Russia Likely Launched Counter Space Weapon Into Low Earth Orbit Last Week, Pentagon Says (go.com) 70
The United States has assessed that Russia launched what is likely a counter space weapon last week that's now in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed Tuesday. From a report: "What I'm tracking here is on May 16, as you highlighted, Russia launched a satellite into low Earth orbit that we that we assess is likely a counter space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit," Ryder said when questioned by ABC News about the information, which was made public earlier Tuesday by Robert Wood, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
"Russia deployed this new counter space weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite," Ryder continued. "And so assessments further indicate characteristics resembling previously deployed counter space payloads from 2019 and 2022." Ryder added: "Obviously, that's something that we'll continue to monitor. Certainly, we would say that we have a responsibility to be ready to protect and defend the space domain and ensure continuous and uninterrupted support to the joint and combined force. And we'll continue to balance the need to protect our interests in space with our desire to preserve a stable and sustainable space environment." When asked if the Russian counter space weapon posed a threat to the U.S. satellite, Ryder responded: "Well, it's a counter space weapon in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite."
"Russia deployed this new counter space weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite," Ryder continued. "And so assessments further indicate characteristics resembling previously deployed counter space payloads from 2019 and 2022." Ryder added: "Obviously, that's something that we'll continue to monitor. Certainly, we would say that we have a responsibility to be ready to protect and defend the space domain and ensure continuous and uninterrupted support to the joint and combined force. And we'll continue to balance the need to protect our interests in space with our desire to preserve a stable and sustainable space environment." When asked if the Russian counter space weapon posed a threat to the U.S. satellite, Ryder responded: "Well, it's a counter space weapon in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite."
Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:4)
Not much has been said about what offensive space weapons might consist of. Of course there's been plenty of (too many of) explosive and high velocity impact tests which yield much in the way of dangerously unmanageable orbit-able debris.
So I'm thinking maybe the Russians are deploying space lasers that can overheat a satellite without otherwise smashing it into a zillion pieces. At least that's what I'd do if I were a James Bond level villain. (FWIW, I am not!)
Re: Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:2)
Ahhh RedAlert2, I miss that game
Re:Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:4, Funny)
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what? you don't have a lair inside a remote, inactive volcano on so beautiful tropical island?
I think you're confusing me with either Larry Ellison [hawaiipublicradio.org], (AKA One Really Asshole Called Larry Ellison AKA ORACLE), or Mark Zuckerberg [theguardian.com]. Regardless, thanks for the compliment! My nonexistent old age pension prospects have been relatively tickled silly for just a brief moment.
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Foolishly I chose to eat most months. though some of them I lived in my car.
Ever see the Four Yorkshiremen skit from Monty Python? If not, google it, it is old, but still funny.
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>what? you don't have a lair inside a remote, inactive volcano on so
>beautiful tropical island?
*sigh*
I *used* to, but then my white cat dropped my monocle into the reactor, and . . . well, you know how *that* goes . . .
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Re:Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:5, Funny)
Only Israel has perfected space laser technology. I worked on the project and was lucky enough to receive this medal. https://dissentpins.com/collec... [dissentpins.com]
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Those space lasers are quite useful for a variety tasks. [reddit.com]
Re:Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I would be developing a "doomsday weapon" to intentionally put up enough orbital debris to effectively deny any other power to put/keep anything in orbit.
Easy and cheap to if you have launch capability, in the first place. A great hedge against anyone else enjoying space superiority if a conflict breaks out. Should WWW-III actually happen, you make an assessment unless your space-based weapons are better than their space based weapons you take space out of play.
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Personally I would be developing a "doomsday weapon" to intentionally put up enough orbital debris to effectively deny any other power to put/keep anything in orbit.
Easy and cheap to if you have launch capability, in the first place. A great hedge against anyone else enjoying space superiority if a conflict breaks out. Should WWW-III actually happen, you make an assessment unless your space-based weapons are better than their space based weapons you take space out of play.
Your idea is better than mine that you replied to, if I were of the evil world domination sort, (FWIW I am not!). I was thinking too ethically with regards to orbital debris. That was at least one of my mistakes.
