Talk:Anti-satellite weapon

Questions

What about the concrete missile?

I worked on the early ASAT program for McDonnell Douglas at Edwards AFB. We had a big concrete missile with just guidance and propulsion. No explosives needed since about 500 lbs of concrete would just smash into the satellite. I never see anything about that very early part of the program. We even started and international incident with the Russians. Maybe that is why no one talks about it. Upstairs was a lab trying to get lasers to work on the F-15 and McDonnell sent me a wiring harness to test that was about putting nukes on the F-15. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:CC0B:D800:28E5:78D8:5EC2:B5ED (talk) 16:19, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

What about the KE-ASAT program that the US is (was?) working on in the 1990s? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.70.131.28 (talk • contribs) December 6, 2004.

The F-15 portrayed in the photograph is from Edwards but is that where the lauch was from that shot down the satellite? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.55.121.8 (talk • contribs) December 7, 2005.

Hazards

I suppose it would be off-topic to discuss the hazards of anti-satellite weapons such as the EMP shockwave amplified by the atmosphere (in greater detail) when using nuclear weapons in near-Earth space, or the plume of debris left by exploding missile shells and their targets left in orbit. I'd like to hear other peoples' view, though, because it's a bit of a reach. Oceanhahn 10:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

There is some discussion at High altitude nuclear explosion about using nuclear weapons in space. In all, it's not especially dangerous to those of us on the ground. I suppose the altitude of the satellite in question is important, but really, the radiation, and certainly not any of the other blast effects, aren't going to reach us. Satellite chunks falling from the sky are problematic, but most satellites are less than a ton or two and wouldn't provide much of a problem. They'd break up into much smaller pieces on reentry, and are of course only 30% likely to hit land. Debris in orbit is much more of a problem, of course, but near earth orbit is chock full of debris anyways. One satellite isn't going to pose a great threat to anyone. If there were a sustained campaign against satellites, there would be far greater havoc on the ground than in orbit. Remember also that the debris itself is subject to reentry. ... aa:talk 19:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Russian equivalent

There was also a Russian equivalent of ASAT being developed in late 80s till mid 90s, this was using a mofified MiG-31 (MiG-31D to be exact) with a Vympel developed missile - I have the designation somewhere but would have to find it. The project was initially abandoned in early 90s but resurrected around 2000 with commercial satellite launches in mind this time. Note that the system was intended to be used against LEO satellites as the missile mass was significantly below US ASAT. The program has apparently now been restarted post treaty demise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.30.77 (talk • contribs) May 11, 2006.

I wasn't aware there was an ASAT treaty in the '90s. --Dual Freq 22:09, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The phrse "kamazazee satellite" should be removed. It isn't official and leads to a page about Japanese suicide bombers in WWII.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DonPMitchell (talk • contribs) June 6, 2006.

Air Force 2025, Russian space web and International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation use similar terminology, sounds official when they use it. --Dual Freq 23:13, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the use of the term 'kamikaze'; though however slang it may be, it describes a tactic employed -- the intentional suicide of the attacker in order to damage a target -- in a brief, concise manner. Being official or not never had anything to do with it. --Oceanhahn 06:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

"Kamikaze" suggests that it is manned, but I have my doubts whether this is meant. Either way it should be stated more clearly.--Patrick 14:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

References

This page could probably use some references if someone has the time/inclination.--Will.i.am 20:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Starfire Optical Range

Shouldn't this article mention Starfire Optical Range's research? 89.180.130.194 20:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

"It is also one of the plot elements in Matthew Reilly's Area 7 featuring a satellite-killing shuttle launched from a high-altitude plane"

I maintain that tagging bits on like this is unencyclopaedic. Also the way the sentence it written is terrible. "Area 7 featuring"?

China Developing Anti-Satellite Technology

This could be added on a new article instead of putting it here. Might be an long article.-- Walter Humala Godsave him! ^{(wanna Talk?)} 03:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Um why? Until they would use laser, or shoot down another satellite, short notice with altitude in km/m, and description of orbit suffice. It would be also nice a link to the missile they used. Raghar 03:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Format for Clarity

This was a very good read, but I found that it would benefit greatly from a contents section like many Wikis have. And obviously break the article into sections...

