Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic or tactical purposes. Although no ASAT system has yet been used in warfare, a few countries (China, India, Russia, and the United States) have successfully shot down their own satellites to demonstrate their ASAT capabilities in a show of force. ASATs have also been used to remove decommissioned satellites. ASAT roles include: defensive measures against an adversary's space-based and nuclear weapons, a force multiplier for a nuclear first strike, a countermeasure against an adversary's anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM), an asymmetric counter to a technologically superior adversary, and a counter-value weapon. Use of ASATs generates space debris, which can collide with other satellites and generate more space debris. A cascading multiplication of space debris could cause Earth to suffer from Kessler syndrome.
History The first anti-satellite technologies were developed during the cold war, with the Soviet Istrebitel Sputnikov programme and the American SAINT. Since, other states have also developed or researched ASAT capabilities.
Soviet Union
The specter of bombardment satellites and the reality of ballistic missiles stimulated the Soviet Union to explore defensive space weapons. The Soviet Union first tested the Polyot interceptor in 1963 and successfully tested an orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in 1968. According to some accounts, Sergei Korolev started some work on the concept in 1956 at his OKB-1, while others attribute the work to Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 around 1959. What is certain is that at the beginning of April 1960, Nikita Khrushchev held a meeting at his summer residence in Crimea, discussing an array of defence industry issues. Here, Chelomei outlined his rocket and spacecraft program, and received a go-ahead to start development of the UR-200 rocket, one of its many roles being the launcher for his anti-satellite project. The decision to start work on the weapon, as part of the Istrebitel Sputnikov (IS) (lit. 'destroyer of satellites') program, was made in March 1961. The IS system was "co-orbital", approaching its target over time and then exploding a shrapnel warhead close enough to kill it. The missile was launched when a target satellite's ground track rises above the launch site. Once the satellite is detected, the missile is launched into orbit close to the targeted satellite. It takes 90 to 200 minutes (or one to two orbits) for the missile interceptor to get close enough to its target. The missile is guided by an on-board radar. The interceptor, which weighs 1400 kg (3086 lb), may be effective up to one kilometre from a target. Delays in the UR-200 missile program prompted Chelomei to request R-7 rockets for prototype testing of the IS. The Polyot 1 and 2, launched on 1 November 1963 and 12 April 1964 respectively, carried out one such intercept test in early 1964. Later in the year Khrushchev cancelled the UR-200 in favour of the R-36, forcing the IS to switch to this launcher, whose space launcher version was developed as the Tsyklon-2. Delays in that program led to the introduction of a simpler version, the 2A, which launched its first IS test on 27 October 1967, and a second on 28 April 1968. Further tests carried out against a special target spacecraft, the DS-P1-M, which recorded hits by the IS warhead's shrapnel. In November 1968, 4 years after Polyot 1 and 2 were tested for a potential Satellite intercept, Kosmos 248 was successfully destroyed by Kosmos 252 which came within the 5 km (3 mi) 'kill radius' and destroyed Kosmos 248 by detonating it's warhead. A total of 23 launches have been identified as being part of the IS test series. The system was declared operational in February 1973. Testing resumed in 1976 as a result of the US work on the Space Shuttle. Elements within the Soviet space industry convinced Leonid Brezhnev that the Shuttle was a single-orbit weapon that would be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, manoeuvre to avoid existing anti-ballistic missile sites, bomb Moscow in a first strike, and then land. Although the Soviet military was aware these claims were false, Brezhnev believed them and ordered a resumption of IS testing along with a Shuttle of their own. As part of this work the IS system was expanded to allow attacks at higher altitudes and was declared operational in this new arrangement on 1 July 1979. However, in 1983, Yuri Andropov ended all IS testing and all attempts to resume it failed. Ironically, it was at about this point that the US started its own testing in response to the Soviet program. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union also started developing a counterpart to the US air-launched ASAT system, using modified MiG-31D 'Foxhounds' (at least six of which were completed) as the launch platform. The system was called 30P6 "Kontakt", the missile used is 79M6. The USSR also experimented with arming the Almaz space stations with Rikhter R-23 aircraft auto-cannons. Another Soviet design was the 11F19DM Skif-DM/Polyus, an orbital megawatt laser that failed on launch in 1987. In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev visited Baikonur Cosmodrome and was shown an anti-satellite system called "Naryad" (Sentry), also known as 14F11, launched by UR-100N rockets.
United States
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
