Home > Bibliography > View Citation

View Citation


Podvig, Pavel. "Russian Military Space Capabilities." Ensuring America's Space Security. Ed. Phillip E. Coyle. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2004. [ 3 quotes ]

Evidence Related to this Citation

Russia Lacks the Industrial Infrastructure to become a Spacepower Threat
 
As we can see, although Russia continues to support its military space program, the scale of that effort is just enough to maintain the programs that are most important. In addition to the systems described above, Russia invests significant effort into its early-warning and military communication satellites. Neither of these systems, however, is related to space-based weapons or anti-satellite capability. Russia does seem to preserve the basic industrial infrastructure that theoretically would allow it to develop and eventually deploy these kind of weapons, but that infrastructure has been steadily deteriorating in the recent years and it is extremely unlikely that Russia will be able to undertake any serious development effort in the area of space weapons or ASAT. As for other space-based military capabilities-imagery, signal intelligence, navigation-that might potentially play important role in a military conflict, the existing systems do not seem to provide Russia with capabilities that would significantly improve performance of its military. Besides, Russia has yet to demonstrate its ability to integrate space-based systems into military operations. ( More ... )
Podvig, Pavel. "Russian Military Space Capabilities." Ensuring America's Space Security. Ed. Phillip E. Coyle. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2004. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 131 ]

Russia no longer has Either the Military and Industrial Organizational Infrastructure Necessary to Develop a Space-Based Weapons Program
 
The ability of the Russian space industry to embark on a serious ASAT development effort seems highly questionable. First of all, Russia has lost both the military and industrial organizational infrastructure that was responsible for research and development in the area of anti-satellite or space-based weapons. On the military side, the anti-satellite research and development programs were managed by the Air Defense Forces, which used to be a separate service in the Soviet armed forces. This service, however, was disbanded during the military reform of 1997. ... The changes in the defense industry have been much more serious. While Russia has managed to keep most of its space industry intact, this does not apply to the companies that were involved in the development of anti-satellite systems. ... As a result of these transformations, Russia now does not have an agency that would be capable of supporting development program in the area of anti-satellite systems or spacebased weapons. ( More ... )
Podvig, Pavel. "Russian Military Space Capabilities." Ensuring America's Space Security. Ed. Phillip E. Coyle. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2004. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 127-8 ]

Previous Russian ASAT System is no Longer Functional
 
The exact status of the ASAT system deployed in Baykonur is unclear, but it is most likely that it is no longer operational. There were reports that the system underwent a modernization in 1991, but since it was done without flight tests it is highly unlikely that this modernization involved any significant upgrades. Significant parts of the space surveillance network that is an integral part of the system, have been lost during the break up of the Soviet Union. Although Russia has not formally announced that the system is decommissioned, the current structure of the Russian Space Forces does not include any units that could operate the system, which almost certainly means it is no longer functional. ( More ... )
Podvig, Pavel. "Russian Military Space Capabilities." Ensuring America's Space Security. Ed. Phillip E. Coyle. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2004. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 127 ]