India Developing Vehicle To Knock Enemy Satellites 178
Frankie70 writes "Star Wars are back in fashion. With perennial (and nuclear armed) foe Pakistan always teetering on the brink of political collapse and neighboring regional superpower China taking greater strides into space technology, India has announced that it is developing an exo-atmospheric 'kill vehicle' that will knock enemy satellites out of orbit."
Knock (Score:2)
This headline made me think of D&D before anything else.
Re:Knock (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily, very few satellites these days have "Wizard Lock" and or "Hold Portal" cast on them.
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Couldn't they just do this with a wish spell?
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"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
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I read "vehicle which will knock up satellites" and imagined a giant penis being launched into space.
Which is kind of accurate in a metaphorical sense.
Oh great, more orbital shooting gallery! (Score:5, Insightful)
With everyone "testing" their antisatellite weaponry and creating ever more orbital debris, pretty soon there'll be so much debris up there we won't be able to keep any satellites operational.
China's test of a year or two back may have already generated enough debris to start a chain reaction, any more and we may definitely go over the brink to where nothing is survivable in low earth orbit.
--PM
Re:Oh great, more orbital shooting gallery! (Score:5, Interesting)
There's an article1 about the military version of the Soviet Salyut space station, which flew as Salyuts 3 and 5 between 1974 and 1977.
Virtually no information was available about the military Salyuts until recently, when access was opened up to a full-scale training model at the Moscow Aviation Institute. Well, guess what--Salyut 3 had a machine gun. The station had a 23 mm rapid-fire cannon mounted on the outside, along the long axis of the station "for defence against US space-based inspectors/interceptors".
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/spaceguns/ [fourmilab.ch]
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The thing is, 23mm is overkill. a simple 9mm round would work. Honestly make a microsat that can maneuver to the target and simply fire a 12 gauge )) buckshot shell from a short barrel single fire when it is in a high speed approach and it will shred the hell out of it's target. You could make them the size of a small garbage can and have your launch vehicle carry 20 of them into orbit.
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The gun was there to research the feasibility of using one in a space environment. There are special thermal and lubrication issues in space that needed to be explored.
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The impact on the station was an issue major enough that any possible test firings occurred without any crew on board. Rumor has it there was quite a bit of noise and vibration associated with firing.
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That's a 23 mm recoilless auto canon - this will allow you to shoot more than one round against a possible target, and the recoilless part is good to keep the orientation of the satellite while you shoot.
As for the "high speed approach" and 12-gauge and whatever, it seems overkill to have a shotgunon a satellite that probably won't have enough reaction mass to maneuver against more than one possible target. Just launch some sand grains or whatever.
As for "have 20 and carry them
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That's a 23 mm recoilless auto canon - this will allow you to shoot more than one round against a possible target, and the recoilless part is good to keep the orientation of the satellite while you shoot.
There is nothing recoil less about a recoil-less gun. Instead of a major jerk of energy you get a smoother push of energy. Every shot fired will change your trajectory.
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And the few test firings were with the cannon pointing "back", so the projectiles rapidly deorbited.
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Well, that is the least of any government's worries if the alternative is letting his enemy freely communicate, spy, command and bomb their positions as they wish. If you absolutely need to point out the responsibility of turning space (well, the earth's orbit) into a shooting gallery then put the blame where it should be put: those who started putting there military equipment/targets there and not the ones needing to take them down.
Re:Oh great, more orbital shooting gallery! (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, it's not just military spacecraft that would be targeted. Assuming the ASAT rounds have the range, you'd see things like com satellites (even civilian ones--think Iridium), GPS satellites, maybe even weather observation satellites. In a full-blown war where it's drastic enough to start downing birds, you're going to hit anything that could possibly help your enemies and give you a better chance to survive.
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The GPS [wikipedia.org] started out, still is and will never cease to be a military system. It's a military system which, just like the internet, has found quite a lot of civilian uses. Nonetheless, although civilian GPS clients have found themselves into the market it doesn't mean, for example, precision-guided bombs [wikipedia.org] ceased to rely on it to navigate towards targets. And if your enemy is using the GPS to drive bombs right into your targets than you can bet you will desperately want to take them down.
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In a full-blown war where it's drastic enough to start downing birds, you're going to hit anything that could possibly help your enemies and give you a better chance to survive.
