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New ideas are well-forgotten old ones
The first satellite was launched in 1957, and the first man went into space in 1961. As soon as practical experience proved that orbital flights were possible, both the manned and unmanned space programs focused on ways of attacking the theoretical enemy's spacecraft. In fact, this became a strategic objective.
Fortunately, people have not yet fought battles in orbit; however, anti-satellite weapons have been in existence for a long time.
No country has so far deployed any full-fledged anti-satellite weapons system. In the early 1990s, Russia and the United States suspended all tests in this sphere under a covert agreement. However, this process can resume anytime because no existing treaty places any curbs on the development of anti-satellite weapons.
To date, two satellite-destruction methods have been perfected. The first method calls for launching a satellite interceptor atop a rocket; the interceptor approaches its target on the second or third circuit and is subsequently detonated.
The second method utilizes a kinetic energy missile interceptor, which is launched into a preset sector, and which uses its own active-passive guidance system to hit the target. The revamped Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) F-15 and the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-31D, an advanced version of the Soviet Union's MiG-31 Foxhound fighter-interceptor, have proved to be the best launch vehicles.
Coping with Khrushchev's “sausages”
The United States made first attempts to destroy a satellite by means of an air-launched missile in late 1959. On September 3, a Convair B-58 Hustler strategic bomber unsuccessfully fired a missile at the Discoverer-5 satellite. On October 13, a missile launched by a B-47 Stratojet passed just 6,400 meters from the Explorer-6 satellite; the experiment therefore proved to be a major success.
At the time, Nikita Khrushchev boasted that Soviet factories were turning out intercontinental missiles like sausages, and that the U.S.S.R. also possessed nuclear-tipped orbital weapons.
In May 1962, the United States promptly moved to reorient the three-stage solid-propellant Nike Zeus missile towards an anti-satellite program. After the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Washington decided to implement another anti-satellite program featuring the rather ineffective Thor interceptor, theoretically capable of hitting a satellite 130 km above the launch pad or at a range of 2,800 km.
In September 1964, President Lyndon Johnson revealed the existence of both anti-satellite systems during his election campaign.
In the mid-1980s, the United States deployed the combat-ready ASAT anti-satellite system featuring an air-launched kinetic energy interceptor. On September 13, 1985, an experimental ASAT missile destroyed an aging Solwind satellite in a 450 km orbit. According to U.S. reports, however, this event happened one month later, while the satellite was flying 555 km above the Earth.
The two-squadron ASAT system, which had 28 aircraft and 56 missiles, was placed on combat duty in 1987. As has already been said, all anti-satellite programs were terminated in the early 1990s.
A radical approach
As has been the case with all Soviet military programs, Moscow opted for a radical concept when tackling the problem of destroying enemy satellites. In 1961, the design bureau headed by Vladimir Chelomei launched its Satellite Killer program featuring a powerful launch vehicle and a satellite interceptor. Once in orbit, the killer satellite fired its propulsion unit, approached the target and exploded near it.
The spherical killer satellite with a one-megaton nuclear warhead was to have disintegrated into numerous fragments scattering at tremendous speed over a radius of several kilometers. The R-36 ICBM, known in the West as the SS-9 Scarp, test-launched killer satellites in the mid-1960s and was initially intended for use with the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). After launch, the R-36 would go into a low Earth orbit and then drop out of orbit for attack. Scrapped in 1984, it was followed by the RS-20 (NATO reporting name, SS-18 Satan), which is still on combat duty.
The killer satellite system was adopted in 1972, and several silo-based missiles were deployed at the Baikonur space center. The U.S.S.R. continued to test this system until the early 1980s. The last launch took place on June 18, 1982 when a Kosmos-1379 satellite intercepted a simulated U.S. TRANSIT satellite.
In the late 1980s, the Soviets started testing two revamped MiG-31 fighter-interceptors that were designed to launch anti-satellite missiles. The tests, which lasted for several years, were eventually terminated because no combat-ready missile interceptor ever appeared.
Therefore one can safely say that the latest Chinese ASAT test did not fully simulate any known anti-satellite system. As always, Beijing has taken a different path, having borrowed on all aspects of foreign experience.
However, the consequences of such Chinese “creativity” are fraught with some undesirable consequences.
(the final part of this article will be posted soon)
