Space weapon

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Man-made threats . This US Department of Defense graphic (from Space Technology Guide FY 2000/2001) shows possible threats from space weapons . Almost all technical information relates to US military projects . Much less is known about the state of affairs with other armies ( see the note below ).

Space weapons are weapon systems that are stationed in space against targets in space and on Earth, or weapon systems that can be used against targets in space from Earth . In addition to the United States of America , the People's Republic of China , Japan , Russia and India are making considerable efforts to expand their weapons and reconnaissance systems stationed in space .

Existing and planned weapon systems

Anti-satellite weapons

US Air Force anti-satellite missile (ASAT) from the 1980s.

Antisatellite weapons are designed to destroy or disable enemy satellites in orbit.

  • Anti-satellite missiles (also known as ASAT missiles) are ground or airborne missiles that can attack targets in orbit .
  • Killer satellites
  • Ground, air or space-based laser weapons can also be used as anti-satellite weapons.
  • Radio interference systems , including jammers , can interfere with satellite communication systems temporarily or permanently using electronic means.

Space-based weapon systems

Lasers stationed in space

Future vision of the US Space Command for the year 2020: A directed high-power laser stationed in space precisely destroys a terrestrial target (computer graphics or drawing)

Even Space-based laser ( Space Based Laser , SBL) are in development. The US armaments and aviation group Lockheed Martin is one of the leading companies . As things stand at present, however, their practical applicability is still limited. The main problem is how to make the vast amounts of energy available for effective use.

"Rods from God"

Rods from God (German: Rods from God ) are tungsten rods that could hypothetically be used as bunker busters. The metal tungsten has the highest melting point of all pure metals and a similarly high density as gold . Tungsten bodies could therefore survive re-entry into the atmosphere without a large loss of mass . This technology would fall back on an early concept of aerial warfare in World War I : Even then, so-called aviator arrows , mostly made of steel, were dropped in large numbers instead of bombs on enemy troops, who killed them with their impact.

Electromagnetic bombs

By generating an electromagnetic pulse at high altitude, opposing electrical systems could be disturbed over a wide area - see the main article: EMP bomb .

Conventional firearms

Attempts have been made in the Soviet Union to equip military space stations of the Almas type with a rapid-fire cannon derived from the NR-23 aircraft cannon. This weapon was tested in practice at least on the Salyut 3 space station. Little is officially known about the details and results of the experiments. The problem with the use of firearms in space is the recoil, which changes the trajectory of the spacecraft with the firearm on board and can make fuel-consuming course correction measures necessary.

Space-based missile weapons

Spacecraft can also be equipped with missile weapons. These have the advantage over firearms that there is no recoil.

Discharge of space debris

By deploying tiny objects, for example with the help of a fragmentation bomb, which are on a collision course with another spacecraft, it can easily be destroyed because even the smallest debris can result in high impact energies. Objects on the ground are not endangered.

ICBMs

ICBMs are considered space weapons in the US because they cover a large part of their trajectory in space. In 1993, the US ICBM forces were incorporated into the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC); on October 1, 2002, the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) was merged with the United States Space Command (USSPACECOM).

history

The US Air Force Satellite Control Facility (CSTC) on Sunnyvale AFS, California, in the early to mid-1980s - the only facility of its kind at the time

The first test of an anti-satellite weapon took place in the USA in October 1959, when a two-stage solid - fuel rocket from the Bold Orion project was launched at high altitude from a B-47 ("Stratojet") to intercept the Explorer 6 satellite . The test was successful, passing the satellite 6.4 km away. Space travel was just two years old then. Shortly after the start of the Sputnik in 1957, the then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower emphasized : "Defense-related objectives in space are those to which the highest priority should be given because they contribute to our immediate security".

At the height of the Cold War , space policy in both the United States and the Soviet Union was under the ideological sign of the space race . In response to the so-called Sputnik shock , which, among other things, had suddenly made it clear to the West that Soviet ICBMs could have reached US territory at any time, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958 , with which the US Space agency NASA was launched. DARPA was founded on January 7, 1958 (at that time still called ARPA).

Space weapons projects of different nations

According to a study by Götz Neuneck and André Rothkirch, the USA and the USSR or Russia together fired around 2,000 military satellites into space by 2003, while all other countries combined only 30 to 40.