Ifpk454 06:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Section on China

The new section on the Chinese missile launch suffers from recentism. There is nothing historically important in this launching, in relevance to this article. The technology and capabilities have been around for 20 years. It does not warrant it's own section. Significant enough to add to the article? Yes! Significant for its own separate section? No! Do not be so quick to justify its notability simply due to a news-crazed and sensationalistic network trying to catch viewers. ~ UBeR 01:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It's shocking because the US will now develop their own space weapons. Actually US was already developing space based weapons. In any case, things will be quite interesting in the coming years for sure.

Most of this sites links are defunct.

there is at least 2 active US space weapon program (both by lockheed martin) at the time of china's ASAT test. US had and are developing space weapon(or defenses as they put it) so what china did was just being the 1st to lanuch a test in 21st century; in PRC opinion, it might have seen US and Russia had already demostrated their capability, hence they were just playing catch up to show they are "up there" with the leading nations. on defensenews, an analyst opinioned that the GPS is quite safe from this ASAT since there are backup system and they operate very far away from earth, and the ASAT china used is design more to take out spysat, such as those ROC-Taiwan is using to spy on China. as there is usually no redundancy spysat to get back online quickly, it could have a serious effect on intelligence during short hostility. i agree on it being sensationalized; it is quite a big thing "now", and maybe we can keep it around abit until it settledown. Akinkhoo 15:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Haven't all the US tests been either outright failures or ridiculous charades, with the targets emitting homing signals rather than counter-measures? Isn't hitting a real target more than the USA has managed during the last 24 years? If so, I think that would make the Chinese efforts notable. -- Geo Swan 10:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually both the USA and Russia have successfully done the same thing China did, except they did it over 20 years ago. One reason (I would argue the main reason) they stopped was because of the space pollution it caused. ~ UBeR 23:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Technique wise, the China ASAT missile is equipped with kinetic-kill warhead, and it is the first successful kinetic-kill for ASAT warfare, and it shot down a satellite which is much smaller in size and much higher in orbit height (865km, compared to 500km the USA did before).

Tech-wise speaking it is far superior to any of the ASAT USA/USSR did in 1980s, and it is comparable to the lastest NMD techs.

Just like you can not say there is little point to build plane since people could built planes almost 100 years ago, the difference between different generations of planes is something worth looking at. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 23:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Anti ASAT?

Is there any anti-ASAT weapon that satelites can use to defend against ASAT weapons? Any article for that? Frap (talk) 21:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 23:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC) 

Political bias?

"Especially when the US knew of the eventual outcome of the defunct satellite at least 1 year in advance which lead some to ask, 'why choose this time to destroy the satellite and not earlier.'"

I think that this should be edited to present a more neutral tone. Isn't the reason for the intercept being delayed until just before re-entry to ensure that all the debris re-enters and does no become a space hazard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.198.117.107 (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

that is a valid question. we don't know about the condition of said satellite until now, the military didn't refute the delay was for it to enter a given orbit neither. the satellite maybe in the same orbit for the past year, do you have the fact to back the claim that the orbital delay was recent? because i found no source on this. Akinkhoo (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of India

I'm not so sure what Yattum's problem with including India on the list is. Numerous articles from numerous sources state that India is actively developing an Anti-Satellite system as part of its ballistic missile defence program. I've no objection to other countries being included on the list but as far as I could tell, no other nations (including Russia, the UK, France and others) had any formal plans to develop such a system or atleast have not announced them. On the other hand, India has which is why I put it on the list, it has nothing to do with bias or POV pushing. Vedant (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