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Re:Space lasers, not explosives or high impacts (Score:5, Insightful)
Orbital debris is the way to defeat satellites. A friend worked that out back in 1985, looking at the physics of launch, the physics of armor, the velocity (and therefore kinetic energy) of space junk. His conclusion was it's an order of magnitude cheaper to defeat a satellite with a given level of armor by launching a satellite and blowing it up into junk along the path of the target.
Of course, that leaves the junk in orbit, so it's not a particularly "environmentally friendly" approach. The FX Holden "Aggressor" series has an entirely different approach postulated by their fictional near-future Chinese. I won't go into details, but I'll say that a lot of stuff in that series scared the sh*t out of me, as technically feasible and operationally effective.
I shouldda bought Raytheon stock earlier (Score:1)
US will need to put military-related satellites into a variety of different orbits to reduce the chance of mass debri sabotage. This includes plenty of spares and the ability to shift orbits if stalker satellites spoil a given orbit.
In short, there are counter measures, but they are not cheap.
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> A great hedge against anyone ~~else~ enjoying space ~~superiority if a conflict breaks out~~
FTFY. The beautiful thing about Kessler Syndrome is that it doesn't play favourites.
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Would be easier just to have a really big clamp and an electric saw. Grab the target and start cutting. Powered by solar panels. No need for expensive lasers, dependent upon 1960s era technology for rendezvous.
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No, just go "space junk removal" by latching on to your high-value target and then deorbit the thing. No kessler effect or dramatic explosions required.
I guess the strategic implications of "space junk removal" tech is what made them all back off it for so long. Especially when it might be treated as an offense in the "strike back with nuclear weapons" category, depending on the target.
"Same orbit" doesn't mean much (Score:4, Insightful)
An orbit is the entire path... That can be 50,000 km for LEO. Even if you don't understand metric, you can get a sense that it's a very, very long path. The two satellites could be 25,000 km apart and have the entire Earth between them.
Telle how close the two satellites are on the same path. Or give me a prediction of their closest approaches and the frequency. "Same orbit" is insufficient information.
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An orbit is the entire path... That can be 50,000 km for LEO. Even if you don't understand metric, you can get a sense that it's a very, very long path. The two satellites could be 25,000 km apart and have the entire Earth between them.
Telle how close the two satellites are on the same path. Or give me a prediction of their closest approaches and the frequency. "Same orbit" is insufficient information.
Plus if it is the same orbit, an interception is impossible without changing the orbit.
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An orbit is the entire path... That can be 50,000 km for LEO. Even if you don't understand metric, you can get a sense that it's a very, very long path. The two satellites could be 25,000 km apart and have the entire Earth between them.
Telle how close the two satellites are on the same path. Or give me a prediction of their closest approaches and the frequency. "Same orbit" is insufficient information.
Plus if it is the same orbit, an interception is impossible without changing the orbit.
There could be ways of causing, if not failure, certainly damage, without changing orbit. The first and simplest that comes to mind is the ability to seed the orbit with debris. It wouldn't take much of a push on a small supply of ball bearings or bolts, tossed backward into the path, to make things *very* interesting for any other satellite in that same orbit. And with as sophisticated as some Russian high-tech weaponry ends up being, I could see that as at least a somewhat likely scenario.
Re:"Same orbit" doesn't mean much (Score:4, Informative)
Orbits don't work like that. Things get really weird to human intuition once there is no friction and no surface to stand on.
You can't simply throw something backwards and hit the thing behind you - velocity and your path are tightly bound and when you throw something back you are slowing it down. That will put it in a different orbit.
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You can't simply throw something backwards and hit the thing behind you - velocity and your path are tightly bound
Throwing a dumb ball bearing out isn't seeming like a great idea here.
I think you'll rather want to drop off a ball bearing with a rocket strapped to it.
You'll throw the thing behind you AND configure a release of fuel to correct its position back into the path of the target's orbit.
