Radiation hardening techniques could defend satellites against the threat of High Altitude Nuclear Detonation Strikes. Military satellites are already required to harden their circuits against EMP attacks, commercial satellites could be required to do the same.
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However, the simple fact that most satellites have weathered the vagaries of natural space radiation so well over time indicates their normal design hardening is better than assumed. Military satellites in LEO are much more hardened, whereas the hardness of commercial platforms may vary. It is noteworthy that natural background radiation does vary significantly over time and yet not many satellites are known to have failed due to this variability. For example, under natural background radiation conditions in LEO, the peak flux for electrons with energy greater than 1 MeV ranges from 10^4 for the outer radiation belt to 10^6 for the inner. Enhanced solar flux is said to have resulted in >1 MeV electron flux to reach 10^8 particles/sq cm sec. Coincidentally, this is the same magnitude that is computed by the model due to a high-altitude nuclear explosion one day after the burst over Korea. ( More ... ) Lewis, Leo and Phillip E. Coyle. Ensuring America's Space Security. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2004. [ 7 quotes ] [ page 26-7 ]
HAYS: The good news is that, according to a Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) study done back in 2001, for only about two to three percent over the normal cost for hardening space systems, the residual radiation dose effects can be hardened against. Now, that is a significant amount of money. As I will touch on later, most space pro-grams are very broken in terms of their budget right now. But that is something that the United States needs to think about, in particular for satellites that we might rely on to de-liver transformational or revolutionary military effects. If they are going to be taken out by a parting shot from one of our friends like Kim Jung Il, that might not be the best thing. Dolman, Everett C., Karl P. Mueller et al. "Toward a U.S. Grand Strategy in Space." Washington Roundtable on Science & Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: George C. Marshall Institute, March 10, 2006. [ 10 quotes ] [ page 11 ]
Against these potential advantages are a number of potentially serious limitations and disadvantages. One limitation is that satellites can be hardened to withstand the radiation and EMP caused by a nuclear detonation occurring at some distance. Moreover, such shielding adds relatively little, perhaps 2-10 percent, to the total cost of the satellite. No amount of shielding can protect a satellite from a nuclear detonation nearby. But by forcing an attacker to expend a single nuclear weapon for each satellite destroyed, shielding can make the use of nuclear weapons in the ASAT role appear to be a much less cost-effective approach—especially for a country that possessed only a small number of nuclear weapons. Kosiak, Steven M. Arming the Heavens: A Preliminary Assessment of the Potential Cost and Cost Effectiveness of Space-Based Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, October 31, 2007. [ 19 quotes ] [ page 86 ]