The weaponization of space is an environmental as well as a national security issue. The environmental degradation of space created by space-faring nations constitutes a danger to space exploration, the space shuttle, and other peaceful uses of space. Space litter also poses difficulties for the military uses of space. ( More ... )

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Katz-Hyman, Michael and Michael Krepon. Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space. Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, April 2003. [ 16 quotes ] [ page 120 ]

 

Space warfare would not only constitute a threat to targeted satellites, it would also create debris fields that would threaten satellites operating in low earth orbit, including NTM, space transportation systems such as the U.S. space shuttle, and the International Space Station. The damage resulting from warfare that includes ASAT use could be more long lasting in space than on Earth. ( More ... )

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Katz-Hyman, Michael and Michael Krepon. Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space. Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, April 2003. [ 16 quotes ] [ page 122-3 ]

 

Another issue that affects both the military and the civilian sectors is space debris, which results from all space activities. A failure to mitigate the accumulation of debris will have devastating effects on both communities. With more than 9,000 objects over 10 centimeters in size already being tracked in various orbits by U.S. Space Command, the debris problem is an increasing concern. The expected overall growth in space activity, and possible U.S. and foreign ASAT tests, will further heighten the danger of collisions that could be fatal to satellites or spacecraft. ( More ... )

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Moltz, James Clay. "Reining in the Space Cowboys." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Vol. 59, No. 1 (January/February 2003). [ 2 quotes ]

 

Once you blow something up in space, the debris lingers. It isn't like a sea battle where the remains of two warships sink to the bottom. The last anti-satellite weapons test was carried out in 1985 by the United States. We took aim at an old, dying Air Force satellite -- just as a test -- and it created 200 pieces of debris that were large enough to track. The last piece of debris finally left low Earth orbit 17 years later, and one of the pieces came within 1 mile of the International Space Station and could have done significant damage. ( More ... )

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Krepon, Michael. "Seven Questions: Space Weapons." Foreign Policy. (July 2005). [ 3 quotes ]

 

The problem of space debris is a factor in the weaponisation of space, and in the ability of arms control agreements to deal with weapons in space for both defensive and offensive purposes. Reportedly, the US Space Command currently tracks about 9,000 man-made objects larger than four inches across. Most of these are small objects, the result of shroud or stage separation, missile break-up, or other phenomena. The exact number of man-made objects is impossible to catalogue, but there are reportedly hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of smaller man-made objects ranging from golf ball-sized objects to flecks of paint. The increase in space debris has become such a concern to the US military that it voluntarily constrains its activities likely to further aggravate the problem. Obviously, weapons fired at objects in space would very quickly and dramatically add to the burden from space debris. ( More ... )

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Rhinelander, John B. and Phillip E. Coyle. "Drawing the Line: the Path to Controlling Weapons in Space." Disarmament Diplomacy. No. 66 (September 2002). [ 2 quotes ]

 

Unfortunately, there are between 30,000 and 100,000 untracked objects between 1 cm and 10 cm diameter (large enough to cause serious damage to spacefaring vehicles), and an unknown but enormous number of particles smaller than 1 cm (many of which could damage sensitive systems on impact). While the space environment is extremely large and the probability of an impact is still small, that probability is growing. .or some space missions active protection through shielding is already a requirement (e.g. the International Space Station). Getting this shielding to orbit is an added expense to an already low-profit-margin industry. Any weapon use in space, but particularly proliferating weapons use in space, could readily make space a no-go area of dangerous debris, in the process pre-empting commercial and civil development. ( More ... )

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Deblois, Bruce M. "The Advent of Space Weapons." Astropolitics. Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer 2003). [ 15 quotes ]

 

In addition to posing insurmountable military opportunity costs and the potential of another costly arms race, space weapons directly threaten the fiscal health of the space sector itself. Use of destructive weapons in space would obviously promote an orbital debris problem that is on the threshold of becoming a major inhibitor to space commerce. Currently, the US Space Surveillance Network uses ground-based radar and optical/infrared sensors to track roughly 7,500 objects across orbital space. That constitutes objects greater than 10 cm in diameter in low Earth orbit to objects greater than 1 m diameter in geostationary orbit. Only approximately five per cent of those objects are operating satellites; the rest are effectively debris, 40 per cent of which are fragments of disintegrated satellites and upper stages of rockets. ( More ... )

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Deblois, Bruce M. "The Advent of Space Weapons." Astropolitics. Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer 2003). [ 15 quotes ]

 

Despite the U.S. Army�s program to develop a kinetic kill ASAT, army officials have expressed concerns that using such weapons could create debris clouds that could render useless the U.S. military�s own space assets in a kind of �orbital own goal� (to use a soccer term) or �space fratricide� (to use a military term). This concern has been echoed by top officials at U.S. Space Command. ( More ... )

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Hitchens, Theresa. "Space Weapons: More Security or Less?." Future Security in Space: Commercial, Military, and Arms Control Trade-Offs. Ed. James Clay Moltz. Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2002. [ 2 quotes ] [ page 30 ]

 

