
Satellite warfare: An arms race is brewing in orbit - bookofjoe
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/08/15/an-arms-race-is-brewing-in-orbit
======
hwbehrens
Obviously the best way to avoid Kessler syndrome is to prevent it from
occurring in the first place, but given the widespread short-termism
everywhere these days, that seems naïve.

Are laser brooms the current state of the art when it comes to deorbiting?
From this article [0], it appears to be quite slow but at least highly
parallel, "cleaning" an object in 3-4 years but all addressable objects in ~5
years. It's still unclear to me if the principles required for them to
function effectively are currently available, or if more development is
required first.

Another concern is that large installations may be viewed with suspicion,
given their potential applications as anti-satellite weapons, especially
against surveillance satellites whose sensors (I assume) would be more
sensitive to high-intensity illumination. Any ideas on how these concerns
might be mitigated?

[0]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.3835](https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.3835)

~~~
atharris
This is very pessimistic - basically every space-faring nation now has pretty
strict licensing requirements for new spacecraft, a portion of which is a plan
to deorbit / move to a 'junkyard orbit.' In the US, this is actually handled
by the FCC, because a satellite you can't talk to might as well be debris. [0]

In general, the economics of debris removal are also really unclear, because
the actual risk of collisions is still pretty slim and the potential legal
risk of touching another nation's spacecraft are high. Many objects are also
too small to be tracked. The community is largely shifting towards debris
avoidance, rather than mitigation - i.e., tracking and maintaining custody of
debris, and maneuvering out of the way when necessary. This is pretty
straightforward, since we already do a lot of space object tracking and
maneuvering anyways. A variety of commercial companies have already moved into
this space, including giants like AGI [1].

[0]
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354773A1.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354773A1.pdf)
[1] [https://www.agi.com/missions/space-situational-
awareness](https://www.agi.com/missions/space-situational-awareness)

~~~
skyfaller
And who is going to make the Space Force clean up our orbitals after a battle
or war?

The idea of combat in orbit is insanity, the Space Force will just ground
itself if war ever breaks out in orbit at any scale. It's like building a navy
that would be unable to leave port if you were to ever actually use it. It's
like... well, nuclear weapons, except perhaps less likely to result in human
extinction.

~~~
michaelt
Ironically, a navy that doesn't leaves port is a naval strategy of the 1690s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being)

~~~
azernik
Even later - it was the main German naval strategy of WWI.

~~~
edgyquant
Not sure if you're being humorous or not but that's because they lost
immediately in the opening battle.

~~~
azernik
They kept their fleet in port for most of the war; Jutland was halfway through
the war, when the Germans lost patience, ended indecisively, and led the
Germans to return to a fleet-in-being policy.

------
bookofjoe
[https://archive.vn/mnOqr](https://archive.vn/mnOqr)

------
JoeDaDude
Scott Manley presents a great summary of the Russian satellite and sub-
satellites and their potential uses:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4C-ydEpN58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4C-ydEpN58)

------
fuoqi
As I wrote earlier[0], it does not make much sense to build a dedicated
satellite destruction weapon residing in orbit (assuming we are talking about
LEO). Ground and air based systems are cheaper and much more flexible. And the
acceleration of the smaller satellite is laughable, you get much higher
relative velocity by simply having a different orbit inclination. So to me it
looks simply like a continuation of the US smear campaign against Russia.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23934552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23934552)

------
Demiurge
This seems like a key paragraph:

> Russia and China would like a formal treaty banning all weapons in space.
> Both are keen to prevent America from deploying space-based anti-missile
> systems which might threaten their own nuclear forces. America and its
> allies resist this. They argue that it is impossible to define a space
> weapon—anything that manoeuvres in orbit could serve as one—and that it
> would be easy to cheat.

~~~
loceng
They will want this until they have equal or greater capacity than the
US/SpaceX, and we now know the CCP doesn't stick to treaties they agree to -
e.g. Hong Kong's independence - so they're just dishonestly posturing.