United States of America

Early Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) concept, 1997/98

A current military project in the USA is the joint project of the US Air Force and DARPA called FALCON , an acronym for Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States , in which hypersonic machines suitable for everyday use are used to transport weapons or other equipment into space, but also to be built for quick intervention at any point on the planet. In the target projection of the project, which is divided into three phases, it should be possible to cover 9,000 nautical miles in less than two hours by 2009 (16,668 kilometers, corresponding to a speed of more than 8,300 kilometers per hour ).

Model of the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle HTV-1

The US company Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract in August 2004 to build HTVs for the FALCON program of the US Air Force and DARPA. The original HTV construction (HTV-1) was supposed to complete flight tests as early as September 2007, still supported by booster missiles, aiming for a speed of Mach 19 at an altitude of 30 to 45 kilometers (at this altitude that would be almost 20,000 Kilometers per hour). In May 2006, however, the construction of two HTV-1 aircraft was canceled because the supplier C-CAT is said to have had problems with delamination of the curved leading edges of the aircraft's outer skin. Instead, they went straight to the HTV-2 project , the first test flights of which took place in April 2010 and August 2011.

After the Bush administration had revised the National Space Policy in August 2006 , a revision of the “Space Operations” doctrine was approved on January 22, 2007, in which the US military superiority in space is once again the focus. It is emphasized once again that the US military dominance is based on its superiority in space: "In order to maintain it, our air forces must defend space effectively," says the document that replaces the US Air Force doctrine, which has been in effect since 2001. In addition, control elements on the ground would have to be specially protected.

The stationing of weapons of mass destruction, e.g. B. nuclear weapons , in space has been banned by international agreements such as the Space Treaty and the SALT treaties . Russia, China and Canada as well as various other countries want to have the stationing of any weapons in space prohibited for decades under a treaty for the protection of outer space ; the US has been consistently opposed to it since Ronald Reagan's Star Wars initiative in the mid-1980s.

The reformulation of the National Space Policy of 2006 stipulates that the USA will not be subject to any supranational bodies or guidelines in its space policy. In addition, states that act contrary to the interests of the United States should be denied access to space. It is unclear whether this is linked to the use of military force by the USA - for example to prevent rocket launches by other nations.

Maintenance work on satellite control facilities at Andersen Air Force Base , Guam . 170 military and civil satellites were monitored from here in early 2006 alone.

In accordance with the National Space Policy , USSTRATCOM decided on a Space Control Plan on October 11, 2006 on the occasion of its Strategic Space and Defense Conference in Omaha ( Nebraska ) . The priority is therefore the defense of US satellites against attacks, whereby it is important to refine the situation-dependent assessment of the situation ("situational awareness") , i.e. to track all objects in space and to identify those that could pose a threat to US satellites .

Since May 18, 2005, Vandenberg AFB has also been home to the US Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center ( also known as the Joint Space Operations Center ).

The X-37 unmanned military spacecraft has been tested since 2005.

Soviet Union / Russia

While the United States has been working on military projects in and for space since the late 1950s (albeit with fluctuating emphasis), the Soviet Union almost completely ceased its efforts in this area in 1983. In Moscow it was apparently the conclusion that the arms race with the potential enemy - especially economically - could no longer survive. After the self-dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the expenditures for military and civil space travel in Russia were reduced; numerous projects were dropped.

One of the best-known, technically most advanced space weapons projects of the Soviet Union was the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System ( FOBS ), an ICBM that could approach a target from earth orbit. The special feature of the system was that the attacked person could not have drawn any conclusions about the target based on the flight path in space. The project was tested from the 1960s, but discontinued in 1983 under the SALT II contract of 1979.

In the case of ASAT weapons, the USSR essentially followed the approach of the " killer satellites ". The attacking missile was brought onto a satellite orbit. The attacker's subsequent approach and explosion destroyed the target, along with the attacking missile - this approach was the easiest and cheapest to implement. The construction was called Istrebitel Sputnikow (IS), Russian "satellite interceptor" or "satellite hunter". According to Russian assessments, this system should also have served as the basis for the successful Chinese ASAT missile test in January 2007. The development work began in the early 1960s, the first test flights of the attacker prototype with the designation "Poljot" (without target interception) took place in 1963/1964, the test interceptions followed from 1968. The IS project was founded in 1972 on the basis of the SALT-I- Contract officially stopped, but remained in use according to US sources; Tests with new versions took place until 1982. Then the IS satellites were scrapped. In the 1980s, the development of a new ASAT system called "Narjad" began. Little is known about this system so far: up to three test launches of the system on silo-based Rockot rockets are said to have taken place in the early to mid-1990s .

