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Space Marine
How about US Space Marine program?hear it will be launched in 15 year
How about US Space Marine program?hear it will be launched in 15 year
Space Warfare capabilities
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Arms Race in Space
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5113
When the United States recently shot apart a crippled spy satellite over the Pacific Ocean, it also tested an offensive anti-satellite weapon and the potential for ballistic missile defense. “The shot,” as the Pentagon called the $100 million operation conducted on February 20, came immediately after Russia and China put forward a detailed, but flawed, proposal for a treaty to ban space weapons at the United Nations. In response, the United States immediately reaffirmed its unwillingness to participate in any arms control accord covering space.
These developments are just the latest wrinkles in a rapidly unfolding saga that underscores the fact that we’re entering a new strategic era characterized by the weaponization of space. It may sound exciting, but the potential consequences of space weaponization are cataclysmic.
“The shot” has important implications for defense planners everywhere. To be sure, as Victoria Samson so eloquently explained, this was an orchestrated operation and didn’t in any way mimic the real-world conditions that would prevail if a missile defense system were to be used to “shield” the U.S. from an enemy-fired weapon. The satellite, after all, was very large and was moving along a predictable trajectory. Of course, all Ballistic Missile Defense tests carried out until now have been highly idealized and largely developmental in nature, as the Government Accountability Office noted in a recent report on the topic. Therefore, it would not be too far off the mark to even characterize this highly idealized action as a developmental weapons test.
Ground Control
In December 2006, the United States successfully placed a reconnaissance satellite, USA 193, into low earth orbit. However, ground control very soon thereafter lost contact with the satellite and therefore the satellite went out of control. U.S. officials recently notified the United Nations and potentially affected countries that USA 193 was to de-orbit by early March 2008.
Because the failure of the satellite occurred so early in its planned mission the fuel tank used to maneuver the satellite for intelligence missions remained tanked up on hydrazine rocket fuel. Washington claimed that it was likely that the fuel tank would survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and could well have, albeit the chances were remote, impact on populated areas. It was feared that the rocket fuel could disperse and infect the respiratory system of anybody near the impact zone, perhaps even fatally.
Given this alleged possibility, President George W. Bush ordered that the satellite be intercepted by a kinetic energy kill vehicle from an SM-3 missile interceptor launched from an Aegis class Naval vessel in the Pacific Ocean. The plan was for the “kill vehicle” to impact the satellite and hopefully break up the fuel tank leading the fuel to escape before re-entry. In actual fact the Pentagon is 80-90% certain that the kill vehicle made impact on the fuel tank itself. It’s important to also realize that “the shot” didn’t target the actual satellite as a whole, but rather its fuel tank.
Hitherto the SM-3 interceptor has been a part of Naval-based Ballistic Missile Defense. The SM-3 is designed to hit warheads from medium range missiles at high altitudes. Minor changes have been made to the system’s software to enable interception against the satellite. It has also been revealed that the telemetry for “the shot” was gathered by Missile Defense systems, according to a Pentagon background briefing, “because this is more like a test.” Also, “the shot” used the Pentagon's space identification, tracking and targeting systems to co-ordinate the destruction of the satellite.
Flimsy Rationale
It’s important that we understand that the Bush administration’s stated reasons for “the shot” can’t be taken seriously. Given that the fuel tank was most likely not heat shielded it should not have survived re-entry. Even if by remote chance it were to survive re-entry, the pressure and heat of re-entry should have vaporized its hydrazine rocket fuel.
Instead, the administration found a convenient way to do what China did last year: test an offensive anti-satellite weapon against its own redundant satellite. We now know that the United States knew that China was going to shoot down one of its own satellites beforehand, but the White House decided not to protest diplomatically before the Chinese test. This puts all the rhetoric directed at Beijing's way following China's anti-satellite test in perspective. The United States is not responding to Chinese space programs. It secretly welcomes them as public justification for its own drive to weaponize space.
The Bush administration’s anti-satellite weapon test has obvious implications for Australia. Brendan Nelson (then the Australian defense minister and now the country’s opposition leader in Parliament) last year mandated a Defense Department study, which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has inherited, of the possibility of equipping the Australian Navy with SM-3 interceptors for Ballistic Missile Defense in Northeast Asia. The Bush administration’s recent demonstrated the offensive capabilities of missile defense in general and of the SM-3 interceptor in particular.
Barely a week after “the shot,” the Rudd administration, following the U.S.-Australia "AusMin" defense talks, announced its support for Ballistic Missile Defense and a desire to deepen Australia's participation. This would most likely take the very form proposed by Brendan Nelson.
