Crude ASATs like the recent (January 2007) Chinese direct-ascent test are certainly possible, but many of the proposed ASAT technologies advanced by missile defense and space weapon proponents have been proposed for decades without results. In the current military and political environment, development would likely take decades before deployment.
Keywords: Funding for Space Weapons.
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Other potential ASAT weapons include laser, radio frequency (RF), and particle beam weapons. Laser weapons would generate intense beams of light to inflict thermal damage on the target satellite. RF weapons would emit an intense burst of radio energy -- usually either high power microwave (HPM) or ultrawideband (UWB) -- to disable the satellite's electronic components. Particle beam weapons use accelerated atomic particles (such as negative hydrogen or deuterium ions) to generate an intense beam that disables electronic components. Again, it is important to emphasize that these are postulated -- not operational -- ASAT weapons. Further, they are all very technologically advanced, extremely expensive, and therefore outside the capabilities of most -- if not all -- potential adversaries, especially rogue states. Pena, Charles V. and Edward Hudgins. Should the United States 'Weaponize' Space? Military and Commercial Implications. Washington, D.C.: CATO Institute, March 18, 2002. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 9-10 ]
Concepts for hypervelocity rod bundles *nicknamed ‘‘Rods from God’’ * have existed since at least the 1980s under different names, such as ‘‘Long Rod Penetrators.’’ Generally, the concept involves a constellation of satellites, each housing several tungsten rods. Up to 20 feet long and about a foot in diameter, these rods would launch from space at extremely high speeds, striking underground targets with the force of a small nuclear weapon. However, studies of this concept have shown that although Rods from God are theoretically possible, there are both physics and engineering challenges that may simply be impossible to overcome. Despite the inclusion of hypervelocity rod bundles in the 2003 Transformation Flight Plan, we do not see any evidence in Air Force budget documents to suggest research on such a program is being funded. Lewis, Jeffrey, Michael Katz-Hyman et al. "U.S. Space Weapons: Big Intentions, Little Focus." Non Proliferation Review. Vol. 13, No. 1 (March 2006): 35-56. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 48 ]
In our view, this situation is unlikely to change in the near term. A space war fighting strategy faces a serious budgetary constraint -- compounded by the overall pressures on the DoD budget that have emerged over the last year -- that we believe will leave new military missions perennially vulnerable in the annual appropriations process to a variety of political and technical objections. Furthermore, ASATs, space-based missile defenses, and space-based strike weapons cannot be deployed without the completion of a very capable supporting infrastructure to provide command, control, and intelligence (C2I) functions. Yet, current programs to "recapitalize" current U.S. space and C2I capabilities are experiencing dramatic delays and cost overruns that threaten to consume the entire military space budget, leaving little money for new military missions in space. "Virtually every major space acquisition program," the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has observed, "has experienced or sits dangerously close to a Nunn-McCurdy breach" -- a dramatic cost-growth requiring extraordinary intervention to save the program from cancellation. Lewis, Jeffrey, Michael Katz-Hyman et al. "U.S. Space Weapons: Big Intentions, Little Focus." Non Proliferation Review. Vol. 13, No. 1 (March 2006): 35-56. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 48 ]
Weapons delivery from space has been possible for decades. What has changed is that it is now possible to precisely deliver conventional weapons onto an enemy. But the cost is prohibitive compared to other forms of weapon delivery such as cruise missiles or bombers, which have the benefit of reusability. Given the cost of putting something into orbit, the goal is to keep it there as long as possible rather than bring it down to hit something. That seems unlikely to change barring a radical decrease in launch costs. Currently the US military is developing energy weapons for ships and aircraft. Whether these technologies will be successful is unclear at such an early stage. Laser and particle beam weapons—like the opening scenes of Real Genius, or the propaganda art of the Strategic Defense Initiative—have been proposed for space use for decades, but have never progressed very far and still seem unlikely given their fundamental limitations, including the fact that satellites are incredibly soft weapons platforms and therefore vulnerable to attack. Day, Dwayne. "SpaceWar 2057." The Space Review. October 4, 2007.
This brings us to the second principle of military space systems, which is essentially a corollary of the first: because it now takes so long and costs so much to field a new military space system, the military tends to keep systems operational longer, upgrading them in mostly minor ways and preserving technology that is fundamentally obsolete. The Defense Support Program missile warning satellites first started launching in 1970. By the time the last one is retired, the basic design will be over four decades old. The satellite's current sensor technology is essentially a variant of that developed twenty years ago. The first KH-11 real-time reconnaissance satellite was launched in 1976 and, although substantially upgraded over the years, its descendents operating today are not radically different than the original design. GPS has been updated a number of times, but the satellites and their technology have not fundamentally changed since the 1970s. Combine those two principles--long development times coupled with long operating times of so-called "legacy" systems--and predicting the future of military space over the next several decades becomes somewhat easier, if less exciting: any military space system initiated today is highly likely to be in service two decades from now, and probably likely to be in service three or even four decades from now in some form. Day, Dwayne. "SpaceWar 2057." The Space Review. October 4, 2007.
What we have learned from fifty years of military space operations is that the pace of development is slowing down, and the space component is subject to greater constraints than the ground component. What we have also learned is that revolutionary change now seems less and less likely compared to the past. Fifty years of military space experience can allow us to draw some general conclusions about the principles guiding the development of military space systems. We know that the most important aspect of military space programs is that they are developed by humans, and social, economic, political and even emotional factors will have an effect upon the evolution of military space over the next five decades that will be just as important as the pace of technology development -- itself controlled by the decisions that humans make. The first principle that we can now derive from all of this experience is that the development of space systems takes a long time, sometimes decades. This was not always so. Early reconnaissance satellites went from first concept to full operation in three years or less. But today it is common for big, sophisticated military spacecraft to take a decade or more to develop, and the time from first proposal to first flight is even longer. Day, Dwayne. "SpaceWar 2057." The Space Review. October 4, 2007.
Advances in electronics are occurring much faster than advances in space technology, and consumer electronics are advancing much faster than military electronics. Thus, the major improvements in military space programs will occur at the microscopic level—and on the ground—rather than on satellites in the sky. Unfortunately for the military, it is also true that by the time improved electronic capabilities reach the men and women in uniform, the civilian world has already leaped much farther ahead. This is the likely future for military space: impressive progress in delivering information to the battlefield, but fewer changes in the satellite systems than we would normally expect. The reason has to do with the inherent inertia of large space projects, inertia not imposed by physics, but human beings. ( More ... ) Day, Dwayne. "SpaceWar 2057." The Space Review. October 4, 2007.