Context and Concept

Space has historically been a domain of superpowers, a legacy of the Cold War’s bipolar power dynamics. However, in the twenty-first century, space activities now reflect ongoing changes in the balance of power on the planet (particularly the rise of China and India), and concepts and institutions that govern space are coming under enhanced criticism. Satellites in outer space are capable of a variety of tasks that have an impact on strategic decisions, including surveillance, reconnaissance, communication, navigation and targeting. The use of weapons in space represents a significant transformation from the peaceful use as defined by existing international law on weapons in outer space. The principal international treaty on space is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. India is a signatory to this treaty and ratified it in 1982. The treaty forbids countries from deploying “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) weapons, in outer space. The treaty, however, does not prohibit the launching of ballistic missiles through space. The treaty repeatedly emphasizes that space is to be used for peaceful purposes, leading some analysts to conclude that the treaty could broadly be interpreted as prohibiting all types of weapons systems, not just WMD, in outer space.

The last decade witnessed a direct-ascent kinetic kill ASAT test conducted by China in 2007 and in response to it, the United States conducted a similar exercise in 2008. However, Russia, in addition to the legacy of its Soviet-era ASAT program and several successful test launches of the dual-purpose Nudol anti-ballistic missile—which serves in an anti-satellite role—has not performed any actual kinetic kill ASAT tests. Significantly, despite their substantial capabilities, unlike China, the United States and Russia do not pose a direct security threat to India. Another significant point to note is that while the Indian demonstration appears to have produced about 400 fragments (of which about 270 are being tracked), which will degrade in weeks or possibly a few months, the Chinese ASAT test in 2007, which occurred at an altitude of 865 kilometers and left behind a debris field of about 3,000 objects that will linger in space for decades.

China: The Real Threat in Space

Political, territorial, and strategic hostilities between China and India have persisted since the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962 and have now become even more intense in the last decade, with China continuously displaying its belligerence not only in Leh and Arunachal sector but also in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The incursion attempts in Galwan, Depsang and Chumar are few to name in Leh sector and a Chinese spy ship in IOR, harbouring at Hambantota are a few pertinent examples of such covert Chinese attempts in the last few years. This trend has a new dimension, thanks to the rise of China and India in the world’s hierarchy of states.

The Indian space program is crucial to providing satellite-based services, such as telemedicine, banking, resource mapping, and marine fishing. India is home to the largest fleet of civilian communication satellites in the Asia Pacific region as well as the largest fleet of civilian remote-sensing satellites. By facilitating satellite communication and imagery, a few satellites also give decision-makers and security forces crucial strategic leverage. These satellites are primarily used in the IOR and along the Indo-Pakistan and Indo-China border. The extensive Indian satellite fleet, which had been a crucial component of the national infrastructure, became extremely vulnerable overnight because of the Chinese ASAT test in 2007. Therefore, it was imperative for India to develop and demonstrate the ASAT capability in order to “re-balance” the India-China strategic balance, much like how we developed nuclear weapon capability to primarily deter China.

Effectiveness of Indian ASAT Deterrence

There can be no doubt that the Indian ASAT test was successful in achieving its political and strategic objectives to a large extent of signaling the capability, capacity, and intent. The bigger question is whether the Mission Shakti intercept will be sufficient to counteract China’s growing threat to the Indian space program, regardless of the level of deterrence that was communicated by its success. There are no clear answers, however, it is very evident that India has a long way to go in creating a formidable and effective deterrence through combination of its Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme, AST capability, Cyber offensive/ defensive capability and Hypersonics weapon capabilities. Every Indian space platform would need to be carefully compared to actual Chinese counterspace systems to determine their locations, capabilities, effectiveness, and the best offensive use. This analysis would also need to take into account the number of operational systems, their orbital paths and operating altitudes, their technical characteristics, their design hardness and resiliency to attack, and the nature of their links to ground control nodes and to wider national security.

Challenges for India

The Indian policymakers accept face three unavoidable realities in carving out the future path for ensuring space security of Indian’s assets in space. First of course is the China’s counterspace capabilities that are extensive, extremely diverse, and cover the entire intersection of lethality and reversibility. They include the ability to launch complex cyberattacks against ground stations with the goal of tampering with or taking over control of the telemetry, tracking, and command systems used to operate various spacecraft in orbit. The development of radio frequency jammers with ground, air, and space-based platforms that specifically target the uplinks, downlinks, and crosslinks used in the transmission of data resulting from various activities involving space systems also entails significant investments. Also, the Co-orbital “service” satellites being developed by China are designed to to alter trajectory or physically harm the target satellite through mechanical interference, such as robotic arms, rendering the spacecraft useless to its owners. The most vulnerable spacecraft to these co-orbital dangers would be India’s earth observation, electronic intelligence gathering, and scientific research satellites.