From 1970 the Soviet Union also experimented with large ASAT lasers stationed on the ground, which reportedly “blinded” (made their sensors unusable) a number of US spy satellites in the 1970s and 1980s. Space stations used by the military , which, according to US information, were also able to carry out ASAT operations, are said to have been the core of the Almas program of the USSR. In the 70s, three such stations were launched, in addition to cameras for observing the earth's surface with a machine gun of the type NR-23 were armed. Further plans included Soyuz spaceships used by the military for reconnaissance or hunting purposes, but were not implemented.

In the mid-1980s, the Poljus space missile defense system was developed . Only a prototype was created, which was successfully launched on May 15, 1987 with the help of an Energija launcher, but was lost on the same day due to incorrect alignment in space. The program was then discontinued.

After a phase of cutbacks and restructuring, the Russian armed forces did not re-establish a command for space troops until after the turn of the millennium . According to a communication from the Russian government on the 5th anniversary of the association on June 1, 2006, it is responsible for three tasks:

  • Direction of satellites for both military and civil purposes
  • "Control of Space"
  • Warning of the Russian government of possible nuclear and missile attacks as well as the anti-ballistic missile defense of Moscow .

At present, over 9,000 space objects are recorded in the main register of the Russian space troops, of which around 5,000 are constantly monitored, according to an RIA Novosti report.

China

The People's Republic of China , which has always officially assured its strict rejection of the militarization of space, has been suspected by some observers since the late 90s of working on various such systems. Because of the still limited space travel capacities and experience, the Chinese military and scientists are said to have mainly relied on concepts of asymmetrical warfare , for example on so-called parasite satellites , which are supposed to be easy to manufacture and transport into space and those on "host satellites “Docked, would destroy it or render it inoperable.

The primary goal of China's military use of space is the installation of satellites for earth observation . The satellites of the programs Ziyuan-1 and -2, launched in 2003 and 2004, presumably allow an image acquisition of the entire surface of the earth. The resolution of the images is unknown. For some years now, Tsinghua University has been developing a small satellite program together with the University of Surrey and a local armaments company , which consists of seven earth observation satellites that are supposed to deliver images with a resolution of 50 meters. Small and micro satellites for other purposes are a focus of Chinese space research, as is the intention to develop satellites for eavesdropping on electronic communications. In addition, the country is to work on methods for locating and identifying enemy satellites. China's ASAT armament is currently ( as at the end of 2005) essentially still limited to conventional and nuclear weapons that would have to be carried into space by ICBMs. Ground-based laser-based anti-satellite weapons are probably also being developed ( see: People's Liberation Army ).

In a 2005 overview of the ten most important developments in the modernization of the Chinese armed forces, the US military expert Rick Fisher stated: “The VBA could also consider manned military platforms in space: China's first manned space flight, the Shenzhou-5 from October 2003, mainly for military surveillance [...]. China's modest expansion of its nuclear missile force is being done to enable it to overcome current and future US missile defense systems. One of these technologies would be multiple warheads to overwhelm the missile defense. "; see. MIRV , MARV .

In a missile test on January 11, 2007, China succeeded in destroying its own weather satellite Fengyun-1C ("Wind and Clouds"), which had exceeded its service life, from the ground at a height of around 850 kilometers with a ballistic ASAT missile. The projectile was fired from the Xichang space station in southwest China, it said. On January 19, 2007, the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada protested the test and a formal British protest was filed days later.

"It is the first known time in history that a rocket launched from the ground destroys a satellite in orbit," said US space and China expert James Oberg, according to agency reports.

Only two weeks after the launch, China officially confirmed the test of an anti-satellite missile on January 23, 2007, agencies reported. China has always advocated the peaceful use of space, said the Chinese spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Liu Jianchao at a press conference in Beijing.