Washington's anti-satellite missile test must complicate matters for strategic planners in Canberra because an Australian SM-3 capability was sold on the basis that it would have no strategic effect on China. But “the shot” has blown apart this rhetoric. Moreover it is also the case that the SM-3 will have more advanced capabilities in future such as a larger kill vehicle and faster boosters which means that it can reach even higher altitudes. Anybody who knows the minutiae of strategic arms control from the Cold War knows that one of the key characteristics of a strategic missile, as opposed to a shorter range missile, is its boost phase velocity. Strategic missiles are faster than their lower range siblings.
What is also of interest here is that the USA 193 satellite was in a very low orbit, just near the atmosphere, when impacted and its flight profile resembled the trajectory of a strategic nuclear re-entry vehicle launched from an inter-continental ballistic missile like those in the hands of Russia and China. “The shot” acts as a convenient way to test the interception capabilities of the SM-3 against inter-continental missiles without the appearance of doing so.
Northeast Asia
The SM-3 based interceptor system for the Northeast Asian ballistic missile defense system has been sold by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency on the basis that it only has a theoretical capability against medium range missiles such as that possessed by North Korea. Canberra will no doubt follow suit but we must reject any such attempt by Rudd to justify a U-turn in the Labor party's policy.
It’s true that USA 193 was larger than any strategic re-entry vehicle, was traveling along a predicted path and came without any accompanying decoys. In this sense “the shot” wasn’t a test of the combat capabilities of the SM-3 per se but ballistic missile defense tests, especially initially, are highly idealized and the shooting down of the satellite was an important test of the identification, tracking, and targeting systems. This means that these systems could be combined with the even more capable ground based mid-course interceptor system in an anti-satellite missile role. The GMD system, as it is called, lies at the heart of the current controversy between Moscow and Washington on Eastern European-based Ballistic Missile Defense. Those most gung-ho about ballistic missile defense want to go further and actually place interceptors in space itself perhaps even employing directed energy weapons such as lasers and particle beams.
This all means that we have had more than just a simple test. It was a double whammy that tested both an anti-satellite weapon and of the strategic missile interception capabilities of the SM-3 and of the ability of ballistic missile defense systems to track and monitor a satellite slated for destruction. Chinese Submarine
The noted space and missile analyst John Pike has also surmised (see “Nations to take notice of US satellite destruction”) that the test also demonstrates a theoretical capability to intercept Chinese submarine launched ballistic missiles using the SM-3. This is important because it appears that China is placing greater emphasis on the sea based leg of its strategic nuclear deterrence force given continued U.S. efforts to achieve a theoretical first strike capability known as "counterforce."
This undermines U.S. and global security in a very significant way. As pointed out by the 2008 annual Pentagon report on Chinese military power China’s shift toward a more road mobile and sea based strategic nuclear deterrent leads to a whole raft of issues about the safety and reliability of its command and control system. In other words the U.S. attempt to develop a first strike counterforce capability and Chinese efforts to mitigate this increases the likelihood of an accidental nuclear exchange.
The United States has actually been committed to the weaponization of space well before the Chinese anti-satellite missile test last year. U.S. Space Command documents show that the United States seeks to “control,” indeed even “own,” space through “space superiority,” even if that means using weapons “in, from and through space” in the words of the Rumsfeld Space Commission report.
Space Weaponization
The United States has been quietly working on implementing this vision. Space weaponization is a relatively long-term project that is expected to culminate by 2030. But the pace seems to be quickening. The Pentagon has produced a series of doctrinal documents that clarify what is meant by war in space and how it is to be properly waged.
Hitherto, the program has emphasized improving situational awareness in space. It’s impossible to wage war in space without knowing precisely who has what where. However, in the 2008 budget, Congress appropriated $7 million dollars for “offensive counterspace” operations out of a $53 million dollar budget for “counterpace operations” which actually amounts to an increase in the level of funding sort by the White House. That suggests that the United States is moving up a gear on space weaponization and that this has both congressional and White House support which is critical for long-term strategic planning.
In fact we have just learnt that the Air Force is working on plans to develop a “counter-ASAT” space weapon system by 2011. Reports suggest that most aspects of these plans are secret but some information has emerged in the public domain that sheds some interesting light on US space weapons planning. The system is known as the Rapid Attack Identification Detection Reporting System (Raidrs) Block 20. The rationale for this program is to develop information in a timely fashion to enable the Pentagon to intercept a direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon, which are launched from the Earth, before it strikes its target in low earth orbit. But if the asset used to achieve this objective is space based then this may well enable BMD hawks to also obtain a space based BMD interception capability and there is no reason to suppose that a “counter-ASAT” weapon could not also function as an offensive space weapon.
Nascent Asian Space Race
As noted, China has tested an anti satellite weapon and Russia has stated that it would not allow other states to control space and threaten its own space assets. In Asia a nascent space race seems to be developing between China, Japan and India. In the far future the large deposits of Helium-3 on the moon's surface could lead to a militarized race to colonize the moon to secure Helium-3 for nuclear fusion energy technologies based on anuetronic fusion reactions in the context of depleting hydro-carbons.
