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Science Forum Index » Geology - Satellite Navigation Forum » U.S. gauges China's anti-satellite strategy
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| Sam Wormley |
 Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:37 pm |
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U.S. gauges China's anti-satellite strategy
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/02/afDFNSpace070202/
By Vago Muradian - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 2, 2007 8:46:37 EST
As worldwide attention focuses on China's first successful
anti-satellite missile test, U.S. officials are questioning why some
Chinese spacecraft are in orbits that bring them close to key U.S.
satellites, according to military sources.
The big question is the scale and progress of the Chinese
anti-satellite program, including whether the Chinese spacecraft are
benign or time bombs that can someday be used to threaten the space
assets on which the U.S. military and economy depend for everything
from reconnaissance and dropping bombs to logistics, communications
and navigation.
The Chinese spacecraft don't appear to be conducting any particular
mission. Rather, "there is a menu of missions that could be performed
that we are not yet clear about," said one source. "These things
aren't being sent up there to be space rocks."
A 50-page report submitted Jan. 19 to Congress cites evidence that
China is considering a covert anti-satellite network that could
debilitate the United States in wartime.
For more than a decade, U.S. officials have warily eyed China's
growth as a space power, particularly its interest in developing
anti-satellite systems to counter an overwhelming American
superiority in space.
Interest peaked after a ground-based missile destroyed an obsolete
Chinese weather satellite on Jan. 11. At least one previous test
ended in failure, and perhaps two, sources said. Chinese officials
issued assurances that the test should not be seen as threatening.
The White House publicly confirmed the test as part of a coordinated
effort with close allies -- Australia, Britain, Canada and Japan
among them -- to drive home to Beijing that its anti-satellite
activities have global repercussions.
China's direct-ascent anti-satellite missile is the latest test to
prove counter-space capabilities. Last year, senior U.S. officials
said China had attempted to use lasers to blind American satellites.
By international convention, a physical attack on a nation's
satellites is considered an act of war.
Tracking Spacecraft
The United States uses a vast array of orbiting and ground-based
systems to track spacecraft and determine their purpose. But two
programs are seen as key for the future military space force; the
XSS-11 and its complementary effort dubbed Angels, both by Lockheed
Martin.
Both aim to develop a range of capabilities that the Air Force sees
as critical, including highly maneuverable spacecraft that can
closely scrutinize what's in space. XSS-11 flew in 2005 and its
public mission was to demonstrate the ability to maneuver on orbit
and autonomously rendezvous with orbiting satellites.
Critics say that such a maneuverable spacecraft could be used to ram
enemy spacecraft or attack them with weapons.
The XSS-11 flight, however, brought back information that prompted
top U.S. military commanders in January 2006 said they needed a
better understanding of what's in space that could jeopardize U.S.
defense and economic interests. They also said they needed a more
"operationally responsive" space system and the ability to quickly
launch military satellites into space to replace those destroyed in
an attack.
Assessing China's Strategy
The Jan. 19 report, authored by Pentagon China consultant Michael
Pillsbury for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission,
is based on the writings of more than 20 Chinese military
strategists, particularly three colonels at Beijing's National
Defense University between 2001 and 2005.
The commission is a congressionally chartered bipartisan panel that
advises lawmakers on the strategic U.S.-China security and business
relationship.
Pillsbury declined to discuss whether China has already launched into
orbit elements of a covert space fleet, but stressed that Beijing's
military strategists appear focused on designing a broad set of
anti-satellite capabilities.
"We have three books and several dozen articles from China that go
back 10 years, all of which advocate all types of anti-satellite
weapons and they have a consistent theme -- they have to be deployed
covertly so that in a crisis with America, China can shoot down some
satellites as a deterrent message," Pillsbury said.
"These documents advocate multiple approaches to preemptive strikes
on satellites from plasma clouds, pellets, directed-energy weapons,
orbiting spacecraft and attacking ground stations with special
forces," he said.
China, Pillsbury said, is convinced the United States is weaponizing
space and Beijing has concluded it must develop a like capability,
while simultaneously pressing for an international space weapon ban.
"What's interesting is that no matter how hard you try, you don't
find anything in Chinese writings that argues the opposite, that if
you attack U.S. military satellites you will have World War III on
your hands, which is why it's better to initiate a space weapons
dialogue and never have a crisis in the first place," Pillsbury said.
A Chinese military official said he could not comment on the matter.
But Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information
in Washington, said it is difficult to determine whether the authors
quoted by Pillsbury represent fringe or mainstream military thought.
"The hard part of dissecting China is that we know so little of who's
who and we can't necessarily tell as outside analysts which are
credible sources," she said.
"It would be dangerous to either underestimate or overestimate
Chinese capabilities, but you have to be more aware of overestimation
because you don't want to be in a situation where you panic."
Weapons in space
China in 2002 called on the United States to send a delegation to
Geneva to negotiate a space weapons ban. But Washington refused
because Beijing rejected verification measures and defined space
weapons as including missile defense components.