India

On April 12, 2006, a report by the Indo Asian News Service said that India had begun establishing a "Space Weapons Command". Air Marshal P. P. "Bundle" Tyagi , Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Air Force ( IAF ), however, emphasized that the Air Force command is being expanded, "but that will take a while."

On August 10, 2005, media reports said that India was setting up a satellite-based surveillance and reconnaissance system that was to go into operation in the course of 2007 and that would primarily monitor developments in the country's neighborhood.

Space Armor: The Potential of Other Countries

Brazil

Brazil , which according to US assessments is seriously pursuing the military use of space facilities, is working together with Russia and China on its mostly civilian satellite programs. In an official paper, a possible cooperation with Israel to develop a high-resolution spy satellite was also considered. The Brazilian military controls certain aspects of the space program, such as rocket development, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies .

Israel

Of Israel is known that education and communication the focus of its military space activities. The country cooperates closely with the USA. The Israeli Air Force is responsible for the program. The Israel Space Agency (ISA), the Israeli space agency based in Tel Aviv , was founded in 1983 as an offshoot of the Israel Defense Forces .

A missile test site of the Israeli army and the Israeli space agency is located between the Palmachim kibbutz around ten kilometers south of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea . From this area the Ofeq reconnaissance satellites (from Ofeq 3 all served military purposes) were brought into space with Shavit rockets - with at least two failures so far. On May 28, 2002, Ofeq 5 launched; its main task is to oversee the Iranian nuclear program . The successor Ofeq 7 (number 6 was lost, a third stage built by the Israeli arms company Rafael did not ignite) is to replace it in August 2007. Ofeq 7 and also the SAR satellite TechSAR are to be brought into space with Indian PSLV launch vehicles.

The relatively advanced optical earth observation satellites of the EROS series are operated by the Israeli-US company ImageSat International .

European Union

The states of the European Union are currently ( as of autumn 2006) largely limited to reconnaissance, communication and geodesy satellites stationed in space ; nothing is known of the planning of active space weapons.

In mid-October 2006, the EU Commissioner for Transport and Vice President of the Commission Jacques Barrot called for the Galileo project to be opened up to military applications.

With the SAR-Lupe satellite reconnaissance system , the German Armed Forces have been able to catch up with the standards of military espionage since 2007. It consists of five identical small satellites and a ground station for their control and image evaluation. As a third system with radar technology (after those in the USA and Russia), high-resolution images can be obtained from any point on earth regardless of the weather or time of day. The satellites were launched into space with Russian Kosmos-3M launch vehicles between 2006 and 2008 . The ground station is in Gelsdorf near Bonn . The system reached its full potential in 2008. On July 30, 2002, a cooperation agreement was signed with France in Schwerin , whose Helios satellites are intended for optical reconnaissance. The multinational system network ( E-SGA ) was commissioned on December 1, 2006. ( see also: Lacrosse ; SATCOMBw )

According to a report by the Guardians (London) on January 22nd, 2007, the Czech government announced on January 20th that the country would host a military base for the controversial missile defense system of the USA. It is the first time that Prague has officially confirmed that Washington has asked permission to build a radar station for the NMD program on Czech territory. In one of his first official acts as Czech Prime Minister in September 2006, Mirek Topolánek said that the construction of the facilities in the Czech Republic would significantly improve European security. According to the Guardian, he was only referring to the radar base - according to the British newspaper, a strong indication that the Pentagon hopes to be able to build a silo for 20 anti-missile missiles in neighboring Poland .

In early January 2007, Russia had repeatedly warned that any expansion of the US missile defense project into Eastern Europe would necessitate revising its military plans in order to counter the threat it posed.

In 2009, however, the new US President Barack Obama announced that the planned facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic would not be implemented.

