Posted on 11/01/2010 9:28:54 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
As space becomes more important to military operations, the flimsiness of the laws and conventions that govern space operations is more apparent. It’s not so much that the structure has become weaker as that technological and industrial developments have exposed its failings.
Recent years have seen a satellite shoot-down demonstration by China in January 2007, followed a year later by the U.S. shoot-down of the malfunctioning USA 193 spacecraft. There have also been reported incidents of deliberate non-kinetic interference with U.S. spacecraft.
Analyst Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation, speaking at a symposium on deterrence in Omaha, Neb., noted that Chinese doctrine makes no distinction between deterrence and compellance (making an adversary take an action, rather than refraining), and that deterrence extends across all domains, including conventional, cyber and space. Cheng said China’s policy of compellance and deterrence stresses the importance of demonstrating the will to act, as the 2007 test did.
China, added Cheng, sees the U.S. Schriever X space wargame—conducted at Nellis AFB, Nev., in May—as a demonstration of intent, and although China has proposed to stop the “weaponization” of space, these proposals encompass only weapons on-orbit, not ground-launched systems or orbital sensors.
As the USA 193 shoot-down showed, ballistic missile defense (BMD) technology can be adapted to counterspace use, and will only increase its reach into higher orbits with the advent of higher-velocity interceptors such as the larger-diameter Standard Missile 3 Block IIA and forthcoming Block IIB—the latter now regarded as a new missile. Space-based infrared technology, used to track orbital objects in the U.S./Boeing Space Based Surveillance System and to support BMD in the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, can be used against satellites as well as missiles or debris.
(Excerpt) Read more at aviationweek.com ...
Cool. I hope we are increasing our ability to shoot down Chicom satellites.
I think by 2015 we will have an effective missile laser defense. It would be even better if those lasers be mounted on satellites
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