~~~
brian_cloutier
The world is not as black-and-white as you're making it out to be, not all
treaties are created equal. All major powers have a mixed history when it
comes to honoring their commitments, but that doesn't mean treaties are
worthless.

~~~
loceng
When it comes to security you best learn from an actor's history and consider
all actions, weighted properly, and not simply get stuck in indecision of what
if's.

In the U.S. the current leaders and those making decisions rotate, adjust over
time, so there's less certainty and a foreign nation will have to do their
best to know and read the political climate. With China's CCP there isn't so
much change and so their actions are much more determinant of their future
actions.

Of course no situation is black-and-white, however all things considered what
I described is their strategy, that is my conclusion for their strategy; I
hope you see the pattern of Putin's Russia every 5 years or so killing off the
main opposition leader, like recently happened - Alexei Navalny in a coma
currently. Do we ignore that and believe that we'll trust Putin will change if
he claims he will? He'd never agree to a treaty though that hurts his position
of power/control though, just like this "no space weapons" doesn't hurt
Putin's or CCP's position of power - because they don't wield that power or
capability, and so of course they want a treaty against it.

Let's hope the free, democratic world rallies in creating multi-lateral trade
agreements to syphon off buying from CCP controlled China and this is enough
wake them up economically, unfortunately it's possible that it will only to
cause the CCP to be able to tighten their grip on the Chinese people (control,
censorship, security systems of the hierarchal tyranny) - creating more
internal pressure that CCP can continue to make the narrative that it's the
U.S. and other democratic nations that are the cause, rallying hate and anger
which then they will direct where they see fit.

------
thoughtstheseus
It’ll be curious how censorship will work when you can access the internet
with a small antenna(easily hidden) anywhere on the planet.

~~~
krisoft
The censor triangulates your signal and fires artilery shells at you:
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/satphones-syria-and-
su...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/satphones-syria-and-surveillance)

Now obviously satphones use very different protocols from these modern
internet constellations but I wouldn’t bet my life on them being impossible to
triangulate.

~~~
echelon
Make a double hop.

Give your antenna a cellular connection, route over a few hops, cover your
tracks.

------
RegW
F __k! We haven 't even started cleaning up the Great Pacific garbage patch or
stopped burning the Amazon. Does anyone really think that any government is
really going to stop dumping crap into space where no one gets hurt.

------
zipwitch
"Orbit War was a magazine game published by Steve Jackson Games in Space Gamer
(Issue 66 - Nov 1983). This release was followed by an expansion published in
Space Gamer (Issue 67 - Jan 1984) and later by the boxed edition.

It is a simulation of satellite warfare in low Earth orbit. The players are
the USA and the APU (Asian-Polish Union). The object is of course to destroy
your opponent's satellites and such..."

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2101/orbit-
war](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2101/orbit-war)

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/mnOqr](https://archive.is/mnOqr)

------
HenryKissinger
A competition akin to a new space race is under way between the United States
and China, evident in the rush to blanket the earth with thousands of small
satellites that provide everything from high-speed communications to high-
resolution intelligence. New space-based capabilities will be central to how
militaries command and control their forces. Even more than today, future kill
chains will flow through space, enabling militaries to distribute the process
of understanding, deciding, and acting across large networks of systems rather
than depending on single platforms to close the kill chain on their own. The
result will be a dramatic expansion of "time-sensitive targeting": the ability
to find moving targets, track them, and strike them before they have moved
away.

The proliferation of satellites, however, is only the beginning of the new
space race. Spacecraft have always been limited by the impracticality of
refueling them. They have only as much fuel as they could carry into space,
and when it is gone, they cannot actively propel themselves any farther. This
has restricted spacecraft to orbiting Earth, but emerging space technologies
are changing that.

These technologies are being developed now. In the coming years, it will be
possible to service, assemble, and manufacture complex orbital infrastructure
in space that would be impractical to launch from Earth. This could include
vast space-based solar power arrays to capture more of the sun's energy than
is possible on Earth, where our atmosphere absorbs or deflects it. Power-
beaming technologies will transfer that energy around space. Space-based
mining technologies could extract ice from the moon or asteroids, utilizing
the underlying oxygen to fuel rockets and support human life in space. The
means of production to support space operations will increasingly shift off
Earth and into orbital bases and perhaps onto the moon, where spacecraft and
other critical space infrastructure could be produced using 3-D printing and
advanced manufacturing. It sounds like fantasy, but it is not.

In time, space will be transformed into a unique warfighting domain, and this
will inevitably have military applications. Space operations in the coming
decades will come to resemble maritime operations in the nineteenth century,
when industrial age great powers built global networks of coaling stations and
other infrastructure to project naval power in defense of their expanding
commercial interests. A similar dynamic will occur in outer space, and the two
states that will most shape humankind's spacefaring future will be China and
the United States. It is hard to imagine their strategic and military
competition will remain confined to Earth.

Source: The Kill Chain, Defending America in the future of high-tech warfare,
Christian Brose, Hachette Books, 2020.