India has performed no ASATS. Please stop grouping it with the United States and China and implying it has. Your version states India is planning an ASAT. The source does not say India has any planned ASATS. Changing the section name from Recent ASATS to Current and future ASATS implies India has performed ASATS or has ASAT ability alongside the United States and China, plus it is massively speculative and wp:crystal ball, which states Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place. Only the United States and China have performed ASATS. Many countries such as Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, France have potential ASAT ability, yet none of these are included in the article because they have never performed an ASAT. This article is only about ASAT weapons and ASAT events. This issue is very much like the one which was on the missile defense article, which you kept including a lengthy statement on an India laser based system in the introduction, even though no such system exists. Your contribution history implies your account exists only to further Indian nationalism and enter into edit wars with other users, like you are currently with user:Ao333. Yattum (talk) 19:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Well since you are quoting Wikipedia policy, allow me to. Please see WP:No Personal Attacks as it seems you are violating a few Wikipedia policies yourself. Second of all, I'm not sure if you're aware or not but Ao333 has frequently engaged in disruptive edits on a number of India related articles by changing information without consensus and deleting cited materials (as it appears you are attempting to do here). I also find it somewhat hypocritical that you are accusing me of edit warring as you are doing the same (as it takes two people to edit war, who am I edit warring with? Myself). Your argument is also belied by the fact that I add a "negative" information to India related articles such as pointing out the delays in the Commonwealth Games or indicating that 72% of Indians lack access to improved sanitation facilities. Apparently the above eludes you so I suggest you familiarize yourself with these basic concepts before continuing to edit the encyclopedia. Finally on the topic of Anti Satellite weapons, as I have said many times, this technology is under development and India is planning to deploy an Anti-Satellite weapon system. I didn't specify a time frame as none exists but it is not in violation of WP:Crystal Ball as a number of these technologies already exist in the Indian Missile Defence Program and that the DRDO chief has announced that India is actively developing the components of an ASAT weapon. As such, I am keeping it on the list.

I'm also curious what the chart on your user page is for, is it perhaps a personal ranking of different countries that you decided to post on Wikipedia. Do your Wikipedia edits mirror that ranking system? Vedant (talk) 23:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not taking sides here, but please can you both calm down, stop edit warring, and discuss the issue politely before any more reversions occur. I've sent you both reminders about the three revert rule, and if the edit war continues I will ask an administrator to intervene. --GW… 23:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've already posted a message on the Administrator Noticeboards. I don't particularly like to engage in revert wars as they are messy but it is sometimes required with trolls and disruptive editors.Vedant (talk) 23:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Your pro-Indian POV will be removed no matter how many times you keep adding it, just as many other users have removed your POV every time you keep adding it to various articles, such as the HAL Tejas, ‎Sukhoi Su-30MKI, List of fighter aircraft, Comparison of heavy lift launch systems, Anti-tank guided missile, Indus Valley Civilization, Cryogenic rocket engine, Indian National Satellite System, Healthcare in India, Indian Expressways, Asian space race, Trillion dollar club, Indian Armed Forces, Agni-V, Chindia, Made in China, HAL Tejas timeline, India and weapons of mass destruction, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III, Culture of India, Human rights in India, Communications satellite, Passive Electronically Scanned Array, Vertical launching system, Economic reform in the People's Republic of China, Jaffna University Helidrop, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and are just some of the articles you've been edit warring on during the last 3 months. As for personal attacks, your account does little but personal attacks. Your talk page and edit history are littered with personal attacks. I have explained several times now, India has performed no ASATS, has no ASATS planned, and many countries not just India have potential ASAT ability. Including India in the Recent ASATS section along with the United States and China implies India has performed recent ASATS too like the United States and China have. Your edit completely contravenes wp:crystal ball. Your edit is nothing more than nationalist POV. Your account history is full of edit warring and POV edits. Please don't try to make this look as though my edit war free account is the bad guy here, I think our contribution histories and talk pages speak for themselves. This issue is idential to your pro-Indian POV edits to the missile defense article, which was only resolved when User:Joema also started reverting your POV edits too. Yattum (talk) 00:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes going by your factually inaccurate information I've clearly been involved in lots of edit wars, have you even bothered to look at the edits to those pages and what was removed/added? Presumably not as you just decided to add a list of all my recent contributions to this article. Well anyways, it appears that your block log and edit warring on this article seems to speak for itself. Vedant (talk) 05:21, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyways you humour me so lets talk about some of my "reverted edits"