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Re:"Same orbit" doesn't mean much (Score:5, Informative)
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Tossing a ball bearing out the back will put the ball bearing into a different orbit which passes through the same point where the bearing was released, goes through a lower point on the other side of the Earth and coming back up to the same point again. And the orbital period will be faster. So it will go through that point earlier on the next orbit than the satellite that released it.
Which could hit your target on the next orbit if the ball bearing is shot out at the correct speed, or at a later orbit, or the bearing and the target could end up in (I think it is called something like) harmonic orbits where they never actually intersect despite travelling through the same point in space.
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Even if you could calculate how to make it intersect with the target on a later orbit, it's not going to be moving any faster than the velocity with which you shot it out the back, and the harder you shoot it, the lower it's going to go at periapsis and the more velocity it'll lose in the atmosphere, which will make it not return to the same height. It's not very feasible. Getting close and just firing a projectile at it would be more practical.
Agreed, was just thinking about accuracy, not lethality.
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Even if you could calculate how to make it intersect with the target on a later orbit, it's not going to be moving any faster than the velocity with which you shot it out the back, and the harder you shoot it, the lower it's going to go at periapsis and the more velocity it'll lose in the atmosphere, which will make it not return to the same height. It's not very feasible. Getting close and just firing a projectile at it would be more practical.
Agreed, was just thinking about accuracy, not lethality.
I'm really sorry to be the one to have to ask, but could someone please translate this thread into a skateboarding analogy?
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Your skater analogy totally works for me! Thank you kindly.
Please accept 10 virtual karma points being tossed in your generally perceived direction as a gesture of my appreciation.
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Imagine a skateboard in orbit... carrying a box of tiny skateboards. Someone postulated kicking the tiny skateboards out the back to destroy another skateboard, in the same orbit, then that method was shown to be most likely not effective unless some other stuff was done.
wait. Like this [youtube.com], right? (Mark Rober: Testing if you can blow your own sail)
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But did tossing the 10 virtual karma points in their generally perceived direction change your orbit by way of Newtonian physics?
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But did tossing the 10 virtual karma points in their generally perceived direction change your orbit by way of Newtonian physics?
I sincerely regret not using the word 'orbit' in my original comment, instead of the word 'direction', which was so old school of me, ...actually 2d in the grand scheme of things.
I only hope I am correctly using the word 'orbit' now, relative to TFA.
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But did tossing the 10 virtual karma points in their generally perceived direction change your orbit by way of Newtonian physics?
Excellent call on your part by the way.
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Anything you drop has your orbital velocity.
Pushing them out the back doesn't impart them with shit for velocity, and if you *do* give them shit for velocity- you change their orbit, ensuring a lack of interception.
Orbit is hard.
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I would think an interception would be as simple as accelerating or de-accelerating a bit to catch up in either direction.
To perform an interception to catch up, you would actually have to slow down the proper amount to intercept on the next orbit, and vice versa if your target is behind you. If on the same orbit, but with a large separation, the earth may get in the way of this maneuver, or fuel limits can be a problem. I think a 2 stage Homann transfer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit) may be more efficient fuel wise in many cases.
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You would be incorrect, as acceleration (or decel) adjust the orbital path on the opposite side of the gravitational object you are orbiting (acceleration raises altitude, decel lowers it). In orbital mechanics, if you want to intercept a moving object, you need to basically do the following:
1. match orbital plane / inclination
2. adjust velocity so you have a point of intersection between your orbit, and the target's orbit
3. wait until the point in time where the two objects are at their closest point of i
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I think playing KSP until you've managed a round trip to Mun and back (even in sandbox mode and with the MechJeb mod) ought to be mandatory for anyone with an interest in orbital mechanics but lacking the education.
It's an awesome (and fun) learning tool for that.
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Which amounts to very little fuel given enough patience.
It would take very little delta-V to set up a long-term Hohmann transfer as long as the two spacecraft are at the same orbital inclination, regardless of where they actually are in relation to each other in the orbit.
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No, but you can imagine it's far enough in front of, or behind, the target satellite that it maintains LOS.
If it is far enough in front or behind the target satellite, the earth will be blocking LOS.
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Clearly the goal is to maintain LOS, so clearly it's not that far.