China also fears the increasing population of space debris. Such debris, resulting from 50 years of space activity, already poses a considerable hazard to spacecraft. Under U.S. space weaponization plans, this crowding problem could worsen as a large number of space weapons could be deployed in LEO. The launching and testing of weapons would also increase space debris. Moreover, deploying space-based weapons in the increasingly crowded realm of LEO would leave less room for civilian systems. Those problems would also occur during periods of peace. If a number of satellites were to be destroyed during the course of a war, some scientists warn, they would create so much debris that it would prevent future satellites from being stationed in space and generally limit space access. Indeed, pointing to the debris problem, Chinese scientists and officials have said that space weaponization should be considered an environmental threat as well as a security problem. ( More ... )

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Payne, Keith R. "Action-Reaction Metaphysics and Negligence." Washington Quarterly. Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn 2001): 109-121. [ 3 quotes ]

 

The last Cold War-era ASAT test was in 1985, when a U.S. F-15 jet fighter fired a direct homing device against Solwind, an old Air Force scientific satellite. The resulting impact created over 250 pieces of space debris that were visible to U.S. space surveillance systems. One piece of space junk from this ASAT test came within one mile of the International Space Station. Seventeen years later, the last piece of hazardous space junk created by this ASAT test decayed out of low-earth orbit. As with the earlier atmospheric nuclear tests, during the 1970s and 1980s, few appreciated how debris created by ASAT tests could cause harm to one's own or friendly satellites.

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Katz-Hyman, Michael and Michael Krepon. "Viewpoint: Space Weapons and Proliferation." Non Proliferation Review. Vol. 12, No. 2 (July 2005): 323-341. [ 15 quotes ] [ page 326 ]

 

On 11 January, China launched a missile from or near the Xichang Space Centre in the southwestern province of Sichuan. This likely released a projectile that slammed into one of its derelict polar-orbiting weather satellites, known as Feng Yun 1C, which flew at an altitude of about 800 kilometres.

The collision created about 40,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimetre, estimates David Wright, co-director of the global security programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.

That will nearly double the amount of debris of that size at similar altitudes, he told New Scientist. It may also have created 2 million fragments wider than 1 millimetre across.

Such altitudes are heavily trafficked by imaging, meteorological, surveillance, remote-sensing and communications satellites. These spacecraft could be seriously damaged if they were hit by the debris, which can travel at 7.5 kilometres per second – 30 times faster than a jet aircraft.

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"Anti-satellite test generates dangerous space debris." New Scientist. January 20, 2007.

 

There has long been a substantial gulf between the hawkish pro-space weaponization crowd and the actual civilian and military operators who have to build, fly, and make policy for military space systems. Among the latter, ASATs have never been a very popular option - which explains why during most of the time it has had a space program, the United States has not had any anti-satellite weapons. The last ASAT system that the United States actually tested, the ASM-135A missile carried by an F-15, was developed not because the United States Air Force saw great military utility in such a weapon, but because the White House viewed it as a deterrent against the Soviet Union (see "Blunt arrows: the limited utility of ASATs", The Space Review, June 6, 2005). In the 1990s the United States Army began development of a ground-based kinetic energy (KE) ASAT, but the military dropped its support for it in 1993. The only reason it stayed alive was because of congressional action (i.e. earmarks). The fact that the US military did not want the weapon that Congress was forcing upon it demonstrates that the military has long been ambivalent about ASAT weapons. It is also worth noting that although that system was designed to minimize debris by using a mylar "flyswatter" to smack the target rather than smash it, even the U.S. military determined that it still would have generated too much debris. The military turned its attention toward systems that a) would produce no debris, and b) were potentially reversible, like jammers or other electronic warfare systems. Producing minimal debris does not place our own spacecraft at risk, and reversible systems can be used against a much wider array of targets or satellites that might be required after the cessation of hostilities. Lasers are also useful as ASAT weapons because they could damage a satellite without producing debris, but their effects are not reversible.

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Day, Dwayne. "Letter: Regarding "sticky airbags"." The Space Review. January 29, 2007.

 

It is a well-known phenomenon that the use of nuclear weapons is considered taboo. Along with the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, the use of nuclear weapons in war is almost unimaginable. The utilitization of nuclear weapons is therefore almost entirely limited to a role of deterrence. What about the taboo of space weapons? More and more specialists are looking at the impact of space debris that results from the use of space weapons. Large amounts of space debris caused by space weapons will invariably threaten space assets of all space-faring countries, not just intended target countries. Any attack by one country against another using space weapons will result in many losers. With so much of commercial, scientific and military activity increasingly reliant on space, there exists a considerable and growing taboo against using space weapons in a situation of conflict. Thus, under the conditions of American strategic dominance in space, reliable deterrents in space will decrease the possibility of the United States attacking Chinese space assets.

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Shixiu, Bao. "Deterrence Revisited: Outer Space." China Security. (Winter 2007): 2-11. [ 4 quotes ] [ page 6-7 ]

 

The official debris count from China’s anti-satellite missile test has reached 957 pieces big enough to be tracked and NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office is estimating more than 35,000 pieces larger than 1 cm. This makes the January 11 test the largest debris-generating event in history, surpassing the previous record set in 1996, according to Dr. T.S. Kelso. Dr. Kelso serves as Senior Research Astrodynamicist in the Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI) and webmaster of CelesTrak, a site dedicated to tracking space objects and monitoring them for in-orbit collisions.

STK-generated videos courtesy of CSSI (www.centerforspace.com)

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"Chinese ASAT Test." . March 5, 2007.