• Jaffna University Helidrop - vandalism was reverted, see this edit summary [1] As
• Velupillai Prabhakaran - again, vandalism from the same ip was reverted, see this edit summary [2]
• Passive_Electronically_Scanned_Array - restored information deleted by By78 a particularly egregious sock with 5 accounts
• Economic reform in the People's Republic of China - again, restored information deleted by by78
• Vertical launching system - please tell me what change I made to the article.
• Human rights in India - removed a ton of POV information, please see this edit summary [3]
• HAL Tejas timeline - more of By78's POV pushing removed
• Comparison of heavy lift launch systems - What did I do here? I restored the tags to data fields. I did not add any data
• Communications satellite - I fixed a citation tag, that's really a crime isn't it?
• Indus Valley Civilization - By78's sockpuppetry at work here.
• Cryogenic rocket engine - More of By78's sockpuppetry here as well.
• Agni V - I added a chart.. damning evidence you have there.
• Healthcare in India - I removed a bunch of POV material in the lede and moved that material into their appropriate sections. Criminal?
• Indian Expressways - What did I do here?
• HAL Tejas - I restored citations deleted by Ao333 who attempted to compromise the article by adding bogus sources and changing dates without consensus.
• Indian Armed Forces - I deleted a paragraph with a whole bunch of useless nationalist banter by all sides
• Made in China - Mind telling me what I did was wrong here?
• Anti-tank guided missile - By78 playing with images, I merely restored the ones that were there before. Users who are indefinitely banned from Wikipedia forego the privilege of being allowed to edit the encyclopedia.
• Indian Expressways - So backing up claims with citations from reputable sources is POV pushing?

It appears you are having trouble differentiating between POV pushing and editing. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the differences between these two actions before continuing to edit Wikipedia. As I have already said, your "clean" user page has now been tainted with both an edit war and a block so I would appreciate if you did not take the moral high ground and accept that you are at fault as well. Vedant (talk) 05:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

What a refuttal Vedant, you nicely answered ALL his points and attacks. He didn't bother to answer after this... I declare you a winner. --80.10.46.92 (talk) 18:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

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Space debris effect of India ASAT test

I have had content about the debris effect removed (at least) twice together with references. The first unsummarised by an anon IP, the second by Quartzd was summarized by an allegation of pure (i.e. 100%) speculative content which is untrue. Due to 3-RR rules I am unable to restore it without become involved in an edit war. I would like suggestions to restore same or similar and seek consensus on such a matter in the first instance with intention for mediation if necessary. I intend to tag the section for neutrality because of this and other content present. The debris effect of the satellite destruction is important and I propose content about it is restored. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 14:30, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

The (Bare URL) source I just tagged with a reference name of "ndtv1" includes the following quote from G Madhavan Nair, former chairman of India Space Research Organisation (ISRO).: "India's test done at an altitude of 300 km may not leave space debris for too long,". I would be observe G Madhavan Nair may or may not be neutral in this regard; however he would reasonably be assumed to be an authority on the subject and he has not provided certain reassurance there will not be a space debris issue.Djm-leighpark (talk) 15:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• I will currently comment that the article currently promotes the (potentially biased) view of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs that ensures resulting debris would fall to earth within weeks (which I agree is probable but I all am looking for people to commit their life savings, assets and pensions on) as opposed to the other reuters source that has the headline U.S. studying India anti-satellite weapons test, warns of space debris and indicates 250+ pieces of space debris which would be would be monitored issuing “close-approach notifications as required until the debris enters the Earth’s atmosphere. I believe the article is currently biased in this respect. Possible Indian Ministry of External Affairs or related COI? Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:30, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

  Djm-leighpark, I don't think its COI, probably just nationalistic POV editing. Patrick Shanahan initially warned about space debris, but the State Department's statement was more neutral on the topic. We should mention both, but the article currently only talks about the latter. —Gazoth (talk) 17:08, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• One could argue I've got a POV about ASAs causing space debris ... but I've hoping someone will can be bothered do some non POV editing on this soon. If it isn't done by the time current is removed without a solid explanation here then a POV notice goes up on the section. I've have content removed twice and two well sourced references binned so its perhaps inappropriate for me to persist until things stabilise. I've actually removed the article from my watchlist as too distractional to RL and other stuff. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