In a full-blown war, the first attack will be to nuke the enemy, repeatedly. And then to nuke them one more time for good measure.
These stupid satellite games are more for skirmishes when you don't want to annihilate the enemy, but just cripple them.
Unless India finally realized that India is right next door, so the fallout will blow back into their country...
Buckshot orbital shooting gallery! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Buckshot orbital shooting gallery! (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately, space is big. Really big.
[citation needed]
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Ball bearings would be too few to interdict Earth-orbits when launched from Moon. Assuming the typical satellite is having a target area of 10 square meters, you'd want to be hit by at least two balls (to keep a bit of overkill). That means that you could use 10 millions balls to cover an area 10 by 10 kilometers.
Kinetic energy penetrators launched from space assume they are already there, on the perfect trajectory. How they get there is very very energy intensive, so much so that grou
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Not an area. A widening volume with, in this example, a diameter of about 10 kilometers during the first orbit.
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And with a decreased chance to hit the intended target it the target manage to escape that 10 kilometer wide "kill area" at the first shot. Coming to think about it, if it escapes the target area in the first ball bearing pass, chances are that it won't be on the same path with the ball bearings for a looooong time. So no, I don't think this "space ship loaded with ball bearings" is a good space-based kill weapon.
For your information, 10 million ball bearing having about 5mm diameter would weigh more than 5
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Launching small projectiles around the Moon would be very ineffective use of lifting capability of your rocket - because they would generally hit the area of interest only once.
It is much more sensible to launch your payload into LEO and detonate it there in controlled fashion (in a way that will spread the balls quickly but not direct larger number of them towards the atmosphere). After that they will stay in place, with many, MANY more potential for impacts. Plus there can be much more of them, without th
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I am open to suggestions, since I am out of silly ideas that sound appealing to me.
Um... um... giant space wet napkin?
Using quantum mechanics to probabilistically erase the debris out of objective reality?
Sex bot?
Yeah, I know sex bot don't clean up teh orbits, but I'd worry less about space debris if I had one.
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Actually, its possible to shoot satellites as they're about to make a re-entry and be certain that any debris ends up hitting the earth within one orbital period. That's what the US did in the Burnt Frost test.
Its still perfectly possible for flying debris to hit another satellite before hitting atmosphere and burning out, but that's very unlikely compared to the risks of other methods of testing ASAT weapons.
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Some powers might see that as a good thing. Those without the capabilities to put up large fleet of satellites for example. Or, OTOH, those with big enough rockets, secure enough launch pads and good enough sensors; not limiting them to LEO.
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There's been a lot of talk about a garbage collection system.
Basically the talk revolves around why it's damned near impossible (or at least infeasible) because a destroyed sat sends a heckuva lot of tiny pieces flying in unpredictable directions hella fast.
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Launch a few solid state lasers to help clean up the orbit.
With the laser scorching one side of the junk the junk would end up being pushed away from the laser and hopefully into the atmosphere.
If we have five or six in orbit we should be able to clean up the current debris in a few years. If we have a few dozen then we might also be able to use them to deflect asteroids.
India announces a lot. (Score:4, Insightful)
India and Russia both have this habit of announcing these awesome things, and then never actually doing them. If India and Russia would have done everything they said, India would have five aircraft carriers and a man on the moon, Russia would have mach 15 planes for everyone, and more.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFfBB2W7IA [youtube.com]
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We're building it... (Score:2)
You mean like SDI?
Hey, it's just taking a little bit longer than expected. But at least they can intercept some missiles now, and at varying stages in flight.
Re:India announces a lot. (Score:5, Funny)
Five aircraft carriers on the moon would do India a fat lot of good,
there's no atmosphere for the planes you dumbass.
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India and Russia both have this habit of announcing these awesome things
The Americans started the tradition, at least with regard to anti-satellite and space based weapons, with the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars") under then president Ronald Reagan. It has been speculated by some that SDI hastened the decline of the Soviet Union by promoting even more military research and spending on counter-counter measures at a time when the Soviet Union could least afford to "keep up" with accelerated US defense spending. The Soviets bought the artist renderings and animation
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India and Russia both have this habit of announcing these awesome things, and then never actually doing them.
So does the US.