~~~
jessaustin
Oh, HenryKissinger, I swear you've got a one-track mind! You see _everything_
as another opportunity for military spending!

~~~
HenryKissinger
China and Russia are building and deploying disruptive space technologies,
thus we must do the same, lest we cede the high ground to our enemies. I wish
that wasn't the case, but as long as there exist major powers that challenge
the United States and our allies the all-domain arms race will never end.

The US Space Force just released its capstone warfighting doctrine:
[https://www.spaceforce.mil/Portals/1/Space%20Capstone%20Publ...](https://www.spaceforce.mil/Portals/1/Space%20Capstone%20Publication_10%20Aug%202020.pdf)

> Not only are space operations global, they are also multi-domain. A
> successful attack against any one segment (or combination of segments),
> whether terrestrial, link, or space, of the space architecture ca neutralize
> a space capability; therefore, space domain access, maneuver, and
> exploitation require deliberate and synchronized defensive operations across
> all three segments.

~~~
marta_morena_25
"I wish that wasn't the case, but as long as there exist major powers that
challenge the United States and our allies the all-domain arms race will never
end."

LOL there we go again. The US is the center of the universe. I mean there are
actual reasons why you don't want China or Russia dominate the world (well, in
times of Trump that is actually questionable what is the bigger evil here),
but you have to bring the most ridiculous one: We are the US, and someone is
challenging us, can't have that.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Someone has to lead, and unfortunately authoritarianism is closer to the
natural state of human social equilibrium.

~~~
sudosysgen
That's not true. We don't need the US to lead. The natural state of human
social equilibrium in anarchy, and was indeed the mode of social equilibrium
in most of human history until the "tragedy" of agriculture.

And indeed, if you take any half decent IR class they will teach you that the
state of international relations is anarchy.

~~~
whytaka
How comforting.

------
ackbar03
Does anybody have any ideas as to what opportunities might open up for
lightweight start ups from the general trend of decreasing launch costs? I
mean aside from the obvious ones such as starting a launch company or anything
that requires a ton of investment.

I understand that lower costs of launching satelites massively changes the
economics but I can't figure out how it might affect auxiliary
industries/businesses. Satellites seem to be more related to communications
which tends to come under utilities and is managed by government entities

~~~
kiba
Decrease costs how?

SpaceX isn't resting on its laurel letting newer startups show them up.
They're working on catching million dollars crate and on their next generation
systems.

~~~
Nasrudith
The best guess I can think of for potentially lower cost per unit is a space
cannon but that sort of megaproject doesn't exactly qualify as "lightweight"
and would probably call for ruggedization of payload to survive the launch.

~~~
wcarey
Ruggedization is a vast understatement given the energies involved. On top of
that, your payload needs to be able to circularize from a negative perigee, so
it would need lots of onboard delta-v. You’d also either have an aimable
cannon or deal with expensive plane change maneuvers.

------
kipchak
A emerging secondary capability seems likely to be the ability to quickly
launch low orbit or temporary platforms, either on board a rocket or via
something like a Pegasus xl strapped to a plane, or flying objects like
balloons (Loon) or drones like Facebook's Aquilla, maybe with FSO links
instead of RF. FSO is more difficult to jam or intercept and has higher data
rates for the size, weight and power usage of the transceiver.

------
caretak3r
Wish we had a fully-accessible article.

But on the topic at hand, what about loosely coupled bots that individually
use broom lasers to break down debris in manageable pieces?

~~~
bookofjoe
[https://archive.vn/mnOqr](https://archive.vn/mnOqr)

~~~
caretak3r
thank you very much!

------
andrewtbham
I'm curious how space x and their re-usable rockets impacts this arms race
(not to mention blue origin, rocket labs, etc.). Seems like a huge advantage.

------
082349872349872
How might reusable launch platforms affect strategic orbital postures?

My current guess is that with or without them, any major power war is likely
to wind up with a lot of cheap gravel or even sand intersecting previously-
useful orbits.

~~~
panzagl
Orbital dynamics are fun- a truckload of gravel dumped in front of a satellite
either stays in front, or slows down and moves to a different orbit. So you
have to dump it in a higher orbit, and let drag bring it where you want it.
You could do it, but it would basically look like an attack- the speeds are
too high, distances too large, and drag too unpredictable to make it look like
an accident.

~~~
YarickR2
"How do you fight SDI orbital-based weapons platforms ? Oh, it's easy. launch
a truckload of nuts and bolts into orbit, and blow it up" (c) Soviet military
cicra 1986

------
mensetmanusman
In principle it is quite easy to blind satellites with lasers, maybe the only
way is to have 100s of thousands of small satellites so that you know when an
attack has started and can respond with kinetics.

------
boltzmannbrain
What are the methods for security/defense for individual satellites?

------
qserasera
I think it's rather naïeve to think that nation states are going to be the
main actors of this battle.

If you get some banks and companies trying to enforce compliance to a
regulatory system, maybe. Anything outside of that does not cause a war in my
mind.