Second, even though they are at different stages of development, the evolving Chinese counterspace threats are far from theoretical or long-term; rather, some of them already pose a clear and present danger to India. There is no doubt that Beijing will continue to develop these capabilities relentlessly because its main adversary is still the United States, which is much more powerful than India. This makes the Chinese counterspace threat formidable from an Indian perspective. As a result, New Delhi is in a very difficult situation because it must deal with the increasingly sophisticated Chinese counterspace threat, which, despite being primarily directed at the United States, still poses a threat to India, and demands its attention despite India’s overall resource and technological limitations.

Third, it is extremely difficult for India to effectively deter Chinese space denial activities due to the asymmetry between Chinese and Indian counterspace capabilities—the former has a wider variety of lethal and nonlethal counterspace weapons. This unsettling fact seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the enthusiastic Indian narrative of its successful ASAT test. It becomes clear that India’s kinetic ASAT system has significant but constrained value: it can prevent kinetic attacks on India’s space systems, but this is the least likely scenario given Beijing’s significant investment in stifling India’s (and others’) space systems through less destructive but still effective alternative instruments.

Where do we go from here?

The key to an effective deterrence to ASAT capability of China and projecting power in space is the capacity to secure satellites in orbit and prevent adversaries from doing the same through ASAT. India realises that Research and Development (R&D) on Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) including lasers and particle accelerators for ASAT purposes is critical, and needs to pursue these for making its deterrence effective against China. Significantly, there are numerous ways in which the use of space is fundamental to modern military operations. The ongoing Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has prioritized Network-Centric Warfare (NCW), which calls for coordination between troops, weapons, commanders, and support systems at all levels. This is primarily accomplished through satellite communications and satellite navigation. Thus, having an ASAT capability is an inescapable requirement for India to protect its space assets while also denying China the access to similar resources.

The technological capability to secure the nation’s fleet of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes, as well as the diplomatic capacity to actively shape the international governance of space with like-minded partners, are national imperatives for India. Expanding offensive space capabilities are therefore essential to maintaining this momentum, along with consistent global and national policies. The next step for India therefore should be to build on the successes of this exercise by displaying a firm political commitment and forging a broad national consensus regarding India’s role in space in the future. India, needs to make its space architecture more resilient overall, develop the ability to rebuild space capabilities in the event of a successful Chinese attack, and plan defensive operations to hinder hostile Chinese operations against India’s space systems. Therefore, while India needs to continue building its space deterrence capability to ensure protection of its space assets and sovereignty, it needs to carefully avoid any steps that may lead to escalation or race for ASAT weapons amongst other nations.

The post WEAPONISING SPACE: IS INDIA IN THE RACE? appeared first on Chanakya Forum.

Expectedly, the world raised eyebrows when, on 11 January 2007, China successfully tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon- the first since the end of the Cold War, outside USSR/Russia and the US. The test destroyed a defunct Chinese weather satellite in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) with an ASAT kinetic weapon (KW) (no explosive warhead) which hit at 28,800 Kmph! This ASAT weapon (designated SC-19 by the US) was mounted on the DF-21C Ballistic Missile (BM) (in service with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army [PLA] Rocket Force) and launched from a road-mobile Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) from Xichang Space Center in Southwest China. This test resulted in creation of about 40,000 pieces of orbital debris with a diameter of 1 cm or more!

More recently, Russia destroyed its own defunct LEO satellite, Kosmos-1408 (with a significant weight of 1750 Kg and an orbital height of 485 Km) on 15 November 2021, with its PL-19 Nudol Direct Ascent (DA) ASAT system KW travelling at 27000 Kmph. This ‘kill’ reportedly created 1500 pieces of trackable space debris! This ASAT weapon was also launched from a road-mobile TEL, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, North of Moscow.

Graphic of Pl-19 Nudol ASAT System: Source-spacewatch.global

What is an ASAT System?

A combination of these open-source statements would define an ASAT system:-

‘…space weapons designed to incapacitate/destroy satellites for strategic/ tactical purposes.’

          ‘….of or relating to a system, to destroy satellites in orbit.’

What are the Envisaged Roles of an ASAT System?

The roles of an ASAT system are not cemented in stone- they are the result of the prevalent geostrategic calculus and the projected/achievable end-states post use of these systems. The current roles include, in the defensive paradigm, defeating an adversary’s ASAT weapons/guidance systems/communication links or as a foil to overwhelming asymmetry in earth-based military power. In the offensive role, the envisaged roles could include ‘satellite black-out’ of the adversary to remove the capability of tracking own earth-based forces, negating an adversary’s anti-BM defence (BMD) shield, or as a bargaining tool due to danger imposed upon an adversary’s high-value space-based assets like an International Space Station. In domestic use, ASAT systems have also been used to shoot down dead/decommissioned satellites. Be these as they may, the roles of ASAT systems are limited only by the imagination of the user country!