SB
Not surprising (Score:2)
The technology is there. But I wonder: will they have to modify the software at NORAD to take into account Big Objects that get transmuted to A Bunch Of Little Objects? I am a geek: I'm thinking about software updates.
Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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When you have Jihadist neighbors like Pakistan, weaponizing space is a good idea.
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Does Pakistan have satellites? They've had some put up for them, but it looks like it numbers a total of three that have been put up there, and it looks like they're all dead or abandoned now.
It seems more to me they're concerned about China.
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It is, unfortunately, true that Pakistan has nukes and (despite being our ostensible buddy) a fairly large and influential class of religious enthusiasts with a penchant for explosive politics.
However, there is absolutely nothing about that situation that is improved by spending a big pile of cash on whizbang space weapons. India and Pakistan are right next to each other. Even if Pakistan's team jihad decides to use missiles(rather than just putting a warhead in the back
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You're looking too deep. The simple truth is this is a show of strength. A lot of military buildup is about intimidating your enemies into NOT attacking you. To be able to claim that you have weapons even in space is merely another factor to intimidate their enemies.
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You don't think that 10 dudes in a couple of cheap boats, with a few tens of thousands worth of small-arms and cellphones [wikipedia.org] would have been afraid of anti-satellite weapons, do you?
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Why is weaponizing space when you have neighbours like Pakistan a good idea? What about Pakistan thinking they need to weaponize space because they have a neighbour like India?
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Pakistan is militant, Muslim and therefore a threat. There is no reason to be politically correct and accord Islam respect it does not deserve.
India should be ready to destroy Pakistan if attacked. It would be doing the rest of the non-Jihadist world a considerable favor should it come to that.
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Iraq should be ready to destroy the US of A if US of A attacked? Panama should be ready to destroy US of A if US of A attacked?
By the way, USSR would have made the rest of communist world a considerable favour if it would have destroyed USA
Giving your favourite nation some rights would allow your least favourite nation to claim the same rights.
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At best, they have a penchant for using fanatics as cost-effective proxies. At worst, they are actively sympathetic to them(They are hardly alone in this, it isn't a huge secret that the CIA has had a major hard-on for every tinpot right-winger who promises to hate the commies for some decades now; but that doesn't really make
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That support is in return for substantial military aid, which the Paks want for preparedness against India. F-16s aren't designed for COIN work.
The Paks do as little as possible to fight people who are just like them because tribal areas are more "real" than arbitrary borders on a map.
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... because next thing you know, Pakistan will be raining virgins down on India.
I'm pretty sure Pakistan doesn't have enough virgins to do any serious damage to India, they will, however, be able to tap into the significant supply of /.ers who are only too eager to get their revenge against the Indians who took their jobs.
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Weaponizing space is a seriously bad idea. The US, Russia, Japan and China are not going to like this.
China is already doing it. They demonstrated the ability to knock out a satellite similar to the GPS satellites a few years ago.
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Why not? If you're allowed to weaponize earth, why not space? Is it some kind of holy shrine? As for the 'bad idea' part- Well they should have thought of that when they created weapons in the first place right? India is doing what it takes to protect itself from some sort of maniacal attack from the Amreicans and the ruskies who'll try to blame it on someone else.
It's a bad idea because blowing up a few satellites may make low Earth orbit a field of debris dense enough that it is impossible to keep the other satellites intact. Once we cross a certain orbital debris density threshold, the debris will impact with satellites and create new debris faster than existing debris falls to Earth due to drag. I think that's called the Kessler Effect (someone correct me here). Once that happens, we may be locking the whole world away from space exploration and exploitation
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Kessler Syndrome [wikipedia.org]
SB
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Kessler Syndrome is actually not so dramatic, I imagine. It likely won't stop exploration and exploitation of space, only of LEO; if you want to send something further, that object will stay very short time in Kessler Syndrome affected LEO, so the probability of collision might be acceptably low.
What it will certainly do, is locking out from meaningful exploration countries without very powerful rockets (needed for quick escape of big cargo out of LEO; especially if Earth-observing satellites need to have b
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Don't forget, the US already shot a satellite out of the sky. They tried to rationalize an attempt to get the satellite to hit water instead of land, but if you think it was anything less than a weapons test, you're being a bit naive. I was quite disappointed that this angle didn't get more play in the news.
