hate to see the US and Chinese space programmes characterised as competitive," she said. "They [China] fly two manned spaceflights over a five-year period and are perceived to be beating the US space programme – that's just wrong."
Ladies and gentlemen you have forgotten the bleeding obvious: a. Many US military satellites can move in space so a blunt unguided missile can be avoided; b. China needs to use a large launcher and there can't be too many of those; c. The US destroyed a dummy warhead in space in the early 60s so China still has a long way to go; d. The US can destroy a satellite in space with a Standard ABM system so every AEGIS equipped destroyer/cruiser becomes an ASAT system once fielded throughout the USN; and e. By knocking out a US satellite China invites retaliation on its mainland in the form of a strike against all known large size missile launch sites and radars setting back China's space program by years.
I would say this isn't really correct. When a USN Tico cruiser downed that errant sat, it was perhaps about 100km above the earth. That's the very low end of any orbit. Meaning most/all sats operate at significantly higher altitudes. The chinese weather sat that was downed was at 900km I think. Far above the reach of a SM-3 missile.
So, while the US ABM system has the ability to be an ASAT weapon, in it's current form it can't touch most sats in orbit.
As Meatloaf said (sort of) three out of four ain't bad and then I am not totally disputed. Just add the Ground Based Interceptors out of Fort Greely and THAAD coming into service there is planty of potential layered ASAT capablility. The Chinese military is now backing down about militarising space as it has realised it is on a flogging to nothing. Another assassins's mass that has turned to jello.:nana::coffee:
Well yes...and no. Yes, they can move in space, but no, they cannot move just like that. When an ASAT is incoming, you cannot just send a signal to a satellite to change its course in seconds or in minutes.
Orbital changes are planned in weeks in advance. They have to consider the fuel that is left, make all sorts of orbital calculations here and there. In this case, you also need to plan to get the satellite back to the original orbit. If you make a satellite move out of its orbit in an ad hoc fashion just to avoid an ASAT, the satellite is as good as useless and mission killed, once you realize you cannot get back to its original orbit. In effect, the ASAT would still have done its purpose.
For the ASAT test, China actually used a KT-1 booster, which is a modified DF-31 booster. The KT-1A based on the DF-31A will have even greater range. Both boosters are small and can be TEL mobile.
That satellite was hit on a descent from 200km to 100km while the Feiyun was hit ascending from 830km to 865km.