Source: osr.org/mant.hu

Global Development of ASAT systems

Development of ASAT systems dates back to the 1950s, with the US/USSR (later Russia) carrying forward this technology up until the era of the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) through the 1980s/early 1990s. It is only in the post-2000 era that China, Israel and India have joined the US and Russia in this niche technological space.

• US. The US Air Force was the lead Service in developing ASAT technology. One of the     earliest projects was the Bold Orion Air-Launched BM (ALBM), intended to be launched from the B-47 Stratojet long-range bomber. A mock attack on the Explorer-6 satellite was launched with the ALBM, which passed within 6.4 km- this meant that it would achieve destruction only if armed with a nuclear warhead!  A fallout of this was the second ASAT program- Program 437, which envisaged use of the Thor Intermediate-Range BM with a Thermo-Nuclear warhead for intercepting LEO satellites. This was followed by the development of the ASM-135 ASAT weapon, a Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV) designed to be launched from the F-15 fighter jet, which successfully intercepted and destroyed the US Solwind satellite at an altitude of 555 km on 13 September 1985 with a KW! The US also experimented with use of Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) for ASAT purposes. The Beam Experiments Aboard a Rocket (BEAR) Project was launched in July 1989, which successfully demonstrated propagation of a particle beam in space from an altitude of 90 km (read more at https://chanakyaforum.com/directed-energy-weapons1/). The last known instance of successful use of ASAT technology by the US was on 21 February 2008, when the US Navy destroyed a malfunctioning US LEO spy satellite using a ship-launched Surface to Air Missile. It may be noted that this test produced 174 pieces of detectable satellite debris, the last of which fell to earth almost two years later!

ASM-135 ASAT MHV Launched from a US F-15 on13 September 1985: Source-Wikipedia

•  USSR. The Soviet Union carried out its first successful ASAT weapon test in 1968, under the Istrebitel Sputnikov (IS) (‘destroyer of satellites’) Program. The IS spacecraft was radar/optical guided and ‘co-orbital’ (designed to approach the target satellite over one/two orbits and then destroy it by exploding a shrapnel warhead in close proximity). The Soviets also launched the secretive Almaz Space Station Program in the 1960s, which included equipping three Salyut military reconnaissance space stations (launched in the 1970s) with the Rikhter 23 mm rapid-fire cannon. The Almaz series are the only armed, crewed military spacecraft known.  While a number of intermediate tests were carried out, the world’s first successful intercept of a target spacecraft was carried out by the Soviets in February 1970. The test achieved 32 hits, with each capable of penetrating upto 100 mm of armour!  Prompted in the Cold War era by the US ALBM ASAT weapon developments, the USSR developed the 79M6 Kontakt KW in the early 1980s, designed to be launched from modified MiG-31 fighter jets to hit spacecraft at altitudes of 120-600 km and envisaged to destroy 24-40 spacecraft within 48 hours! The USSR also experimented with DEW, with the attempted launch of the Polyus orbital weapons platform in 1987, armed with a megawatt carbon-dioxide LASER (still the most powerful continuous-wave LASER developed to date). The project, however, failed on launch. Interestingly, there are also claims that the Space Shuttle Challenger was briefly illuminated during its 6^th orbital mission on 10 October 1984 by an Infra-Red (IR) LASER DEW from Terra-3, a Soviet LASER testing centre in Central Asia. This allegation was however denied.
•  The Era of SDI and Later. The similarity of performance requirements of ASAT and BMD systems, with each being capable of high-speed space/near-space intercepts, led to frequent interchanging of roles of both systems. The SDI era also saw the US and USSR/Russia looking at developing more discerning systems, which could pinpoint an adversary’s satellites with minimum/ no collateral damage. The US planned to use the MHV as the basis for further ASAT development and unfolded a four-stage ASAT development plan, commencing with a satellite constellation that would deploy close to 5000 KW in LEO. Subsequent stages were to graduate to larger platforms and DEW (mentioned above). The first stage, proposed to be deployed by 2000, galvanised the USSR to match this timeline with their own orbital deployment, leading to the attempted launch of The prohibitive costs involved forced both countries to scale back R&D associated with the SDI in subsequent years. However, the development of the Sokol-Eshelon LASER DEW based on the Beriev-A 60 aircraft, intended for the Russian Aerospace Forces, is a testimony to Russia’s re-energisation of its ASAT program. Russia also reportedly successfully tested the Nudol for the first time in November 2015, with subsequent launches from a TEL. The November 2021 Kosmos satellite hit was preceded by two DA tests in April and December 2020. The US has similarly continued development of favourable technology including the Experimental Satellite System (XSS-11), designed for automatic-rendezvous and manoeuvring in close proximity to orbital bodies and the Near Field IR Experiment (NFIRE), which was designed to house a KW.
• China. China has been delving in ASAT R&D since 1964 and has concentrated on the development of three distinct systems- DA KW, DEW and microsatellites, which could be used as ‘kill-vehicles’ themselves or to deploy KW/explosive warheads. In 2006, a LASER was used to briefly illuminate some US satellites, thus demonstrating an ASAT DEW. In 2008, China launched a micro-satellite in close orbit to the International Space Station, which served as a technology-demonstrator for this lethal capability!  In January 2010, a SC-19 successfully destroyed a CSS-X 11 BM, thus demonstrating dual ASAT/Anti-BM capabilities! A May 2013 SC-19 test, with a stated scientific payload, could have been the first test of a ground-based ASAT weapon system, designed to target geostationary satellites. A similar test in February 2018 of an exo-atmospheric vector, the Dong-Neng 3, is also likely to have been an ASAT weapon test. It is also reported that the PLA has commenced formation and operational training of ASAT units.
• India. India’s venture into development of ASAT weapons began with the announcement on 10 February 2010 by then DRDO Chief and Scientific Advisor to the RM, that India ‘had all the building-blocks necessary’ for development of an ASAT weapon to neutralise hostile satellites in LEO/ Polar Orbits. India joined a handful of countries with Mission Shakti on 27 March 2019, wherein a ground-launched KW successfully struck Microsat-R (an indigenous experimental imaging satellite) in LEO at an altitude of 300 km. The selection of an LEO target was to ensure the debris would fall back to earth in the shortest possible time. 270 pieces of satellite debris were tracked from this test. India’s unambiguously stated aim of developing only deterrent and not offensive ASAT capabilities prompted an invitation from Russia for India to join the Russo-Chinese proposal for formulation of a treaty against weaponisation of space!