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Don't forget, the US already shot a satellite out of the sky. They tried to rationalize an attempt to get the satellite to hit water instead of land, but if you think it was anything less than a weapons test, you're being a bit naive. I was quite disappointed that this angle didn't get more play in the news.
As far as I know the satellite you mentioned is, in fact, now out of the sky. Unlike the prior Chinese anti-satellite test or what the device in the article will do.
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Space is already weaponized. The only difference is that now some factions are managing to develop ways to put their enemy's weapons out of commission.
context (Score:2)
You do not have it quite right.
The bigger picture is what counts. Russia, China, and India, and I suspect Japan, are all strongly tending to very deep cooperation. This is not due to some historical friendship!
On space stuff, I think of the recent economic policy announcements by the Russians, which puts an emphasis, not the biggest emphasis, but an emphasis on space technology, and in context nuclear powered space tech. And Russian and India just signed a nuclear deal that spits in the face of Obamba and
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Why? It’s the perfect excuse to start a “preventive strike on the war on terror”... Cheney, Putin and Jintao would cum at the moment of hearing it. (Warning: Do NOT attempt to imagine that! I repeat: Do NOT attempt to imagine that! ;)
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Many here imagined worse.
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India is not weaponising space, India is developing ground based anti satellite weapons. This is perfectly acceptable as it's not banned by the treaty that prevents the militarisation of space (cant remember name).
Besides, Russia, China and the US (Japan by proxy of the US) already have this technology. In addition to this Russia and China don't give a crap what India is doing within it's own borders (
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Oh, don't forget to mention the Space Shuttle
Which will be immediately countered.... (Score:2)
By putting up thousands of fake satellites and thousands of smaller real, but redundant satellites. :)
.
But hey, the Indians need stimulus spending thought the purchase of unnecessary military hardware too. After all, look how well it's worked for us in the USA?
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Well, it is far too expensive to put up redundant satellites. The safest bet is to actually put up inflatable balloons which would have the same size as the satellite to be "Defended." If the kill vehicle hits a balloon, no appreciable amount of debris will be produced, unless of course the kill vehicle is an explosive charge.
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If you assume satellites have to be large, yes. If you put up a few hundred smaller ones about the size of a coffee cup, scattered across a few hundred miles, aggregating their data dynamically, it's a different proposition.
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Really? I'm talking about inflatable structures in space, not in the Earth's atmosphere. An Inflatable structure surrounding a satellite would be moving at the exact same speed as the satellite, quite frankly it has no choice in the matter if it is to stay in orbit. The point of an inflatable structure is that it would be trivial to fit 10 of them into a small rocket, heck you could even include them in the payload bay of the rocket carrying the real satellite, although that would pose many issues of it's
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Ah! Okay. Sorry. I thought you meant balloon as in weather balloon, not decoy satellites.
Actually, you'd want to launch them on the same rocket as the main satellite so that they have the same orbit. Launching decoy sats at the same time is trivial. Launching them afterwards and synching the orbits is expensive and challengin
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Here's the thing about India's economy, they didn't have the GFC that western nations went through. They have enough of a strong economy that they have the highest paying professional sports league the IPA (Indian Premier League, they play cricket) which overtook the English Premier league (they play soccer) in 2008. Bollywood is nipping at Hollywood's heels, they are making a packet out of Outsourcing an
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Indeed? Explain please.
Knock out of orbit? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't just 'knock something out of orbit,' like it's a porcelain vase on a mantelpiece. Orbits do not work that way! They're building a kill vehicle to blow up satellites.
They're still going to be in orbit, just in lots of little pieces.
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The Bright Side (Score:2)
Look on the brightside. If they do end up screwing up space, and fullscale wars among satellites do occur, we can always market it as a new form of entertainment.
"Battlebots In SPACE!"
We could then all take turns designing new battlebot satellites to fight one another. Mine would have a long arm with a buzzsaw on it... and lazers and one that shoots bees (in little space suits)...
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If the projectile arced, and hit the sattelite from above, it could cause it to enter the atmosphere and burn up.
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Negligible effect; majority of the energy in the collision comes from the orbital velocity of satellite, not the impactor (which is almost stationary in comparison). Plus such kinds of collisions behave quite weird and probably don't transfer momentum very well.
