China tests ASAT

Schumacher said:

Well, only time will tell. What China did was classic cold war tactic of displaying their capability in response to US's new provocative space policy last year. What the US can do now is to restart their ASAT program, but I don't think the PLA will care much abt that given they don't have many sats anyway. Or the US can work to improve the survivability of its sats against attacks which I suspect will be more difficult & costly than attacking them, attacking sats are 'easy' remember ?
Then, we'll have a mini arms race in space. Sounds like a good investment if, by pulling this inexpensive & 'easy' stunts, PLA can force the US to respond with costly measures.

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Yes, I believe the Chinese research on asymatric warfair docterine of a war with US has always been focusing on the fastest and cheapest way to deny the 3CIs capability of the enemy, even at the cost of our own capability. The ASAT falls right into this catagory. Given that the PLA's weaponary are rarely dependent on the guidance from satellite, China probably could care less if US also kills our own satellites. PLA will probably lose 10% of its war fighting capability while US suffer 80% of theirs. The point is, China has always been preparing for a ground war inside China from the 60s and god knows how many underground facilities has been built during the past 50 years with a dedicated military engineering army corp numbering at hundreds of thousands. I remember reading an artical stating a particular army corp of 100 thousand soldiers spent 10 years in some remote mountain area and dug tunnels totalling over 5000kms - it was dubbed as the second great wall of China becasue of its length, and that's just one army corp, in 10 years - you can do the math yourself... The point is - there are layers and layers of ground/under ground communication coverages in China as back up, which US won't be able to tap in. The ASAT will come in very handy in leveling the playing field of the both militaries at war time...

As far as I know, China has always invested most heavily in our laser programs, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a second set of the laser based systems for ASAT purpose at all. There was also reports that this particular ASAT missile was a mobile platform on a truck, and the company manufacturing this ASAT missile also advertised an air launched version in 2006's air show in ZhuHai...

fishhead said:

It's quite interesting in diplomatic front. Seems Chinese were not prepared for this kind of reaction, caught off guard this time, although not totally credited to the US government's intention.

They have raised this space issue to Americans for quite long time, in public or private, but yankees never take it seriously and refused to talk. At the same time, under table activities have been going on as well, neither cause much attention from Americans. Last year's blinding US sats just led to some unofficial complains from US. This time it's the same at the beginning, American kept the secret for one week, until some space hobbists found it out.

So for Chinese, it's quite logical to assume this is an issue btwn US, Russia, and China, and nobody else. They just need to deliver this under table message to the Americans, and nothing more required. The US government is forced to look for an answer from China when the news is disclosed. But this time Chinese is in no hurry, they want to watch how America reacts: angry? panic? rhetoric? or something else, to decide their answer. Also this is the chance of revenge for American's arrogance, it's Chinese turn not to answer the call.

American reaction is fierce, through the medias, but in a pretty weak and mild tone. A lot of talks about space debris, but the real issue is the human being are at the door step of space arm race. It's the American way to dodge questions, also strength the Chinese believings: only when you come with power and kick yankee's ass, they will talk to you.

In the next a few months, you will see the hot debate about American's space policy.

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I totally agree with your analysis about the underneath reasoning for the Chinese test, I am guessing Bush administration was trying to brush the laser message last year under the table, which forced China to send the second, more visible message via missile - in this case, it also confirms that China does has 2 seperate ASAT programs each capable of getting the job done...

Jeff Head said:

Well, there is an arguement to be made for economies of scale. If you put a functional, mnore capable (and more expenisve) system in space, then it will be able to work for quite some time, taking out many targets and maybe even defending itself for the cost of the system and one boost into space.

The so called cheaper systems have to be boosted into orbit every time they are used...and that is also expensive. Sooner or later you will want to spend your money on a system that has more longevity and can take out many targets for its cost plus the one boost into space, rather than spending the bulk of your money on boost into orbit. Where is that point...I don't know...but at some point, if you can secure enough kills from the system, it becomes cheaper than boosting into orbit every time you want to hit something.

Just a thought.

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Well, I agree with your theory in principle, but the real issue here is at what cost level would your more expensive yet capable system become safe enough that you don't need to worry about the enemy attack - be it from laser or missile.