See also

gallery

  • Space weapons

  • US Air Force Anti-Satellite Kinetic Missile (ASAT)

  • A fighter plane fires an ASAT weapon at high altitude (drawing)

  • An aircraft is equipped with an ASAT (anti-satellite weapon) for test purposes

  • Soviet Union military lasers in orbit (presumably a fantasy drawing by the USAF)

  • Soviet ASAT satellite, probably from the 1960s

  • Lockheed HOE (Homing Overlay Experiment) for defense against ballistic missiles

  • ASAT space laser (fantasy drawing)

literature

  • David Hobbs: The weapons in space. Podzun-Pallas, Friedberg 1988, ISBN 3-7909-0344-2 .
  • Bhupendra Jasani, Lee Christopher: Guns in Space. Countdown to Star Wars. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1985, ISBN 3-499-15554-0 .
  • Travis S. Taylor et al .: An Introduction to Planetary Defense. A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion. Brown Walker Press, Boca Raton FL 2006, ISBN 1-58112-447-3 .
  • John Tirman: SDI - The War in Space. Basic study by prominent scientists d. Union of Concerned Scientists on the Armament of Space. Scherz, Bern 1985, ISBN 3-502-17743-0 .
  • Matthew Mowthorpe: The Militarization and Weaponization of Space. Lexington Books, Lanham 2004, ISBN 0-7391-0713-5 .
  • Thomas Kretschmer, et al .: Military Use of Space - Fundamentals and Options. Fraunhofer Institute for Scientific and Technical Trend Analysis, Report- Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-932385-18-7 ; simultaneously Bundestag printed matter 15/1371 from 2003, pdf online bundestag.de, accessed on December 30, 2011
  • Alexei Arbatov, et al .: Outer Space: Weapons, Diplomacy, and Security. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC 2010, ISBN 978-0-87003-250-9 .

Web links

Commons : Space weapons  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Clay Moltz: Crowded orbits: conflict and cooperation in space. Columbia Univ. Pr., New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-231-15912-8 , p. 125
  2. ^ Joan Johnson-Freese: Space as a strategic asset. Columbia University Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-231-13654-9
  3. ↑ US-Japan Military Space Alliance Promises To Grow In 'New Ways' ( Memento March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) forbes.com, accessed March 3, 2016
  4. ↑ See information on SBLs (Federation of American Scientists) ( Memento from November 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Kenneth W. Barker: Airborne and Space-Based Lasers - An Analysis of Technological and Operational Compatibility. Air University - Maxwell Air Force Base, 1999 pdf online ( February 20, 2013 memento on the Internet Archive ), au.af.mil, accessed December 30, 2011
  6. ^ Anatoly Zak: Here Is the Soviet Union's Secret Space Cannon. popularmechanics.com, November 16, 2015, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved March 5, 2016 .
  7. ↑ - ( Memento from December 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Quoted from Globalsecurity.org ( Memento from October 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Military Spaceplane (Globalsecurity.org) ( Memento from November 6, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ See report by the Air Force Times
  11. ↑ Joint Space Operations Center opens At Vandenberg ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (USAF announced via Spacewar.com)
  12. ↑ Mysterious US shuttle returns from space ( Memento from August 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) zeit.de
  13. ↑ Behind the Air Force's Secret Robotic Space Plane ( September 13, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive ) popularmechanics.com, accessed September 10, 2012
  14. ↑ Naryad project ( Memento of 8 February 2007 at the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ M. founder: SOS in space. Mishaps, problems and disasters in manned spaceflight; Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-89602-339-1
  16. ^ Report from Russia.ru ( Memento from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ^ A Military Intelligence Failure? The Case of the Parasite Satellite ( Memento of November 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (UCS, August 16, 2004)
  18. ↑ See Telepolis report (2001) ( Memento of November 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Rick Fischer, Top Ten Chinese Military Modernization Developments ( Memento from August 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ↑ Beijing destroys satellites: Arms race in space ( Memento from March 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 19, 2007
  21. ↑ An Interview with the new Chief of Air Staff, IAF Air Chief Marshal SPTyagi ( Memento of May 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ Air Chief Marshal Shashindra Pal Tyagi (biography) ( Memento from November 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ↑ Brazil: Military Programs ( Memento of the original from December 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cns.miis.edu
  24. ^ Israel's Space Program (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1998); BESA Seminar Considers Technology And The Future Battlefield ( Memento from May 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, 1998); Israel in Space ( Memento from December 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (Harold Hartog School of Government and Policy, April 14, 2005 - PDF, 18 p., 332 kB)
  25. ↑ Czechs give go-ahead for US 'son of stars wars' base ("The Guardian", January 22, 2007)