But what you suggest would make the projectile much less effective. Bigger rocket required, easier to notice and intercept, more time for evasive maneuvers, target being on the noisy background of Earth.
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Actually you can. Stable orbits are quite precarious. They are only easy to maintain because there are few external forces pushing against them. Push them out and they'll fly off into space, push them into a lower orbit and it will decay, even if you re-orient the satellite it will be rendered useless. Now if you were to ram these satellites with a slow moving rocket motor rather then an explosive warhead then you c
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Where do you people get those ideas? There would be certainly no "flying off into space", of anything - giving the kill vehicle energies required would be pointless. As pointless as any explosives or trying to "reorient" the satellite. And it would certainly not "push it into lower orbit" the way you imagine.
Simply put, at few kilometers per second contact speed, the contact itself is enough to shatter the satellite into thousands of pieces (which will deorbit faster due to much larger area to mass ratio, m
Go Missiles! (Score:3, Funny)
Can't regular missiles do the job?
Won't somebody think of the missiles?
Ready set fight (Score:5, Funny)
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I personally cant wait for Dish & Direct TV to start battling it out by shooting down each others satellites.
And the only way the public wins, is if they BOTH are successful.
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The problem is (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, even if you knock down their satellites they're going to retaliate on the ground in your largest populated cities. And they don't need their satellites to do that.
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India needs a first strike capability should Pakistan government control collapse and the (more dedicated) Jihadists take over.
India is large enough to absorb a moderate number of Pak nukes and then finish the job with boots on the ground, but every advantage is to be sought in advance.
Works both ways (Score:2)
And if they're already invading your cities, wouldn't it be nice to be able to take down their satellites.
I saw this movie (Score:2)
They plan on taking 9 year olds and putting them in bright yellow 1 man spacecrafts with a paylod of missiles and some laser capabilities.
They will then land/dock with the ISS, accidentally fire a pair of missiles, and return to Earth. There will then be a parade with a ridiculous amount of confetti.
I don't know what inspired them, but its genius.
Hope you hit the right satellite (Score:2)
Cue classic scene from Spies like Us [youtube.com]
Though this could never actually happen, because well, MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
Enemy? (Score:2)
Don't worth to worry about the 1st kind (unless you are the aggressor), the 3rd kind is, for now, just you, and the
Tiin, Do, Ek, FUD (Score:2)
So ho hum. After peeling off the unnecessary, inevitable and stilted rationalization for violence (hey, I enjoy war as much as the next soldier, but not with imaginary friends) I've decoded the message here. The article is intended more for flag waving than for technology announcement. In fact I believe this to be agitprop, simply propoganda to stir up any targets and make them believe this might be possible.
Oh, and possible it is. China had their turn recently. As for the US:
[ASAT SPIN]
(from http://en.wiki [wikipedia.org]
Wont work... (Score:2)
As if, the US government will allow such a weapon to be able to get out into space and be able to literally render the US blind...
Indian business plan (Score:2)
1) found satellite company
2) have other nations outsource satellites to them for "cost savings."
3) threaten to blow satellites up.
4) obscene excess profits!
Question? (Score:2)
Does India even have enemies that have satellites?
India & China going to war? (Score:3, Funny)
If India and China went to war that would wipe out the take-out industry on a global scale. We would all be stuck eating Mexican.
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It's an inanimate carbon rod!
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Indian exo-atmospheric 'kill vehicle': *knock* *knock*
Jim @ International Space Station: "WTF?! We didn't order any take-out! Goddamn annoying fuckards! *flushes* That'll teach ya!"
Bob @ ISS: "Holy fuck! You took 'em out with only one flush!"
Jim @ ISS: "Yeah... Had vindaloo for lunch."
I knew I wouldn't have to scroll too far to see anti-Indian racism. Sad but true.
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I knew I wouldn't have to scroll too far to see anti-Indian racism. Sad but true.
Racist? Dude, go get a sense of humor. There's nothing at all racist about that joke. You want racist jokes? Here are a few (poking fun at my own anscestors):
What's a seven course meal for an Irishman? A six pack and a potato
How many Irish does it take to change a light bulb? Three: One to hold the bulb and two to drink until the room spins.
If you hear a British accent in a bar, how do you tell if he's English, Scottish, or Iri