For example, it is easy to invision a Satellite that can use laser to kill the incoming ASAT missile, but what if the incoming was not a missile, but thousands of ultra hard metal pallets at high speed? If the cost to defend gets too over the head, it is simply not worth the shot. On the second thought, if it realy come to the kind of WWIII scenarios you are invision that needs this kind of defence capability, instead of killing the satellites under defence, it is probably cheaper to just launch missile which will release hundred of thousands of slugs into the same obits at the reverse direction - the satellite will than probably spend its entire resource calculating and defending itself and quickly reach the end of its life spam - which is same as a soft kill...

Is there any known theory that could defend against this kind of massive, high speed, small object attacks in space?

fishhead said:

There is plan already on Chinese table that they will mine the LEO with cloud of steel balls in the worst case scenario.

It's darn cheap, just need to fill two orbits with them, one polar and equitor, you basically disable the whole LEO for 50 years.

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Yep, that's the theory I was referring to

mickchew said:

Hi Dong Feng,

A very interesting perpective.

you stated:
There's a big difference between space weapons as understood in this context - which means firing missiles from satellites, or more likely using satellite-based lasers or satellite-launched "sat-mines" to knock out your opponents' satellites, and the use of satellites for other military purposes; and also compared to using ground-based missiles to knock out satellites.

It makes sense that China (and Russia) want a moratorium on the first category, because they are so far behind in this area. (And predictable that the US wouldn't agree to one, because they are so far ahead).

To make sure I understood you correctly, I have a few questions:

First the assumptions:
1) The US and Russia both have the capability of "killing " satellites (proven in the mid-eighties).

2) The US and Russia could easily become adversaries if recent geopolitical events are any indication.

3)In the "first" category you stated namely satellite lasers I assume you are talking about satellites being used as a weapon to either shoot down ICBMs, enemy satellites or other ground based military targets.

Questions:
1) Why would the US develop satellite lasers so far in advance if it could be vulnerable to a missile attack (even discounting the recent Chinese demonstration) say from Russia whether from an aircraft launched missile or sat-mines.

2) A moratorium on weapons? Like rules in a knife fight. Does'nt work in real life. I am sure the US, Russia and China knows this.

3) Why would the Chinese want to negotiate anything? They are developing the cheaper end of the equation. The "first-category" stuff you mentioned sure as hell sounds a lot more expensive than the el-cheapo missile display on Jan 11th.

My take on this....arms race from here on. Until these countries reach parity (i.e. like MAD in the 80s).

By the way feel free to rip-to shreds what I said above.


Regards,
Michael

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I cannot answer your questions I am afraid as I was merely copy-pasting the article from the blog of Ricahrd Spencer, who is the jounalist of British newspaper Telegraph in Beijing.

His blog can be found her:

There already exist a very cheap alternative to the ballistic missile approach of Anti-satellite weapon.

The method is to use magnectic levitation to accelerate object to orbit. Currently, US Air Force is researching this for launching satellite, but I am sure the real purpose is to utilised this for launching maneuvrable anti-satellite kill vehicle.

The per launch cost? $50,000 USD.





Personally, I agree with others that US has superior technology for anti-satellite tech right now. The old F-15 ASAT tech demonstrated 20 years ago, is fitted in a tiny package, that is so small it fit under F15, can be launch anywhere, hard to intercept and can hit target satellite anywhere (don't have to wait till it is in line of sight)

By comparison China's repurposed IRBM is gigantic, hence it is easier to intercept; it is currently silo based (or launch above ground) so it is easy to be discover, and destroy (vulnerable to first strike). In the future, it may be be miniturised into mobile version like DF-31a but comparing mobility of a truck to a F15.. there is just no comparison. That's not to say american still use F15, because if old method is re-adopted, it will be put under F-22, which makes it extremely hard to discover let along destroy it.

So, for the american, currently they have three excellent options of ASAT weapons (Ground Laser, F-22 KV, Mag-Lev KV), while China and Russia only each have one method. (and both are inferior). So the question is, why is US so work up over this?

The US strength is NOT its F15 based toy, which is more like a demo and no need any further improvement, since US though a 500km range is good enough and nobody can do that anyway.

The real strength is American's NMD system missiles, land based and sea based. They're quite similar to Chinese approach. With only change to its KV and software, they can do exactly the samething as Chinese did, although they haven't tried.

Russian co-orbit approach is obsolete now, which takes days to finish the job.

dioditto said:

There already exist a very cheap alternative to the ballistic missile approach of Anti-satellite weapon.

The method is to use magnectic levitation to accelerate object to orbit. Currently, US Air Force is researching this for launching satellite, but I am sure the real purpose is to utilised this for launching maneuvrable anti-satellite kill vehicle.