Screengrab of Mission Shakti ASAT System:Source-DRDO

• Israel. Not much is known whether Israel is pursuing an active ASAT program. However, Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing of the US have jointly developed the Arrow-3 Exo-atmospheric Hypersonic Anti-BM vehicle. The kill-vehicle has thrust-vector-control capability, allowing it to quickly divert towards space-based targets. These capabilities might have prompted the Chairman of the Israel Space Agency to express confidence in the vector’s capability to function as an ASAT weapon.

Are ASAT Weapons a Boon or Bane?

It is evident that ASAT weapons represent the cutting-edge of military technology and possess the capability to cripple an adversary’s spacecraft, either by DA ASAT weapons or space-based satellites offering KW/EM kill options. What needs to be remembered, however, is that adequate redundancy is likely to be available to the target Nation in terms of satellite resources, which would mean that any ‘satellite-kill’ is likely to only cause temporary disruption. Another significant aspect is that the extensive effort involved in calculating the relative movement of the ASAT vector and a target traveling at approximately 10 km/sec (36,000 Kmph) could be negated by a small alteration to the satellite’s trajectory, thus defeating the kill attempt. Targeting navigation satellite systems of countries (US, Russia, EU, China and Japan enjoy current deployment, with India likely to soon join this group) poses a more severe challenge due to flight altitudes of these satellites being in excess of 20,000 km.  Communications satellites are also likely to be orbiting at similar altitudes. Space-based ASAT deployment and use of DEW (LASERS/Microwaves) might obviate some of these disadvantages but pose intense technology requirements and prohibitive costs.

Another ominous fallout of use of KW ASAT is the creation of dangerous space debris, which takes several years to decay/fall to earth, posing a severe threat to own/friendly spacecraft. This also contributes to the Kessler Syndrome, a scenario wherein this debris significantly increases the density of objects in LEO, causing a ‘collision cascade’ which generates further debris, leading to a frightening self-sustaining collision effect that could jeopardise all spacecraft deployed at these altitudes and severely cripple global routine functioning!

Space Debris Visible from High-Altitude Orbit:Source-Wikipedia

Conclusion

While the prospect of ‘star-wars’ technology might be alluring and signify a Nation’s progress in the field of space-based technology, Nations would do well to tread this path of development of ASAT technology with caution, lest the world is sooner than later faced with a technological winter- a period of global technology blackout in what could be termed as a counterpart of the Cold War-era phase of Mutually Assured Destruction!

The post ASAT Systems: Space Weaponization – A Boon Or Bane? appeared first on Chanakya Forum.