  Djm-leighpark, I have added some neutral opinions and Patrick Shanahan's original statement to the article. I did not restore Business Insider's statement about India's position in IADC being undermined by the ASAT test since it seems to be an outlier and no other article has mentioned it. However, the concerns about some debris moving to higher orbit was repeated and I have mentioned it with attribution. If you still have NPOV concerns, let me know. —Gazoth (talk) 23:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• @Gazoth Reading it through (without checking the double sources but they are similar to what I have read), the version extant at this time seems to give a excellently balanced content even managing to touch on the risk of fragments getting to higher orbit without over stating such concerns. Seems very nicely put if I may say so. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 02:18, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to merge two sections

The sections "Recent ASATs" and "ASAT development" should be merged in my opinion. There are two sections with info about India & Russia. If the merge is not agreed to, then the Russia & India material be merged into "Recent ASATs" and only Israel remain in "ASAT development". Looking for views on this? AshLin (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: (both): ... certainly at present until the current edit frenzy dies down or it might spill elsewhere. I'd prefer seeing "Recent ASATs" renamed ""Recent ASAT tests" and the subsections renamed to "Russa"->"Russian Tests" etc. to bring back unique section names with the article.Djm-leighpark (talk) 15:36, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support merging Indian section. The "ASAT development" section made sense before the test was conducted, but now it is no longer a future development. By the same criterion, merging the Russian section does not make sense as it still talks about technology that hasn't been tested yet. —Gazoth (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Bad or misleading physics?

In the Limits of ASATs section, there is a discussion of the problems of intercepts that is either wrong or misleading.

"Although satellites have been successfully intercepted at low orbiting altitudes, the tracking of military satellites for a length of time would be less accurate than previous commercial or defective intercepts that did not employ any defensive measure like simple inclination changes. Depending on the level of tracking capabilities, the interceptor would have to pre-determine the point of impact while compensating for the satellite's lateral movement and the time for the interceptor to climb and move; U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites orbit at about 800 km (500 mi) high and move at 7.5 km/s (4.7 mi/s), so a Chinese Intermediate-range ballistic missile would need to compensate for 1350 km (840 mi) of movement in the three minutes it takes to boost to that altitude"

Here's the thing: any launch is going to made against a target that is being tracked and whose current orbital elements are known. Thus, at the moment of launch, the interceptor knows exactly where the target will be at the computed moment of impact.

Thus, the ASAT system only needs to compensate for target maneuvers that happen after launch. And those are limited to the onboard delta-V, which is at most going to be in the hundreds of meters per second range (fuel is limited). Even if we assume a generous 500 m/s delta-V and that the satellite is commanded to change its orbit at the moment of launch (and can do it instantly!), in the 200 seconds before intercept the target can only change its position by 100km, not 1350km.

Furthermore, even this is misleading because you have to assume that the interceptor is being guided (either onboard or from the ground), so as soon as the target maneuvers, the interceptor can respond, and the earlier the target dodges, the longer it has to correct, and the smaller the correction has to be. And on top of that, the target has to know (or be told) that it is being attacked.

For this reason, the best defense strategy is probably to "jink" just before intercept. But the effectiveness of this will be marginal, because the interceptors are purposefully designed to be able to do large lateral delta-v changes, whereas for the target this ability is not their primary capability.

I do not make any claim to expertise in this area, so I do not feel qualified to edit the page, but I would suggest the above section be deleted and the surrounding sections be combined and expanded a bit. The important point (to my mind) is that even if you can knock out the ISR satellite, it doesn't help you all that much. You probably get more bang for your buck elsewhere.

Regardless of what the page maintainers decide, I would like to thank you for your time and effort in working on the page.

Madoverlord (talk) 12:25, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

The part about tracking being inaccurate for military satellites seems to be original research. The part that follows depends on the assumption that China is unable to track military satellites. The reference used for that paragraph was only highlighting the importance of tracking satellites, but it seems to have been modified to mean something else here. —Gazoth (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion

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Update for "ASAT development" required ?

Both Russia and India have confirmed ASAT tests and already covered under 'Recent ASATs". Under development section, only Israel is the true candidate and Russia and India should be deleted.