Washington argues that it has too much commercially riding on space to allow others to have the potential capability of disrupting U.S. space assets. In 1998 the failure of one satellite, the Galaxy IV, made some 80% of pagers in the U.S. malfunction.
Though the latest Russian and Chinese space arms control proposal is flawed, because of the clumsy definition of what constitutes a “space weapon,” this doesn’t mean that space arms control is not possible in principle. A global space arms control regime would protect U.S., Russian, Chinese, and even Australian space assets. An arms race in space will eventually lead other states to catch up with the United States and thereby placing Washington's commercial satellites at risk.
Space weaponization may well have cataclysmic consequences given the link between space weapons and nuclear weapons strategy. This is because Russia, and the United States, to a certain extent rely on satellites for early warning of nuclear attack. As other space nations with nuclear weapons develop their space capacity it is expected that they will follow suit.
The deployment of space weapons means that the first shot in a nuclear war would be fired against these early warning satellites. Currently strategic planners in Moscow have about 10 minutes between warning of an attack and the decision to launch nuclear weapons in response before they impact. Weapons in space would lower this in certain scenarios down to seconds. This would also apply for weapons placed in space that would be considered to be defensive such as say a space based BMD interceptor or a “counter-ASAT” weapon.
On occasion, ground warning radars falsely show that a nuclear attack has been launched. In the 1990s a false alarm went all the way up to President Boris Yeltsin and was terminated after approximately eight minutes. We are still here, noted analysts believe, because warning satellites would have given Moscow real time information showing the alarm to be false. Should such a false alarm coincide with an accident involving an early warning satellite when space weapons are known to exist, an accidental nuclear exchange could result. The risk would increase if the false alarm occurred during a crisis.
Space weapons could lead to itchy fingers on nuclear triggers. They would therefore significantly increase the importance nuclear weapon states place upon nuclear deterrence.
Marko Beljac, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, teaches at the University of Melbourne. ..
Well, IMO the article above has hit the nail on the head! BTW, it confirms my assertions on other treads.
Obviously neither Russia nor China currently have the funds and technology to develop and deploy space based weapons. Both need to undertake some major military reform in the area of conventional arms. It should come as no surprise that they would want to do everything possible to slow down American development of similar systems.
Pretty much yes. But on the other hand, they would have asymmetrical answers like dramatically increasing nuclear warhead numbers, higher nuclear forces alert level, etc. Are you sure world (and USA if it matters to you) would be much safer place with that?
Add to the mix rapidly changing economical situation in all countries - and we could well see in 25-30 years (when such systems could be realistically fielded) USA unable to catch China, India or EU in space weapon race..
Cruelio.com
Banned Member
Uh the country that actually has the ability to produce its own space technology is the one that's going to win China really likes its russian tech.
China really likes its russian tech.And possible F-22s! General: AMRAAM Derivative Could Target Sats
Well US with its modify SM-3 tested its ability to destroy balistis missiles flying at 8km per second and achived a hit. Thats great but? AEGIS radar could not track it .. information to missile was uploaded by US EW radar stations and even in such situation Burke had to be positioed at exact location and had about 15 sec window to shoot it down .. you can not expect that in a reall combat situation.
Another thing is that Russia has far more capable meas to destroy satelites (even manuravable ones) than US or China ever had.
SSSR and later Russia developt and upgraded system called IS-MU (Istrebitelj Sputnikov) sysem that comprised of a satelite with guidance and search and track system with 350sec capable runing engines that could find , chase and shoot down satelites flying at 1500km atitude so US 240km atitude score means very little in comparison (meas more in capability to destoy long range balistic missiles) ... the IS-MU was lounched on top of older Soviet ICBMs.
Russia developt another ASAT system witch is a mystery by itself and nothing is known about it (I forgot iits name) ... anyway China ability to shoot down satelite with its EKV was done with the help of Russian expertise in design and everything else.
F-15 with its missile could down satelites at 300km at max .. witch means little if you know there are satelites flying at 40 000km so in that regard US could be considered to be faling behind.
Russia is now designing system that will have dual purpose ASAT and anti-ICBM (so mutch about not having any money) called S-500 witch will form basis of Russian national ASAT/ICBM defences.
Well Feanor you opinion would have sence if US is ahead of Russia in R&D of space based weapons. But it is not. ( Its ahead of China thats for sure) As I read about those programs both had stupid and both had cleaver idea. I guess you are all familiar with US star war program during Regan time and how mutch it progressed before it was shoot down (I liked Brilian Peblles project most - more as a strategic bombardment system than a space based ABM system) ... so I will say few things just to outline Russian programs. FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) Im sure Feanor you dont want hundreds if not thousands of 50MT termonuclear bombs flying in space like satelites that can be rained down on earth from any direction and at any time. Well Russians where developing and even deploying it ...