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It would not take much maneuvering to lower the Russian satellite's orbit, such that it catches up to the US' satellite, followed by another maneuver to re-match the orbital speed. Going from "in the same orbit but 180 degrees apart" to rendezvous isn't hard. The Gemini astronauts demonstrated that technique in the early 60s.
You probably couldn't do it covertly, though. A satellite of any reasonable size is pretty easy
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Distance, time, and delta-v... You're going to have to deal with an inconvenient combination of them.
If you're not already riding the other object's tail, you're probably not going to start doing so quickly enough to avoid detection before you can act.
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The same is true with ground troops, navies, (most) aircraft, even ICBMs. All these things are still mighty useful in an actual shooting war.
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I was thinking more 'pre-emptive strike', because it blinds the enemy while you start your terrestrial campaign. Any delay lets them know what you're attempting, which negates the initial advantage.
Long term of course, knocking it all down would be in Russia's interest because the US thoroughly outclasses them in space-based communications and observation.
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"Same orbit" doesn't mean much
It means a whole lot. Even if the satellite you want to get to is on the other side of the earth, getting to it may require almost zero energy, just time. That's how launched capsules catch up with the ISS -- just vary the orbital speed a little. Whereas if the target orbit has a different inclination for example, the required delta-v can easily be as high as the orbital velocity.
Clickbait Budget Justification. (Score:5, Insightful)
An orbit is the entire path... That can be 50,000 km for LEO. Even if you don't understand metric, you can get a sense that it's a very, very long path. The two satellites could be 25,000 km apart and have the entire Earth between them.
Telle how close the two satellites are on the same path. Or give me a prediction of their closest approaches and the frequency. "Same orbit" is insufficient information.
Take a closer look. You’ll see there’s NO actual information being reported, because they know no one s gonna visit LEO and confirm their bullshit claims anyway:
"Russia launched a satellite into low Earth orbit that we assess is likely a counter space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit.”
In the era of nameless, faceless “threats” of anonymous “terror” justifying trillions in military spending, I’m shocked they even bothered to pull Russia, Russia, Marsha out of their ass to justify a few trillion more. Talk about your FUD sales tactics. Fucking hell.
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And that matters now, because?
Time to dust off the inertial navigation systems (Score:3)
This sort of anti-satellite weaponry will be targetted at three things -- disrupting military communications, disrupting intelligence gathering, and disrupting GPS.
I don't know what you do about those first two. Regarding GPS, though, I wonder if military aircraft still have inertial navigation systemsto reduce dependency on GPS? I have to imagine the Pentagon has been dusting those off and prepping at least some of the fleets for such an eventuality.
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I wonder if military aircraft still have inertial navigation systemsto reduce dependency on GPS
I have no idea. But it would be a pretty dumb design if they are not prepared to operate without GPS. Since that's an external system that can fail -- and it's the whole military's job to anticipate such contingencies and defend the country regardless.
It would seem to make sense to have Inertial methods as a backup for local navigation at least. And have GPS, Plus have a system that sites a celestial body or te
How Resilient of Them. (Score:2)
And here I thought sanctions were going to cripple their war-making capability and economy in general.
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Well if sanctions are not working, have we tried funding their military?
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Sanctions haven't exactly crippled anything in Russia, but they have had an effect. [bbc.com]
Sanctions are an obvious early step to take when dealing with a government whose policies (foreign or domestic) are disagreeable to you. But often they're just symbolic.
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But often they're just symbolic.
Sanctions become symbolic if the targeted country finds other countries willing to do business with it. China is helping Russia in this regard (as are a number of other countries, to a lesser extent).
But in any case sanctions are typically more a case of playing the long game - they don't usually cripple a country in the short term.
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Considering removing sanctions is always on Russia's list of stopping the war, they must be working as planned or they wouldn't talk about them so much.
U.S. openly militarizes space (Score:2)
It's a counter (Score:3)
A counter weapon is a counter to a weapon that is already in space. Who and why put it there?
Re: It's a counter (Score:2)
I so wanna believe them (Score:1)