The Outer Space Treaty, which the United States signed in 1967,
prohibited nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in space. But
American officials say that while they are committed to the peaceful
use of space, they will not be party to an agreement that could
hamstring their ability to defend space assets.
The U.S. Congress barred the Air Force from building anti-satellite
missiles in 1986, after an Air Force F-15 fighter launched a missile
that destroyed an orbiting U.S. satellite. The Soviet Union also
flexed its anti-satellite capabilities in the 1980s. And now China
has joined the club.
Asked about the new Chinese anti-satellite threat, Lt. Col. Michael
Pierson, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Space Command, declined
comment. "As a matter of principle, we do not discuss specific
vulnerabilities, threats, responses or steps to mitigate," he said.
"In broad terms, the U.S. has an inherent right of self defense and
we take all threats to our sovereign space systems seriously. We
monitor activities that threaten our right to use space peacefully
and take appropriate steps to defend our systems against current and
future threats."
Part of the problem, Pierson said, is the sheer number of operational
and long-defunct spacecraft orbiting Earth. "In 1957, there was one
man-made object in space. Today, we are tracking more than 14,000
man-made objects in space. So, the environment has changed," Pierson
said.
And better awareness of what's exactly in space and why has become a
major initiative for the Air Force since the release of a 2000 report
by the blue ribbon Space Commission panel that declared that America
was vulnerable to a "space Pearl Harbor."
The panel was chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, who would become defense
secretary months later and spearhead changes to the military space
organization, including subsuming the U.S. Space Command into the
U.S. Strategic Command to ensure a single management point for
strategic space.
Operationally Responsive Space
To focus attention on the issue, however, Rumsfeld asked Art
Cebrowski to head the Pentagon's new Office of Force Transformation,
which made operationally responsive space a priority. Cebrowski
tirelessly argued that the current space infrastructure needed to be
re-engineered.
First, he argued, it takes too long to build military satellites and
the rockets needed to place them into orbit. To ensure a failsafe
space network critical to a new brand of networked warfare, he said,
the United States must be able to loft satellites quickly into orbit
to replace those that could be destroyed by an enemy.
Publicly, Cebrowski never named China as a potential foe, but
Beijing's interest in anti-satellite systems was a key factor in his
strategic thinking. To that end, Cebrowski's office launched a series
of programs, chief among them the development of small "tactical
satellites" or Tac-Sats.
The first of a series of such small, innovative and relatively
inexpensive spacecraft by the Naval Research Laboratory, TACSAT-1 was
to have been launched last year, but has been delayed because
teething problems with the all-new, low-cost booster by SpaceX. The
satellite and rocket together were planned to cost about $15 million.
The Air Force plans to spend about $300 million over the coming five
years on a host of programs to face space threats, most of which
would be directed to stockpiling launchers like the Minotaur rocket
by Orbital Sciences which launched TACSAT-2 in December from Wallops
Island, Va.
"Pearl Harbor was said for effect and may have been overstated, but
we need to get serious about protecting the assets in space, not just
the spacecraft, but the nodes and ground stations that contribute to
that," said Lance Lord, a retired Air Force general who until 2006
headed the service's space command. "To underscore the importance of
space situational awareness we reordered our priorities to space
surveillance, defensive counter space and last, offensive counter
space."
Defense in Depth
"Defensive counterspace is key. You have to have defense in depth so
that if you lose one spacecraft or a space-borne capability, you can
reroute in a self-healing system to avoid single-point
vulnerabilities. In terms of the overall system, it's relatively
robust, but not as good as it needs to be."
Space, like the sea, is open to all nations for peaceful and select
military applications like reconnaissance, surveillance,
communications and weather forecasting, and with that openness comes
challenges, Lord said.
"You have an inherent right of self defense in the commons of space
and if someone is using space against you, you can take a variety of
actions to defend yourself," he said. "That is even more important
now that the Chinese have proven that they are technically capable of
large projects and want to be a full player in the environment and we
have to appreciate how that plays into their doctrine."
Knocking out the U.S. space network, or even big pieces of it,
however, would be difficult. For example, the U.S. satellites that
monitor the globe for missile launches -- the Defense Support Program
spacecraft -- are in geosynchronous orbit some 24,000 miles high,
while the GPS constellation orbits the Earth at a medium altitude of
some 12,000 miles. Both are too high and redundant to easily
incapacitate, analysts said.
More vulnerable are the series of giant Keyhole optical and Lacrosse
radar reconnaissance satellites that are in low earth orbit several
hundred miles high.
"These are big satellites and there aren't many of them up there are
and they aren't immediately replaceable if lost," said Barry Watts,
the former head of the Pentagon's Program Analysis & Evaluation
office who is now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments in Washington. "We're very focused on Iraq and things
like armored Humvees, and they're important, but you have to keep you
eye on the space ball because almost everything we do depends on it." |
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