Russia was the only nation on earth to make space stations (Mir) witch had combat usage as well. (Today ISS is based on MIR-2 Russian space station) .. Russians even deploy space based battle stations Almaz-1/2/3/4/5/6/7 . They have most advanced ASAT program. IS-MU and Nimrod etc etc .... Im sure Feanor that in this world there is no such need for laser system in space , battle stations or thermonuclear bombs orbiting abouve your head. Russia and US are no more ideological enemies so in that sence Russia and China proposed US to ban all weapons in space.
I do not think it's a question of money. It's more question of common sense and survival of human being. What is the reason to deploy strategic weapons in space if you are not a crazy paranoid, who ready to stake again whole planet in fawor of same ideology? - I'ts like say- "russians do not have money- that's why they do not have flynig cows"..
I can see you have no clue about systems that are being R&D in Russia at this moment nor the amount of money being spend on it. Well on one hand thats great coz you are about to be suprised many times witch is great. Explaining all that would mean going offtopic and there is no need for that.
-> What makes you think you know what I read?
You're right I don't know much about current Russian R&D on space-based platforms. But the point remains, Russia doesn't have enough money to complete the declared 2015 re-armament plan. Production for the Su-34 (which is far more important) seems to be following a strange patter. No new aircraft after the delivery of two in early 2007 (january iirc). T-90 tanks are being delivered at the rate of a single tank battallion annually (though there is some rumor that 2 will be delivered this year), BTR-90 has still not entered serial production. Only two serial Mi-28N have been delivered to the troops. Modernization of existing Su-27 to the SM standard is going extremely slow (a few dozen airframes annually). Flight hours for the air force is still around 40-60 annually. Borey construction is behind schedule. BMP-3's are also being delivered at around 1 battallion annually. BMD-4 still has no parachute equipment for it (making it entirely useless) not to mention that it's too heavy (i.e. the standard is that three need to fit inside an IL-76, but because it's too heavy with the fire complex from the BMP-3 on it, only two fit). Possibly the BMD-4M with reduced weight was created to resolve this problem, but it has yet to pass governmental testing. So given this rather messy situation, Russia can't afford a weapons race in space. The natural result is a desire to ban space based weapons.
Well how do other countries get educated workers..... oh. They offer high salaries. Translation = more money. If Russian salaries in the sector were internationally competitive with say the states, there would be no problem. And again I once more point you to the simple problem that existing and far more needed equipment is not being delivered fast enough.
...... one more time. My point is that there is not enough money. You can agree with that but then state that money is not the problem. I beg to differ. Money is exactly what the problem is. Russian GDP, military spending, and salaries are all just too small to afford a space weapon race. When we can re-arm our conventional ground forces, and stop our nuclear arsenal from shrinking rapidly then we can start to think about space based weapons.
Perhaps I read you post slapy .. I stand behind what I have said .. (money is no problem)
- See .. Russia have extensive knowledge in space based weapons and had lots of such project meaning they can just drow some project from some dusty shell and implement it without spending money on R&D witch takes whole lot of money. Now you must distinguish two things.
1. Russia has enought money to R&D S-500 ASAT/ABM system and deploy it. I think we can ageer about this.
2. Space race is not about to happen in a next decade so buy than Russian defence budget will increase sufficiently to cope with anything US can throw at them .. besides you must know that US has far less expiriency in designing space based systems than Russia that deployed even combat stations (besides MIR witch was "civil") in space.
- See .. Russia have extensive knowledge in space based weapons and had lots of such project meaning they can just drow some project from some dusty shell and implement it without spending money on R&D witch takes whole lot of money. Now you must distinguish two things.
1. Russia has enought money to R&D S-500 ASAT/ABM system and deploy it. I think we can ageer about this.
2. Space race is not about to happen in a next decade so buy than Russian defence budget will increase sufficiently to cope with anything US can throw at them .. besides you must know that US has far less expiriency in designing space based systems than Russia that deployed even combat stations (besides MIR witch was "civil") in space.
http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.54/system_detail.asp
The Russians just deployed S-400 a few years ago even though it was supposed to be deployed years earlier. I highly doubt that Russia can come up with a SAM system with the S-500's supposed specs that quickly. If it took them that long to get the S-400 operational, how long will it take to get the S-500 up?
The Russians just deployed S-400 a few years ago even though it was supposed to be deployed years earlier. I highly doubt that Russia can come up with a SAM system with the S-500's supposed specs that quickly. If it took them that long to get the S-400 operational, how long will it take to get the S-500 up?