The per launch cost? $50,000 USD.

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If it can throw a metal chunk into the space, it would be quite a weapon even in a land or sea warfare, if the lancher could be mounted on a tank or ship or helicopter, or the like. it would pierce any armor, I guess. cool stuff

If it can throw a metal chunk into the space, it would be quite a weapon even in a land or sea warfare, if the lancher could be mounted on a tank or ship or helicopter, or the like. it would pierce any armor, I guess. cool stuff

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that would be a problem because

1. the energy needed to accelerate such object against gravity and air resistance will be so high, which will result in a reaction force so great that the launcher will need to compensate. If you do the math, it will be too expensive, "scientifically" and stategically infeasable to have such weapon mounted on a tank, aircraft or anything less then a few hundred tones of mobile structural mass.

2. Allowing a heavy mass to move in a responsive rate is not possible on land or especially on the air. Although the US is working on a way to reduce a mass's momentum by using circulated liquid superconductor in a electric field, such myth is yet to scientifically prove to actually work. In addition you may think that such weapon can be mounted to aircraft carrier. however due to its size of the structure its very vunerable to enemy attack given that the chinese can current do it will ballistic missles

3. The energy source will need to generate a massive pulse of energy. Although a fly wheeling bases generator is feasable. However, the launcher will need to withstand the massive eletrical surge without loosing its strutural integrety. Hence my personal view to Dioditto: "The per launch cost $50,000 USD", is not a realistic statement since current railgun experiments indicates that such weapon will become unusable after 2 or 3 shorts. Take into account of the cost for building such weapon will yet again make such weapon look less economically infeasable.

4. the killer projectile will still need to manuver during its course to the target, yet again the sudden acceleration of the killer projectile will probably be crush under such force.

Hence why there is only two solutions so far: kill via light or rocket.

Anyway questions?

I'll give you another reason why that concept won't work in the near future

the payload isn't terminally guided, and can't be for obvious reasons:

shielding

structural integrity.

dioditto said:

There already exist a very cheap alternative to the ballistic missile approach of Anti-satellite weapon.

The method is to use magnectic levitation to accelerate object to orbit. Currently, US Air Force is researching this for launching satellite, but I am sure the real purpose is to utilised this for launching maneuvrable anti-satellite kill vehicle.

The per launch cost? $50,000 USD.

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Personally, I agree with others that US has superior technology for anti-satellite tech right now. The old F-15 ASAT tech demonstrated 20 years ago, is fitted in a tiny package, that is so small it fit under F15, can be launch anywhere, hard to intercept and can hit target satellite anywhere (don't have to wait till it is in line of sight)

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Don't give me concept weapon they are dime a dozen! They come and go and most of them never see the light of the day Show me an operational direct ascent weapon that can shoot Satellite in the range of 600 km

eecsmaster said:

I'll give you another reason why that concept won't work in the near future

the payload isn't terminally guided, and can't be for obvious reasons:

shielding

structural integrity.

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That's a ludicrous assertion; if by your logic the missile that are shielded will stop it from having terminal guidiance, then ICBM should not have any guidiance at all !! That assertion is just absurd.

The mag-lev missile could be encased in a multi-stage missile kill-vehicle, and when it is shot out and reach certain altitude (where it has little air friction due to thinner air), it can discard its outer shell just like ICBM, and thus, having sensors ready for terminal guidance. And unlike ICBM, it does not require to have shielding (except EM) once it reach orbit, because it does not need to come back down to earth.

eecsmaster said:

I'll give you another reason why that concept won't work in the near future

the payload isn't terminally guided, and can't be for obvious reasons:

shielding

structural integrity.

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I assume you mean by "shielding" the protection of electronic parts needed in the terminal guidance from being destroyed by the strong magnetic field. That's going to take some good engineering work. Making circuits from specilaized materials that are less vulnerable to magnetic fields and use superconductor shields (with cooling of course) with high breakdown field might be considered. Not easy, but not impossible. The same for the mechanical strength concern.

It does sound unlikely in near terms to use it as an ASAT weapon or as even satellite launcher. But mounting it on a warship is totally possible, I feel as a nonexpert. Absorbing or transfering out the recoil is not an insurmountable problem with clever engineering. At least, base it on the ground. Anyhow, I don't think I want to dimiss its potential as a substantial weapon, one way or another