Russia also has a Space Surveillance System (SSS), which functions using Russia's early warning radars in space and more than 20 optical and electro-optical facilities at 14 locations on Earth. The main optical observation system, Okno, allows detection of objects to an altitude of 40,000 kilometers,63 although its capacity to detect smaller objects is unclear. The Russian Academy of Sciences also participates in the SSS. The system cannot track satellites at very low inclinations and the operation of Russian surveillance sensors is reportedly erratic. The network as a whole carries out some 50,000 observations daily, contributing to a catalogue of approximately 5,000 objects, mostly in LEO. While information from the system is not classified, Russia does not have a formal structure to widely disseminate information about observations.

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Collard-Wexler, Simon, Thomas Graham et al. Space Security 2006. Waterloo, Ontario: Space Security Index, July 2006. [ 26 quotes ] [ page 52-3 ]

 

Russian experts have raised a number of possible solutions in the hopes of steering future space developments in a positive direction. For example, since the U.S. military posture depends more that of any other country on the successful functioning of space-based support systems, some Russian experts (such as former Duma member Alexei Arbatov) believe that it is still possible to convince Washington that it would be better to ensure spacecraft safety (via new accords and international legal restrictions) rather than to deploy ASAT weapons to “protect” these systems. There is no doubt that this issue requires further research and study of the comprehensive space security architecture necessary to ensure the peaceful use of space. For instance, is there a need to differentiate between the deployment of arms during peacetime and during times of crisis? Will such differentiation have a legal basis? Is it legal to develop space weaponry with nuclear warheads to prevent a possible collision of asteroids with Earth? Should weaponry used in such a fashion still be considered as a military use? According to Russian experts, it is very important that a scrupulously developed methodology be employed to these problems. Most likely, Russian policy will need to become more inventive and more insistent if its aims are to be achieved.

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Mizin, Victor. "Russian Perspectives on Space Security." Collective Security in Space: European Perspectives. Ed. James Clay Moltz. Washington, D.C.: Space Policy Institute, January 2007. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 99-100 ]

 

Some recently floated ideas might become a workable prelude to larger transparency and confidence-building commitments. One such proposal is the conclusion of a bilateral U.S.- Russian agreement (potentially extendable to a multilateral treaty) on the “immunity” of commercial space assets from attack—a sort of civilian, non-aggression pact applied to non-military spacecraft on the both sides, as an extension of existing U.S.-Russian treaty protections for “national technical means” of verification. The treaty could also encompass non-interference with communications, navigation satellites, weather satellites, GPS satellites and others space assets such as telecommunication and weather satellites. In order to protect these assets, it may become necessary for states to claim zones around these space assets as national territory in order to protect them, even though such a measure would clearly contradict the res communis doctrine of the Outer Space Treaty. In the context of missile defense, if and when it is effectuated, space could be used exclusively for sensors and guidance equipment, but not for the stationing of destructive systems.

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Mizin, Victor. "Russian Perspectives on Space Security." Collective Security in Space: European Perspectives. Ed. James Clay Moltz. Washington, D.C.: Space Policy Institute, January 2007. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 100-1 ]

 

[BRUCE MACDONALD] The Russian and Chinese proposal about a ban on all space weapons, when you read it I see a few potential loopholes. But that’s not what concerns me the most about it. There is a huge verification issue associated with it. But that’s all right. I mean it’s good to get the dialogue going; that’s one thing we absolutely need to do is to get a dialogue going.

But what I ask of my Chinese colleagues about how we should address the verification issues, the response tends to be something like, well, there’s some grudging reluctant admittance that, yeah, there are some big verification issues. And then in a way that I guess maybe we in the United States should feel complimented by, they’d say, you guys are so good about space things, you’ll figure it out.

I would that that were true. So I wanted to follow up, Michael in particular, on your comment, and ask the panel-members. My sense is in the nuclear era we had to crawl before we walked and walk before we even run a little bit. Look how long – Jim Goodby and others points out that half a century and more in nuclear testing area.

When I suggested the idea to some of some even baby steps in the space area, a response I’ve gotten from some people in Russia and China – and they have their talking points like U.S. government officials have theirs too – but the response is, no, no, no, we have to go for the equivalent of general and complete disarmament.

So I guess my question is: How feasible is it, realistic is it, and I hope it is feasible and realistic, to suggest these more, lesser, early-to-intermediate steps, Michael such as exactly you’ve pointed out, the idea of codes of conduct, that sort of thing? And in particular what I believe is absolutely excellent idea of a ban on tests of kinetic energy, ASATs, or as one person in the Air Force even suggested to me, why not broaden it a little bit more and ban all actions that end up creating debris from low Earth orbit on up?

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Krepon, Michael, Pavel Podvig et al. "The Space Nuclear Nexus." 2009 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 07, 2009. [ 4 quotes ]