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Science & Tech.
Mahesh

18/02/24 12:44 PM IST

Russia testing a new anti-satellite weapon

In News
  • Recently U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed the claims referred to a space-based “anti-satellite weapon” of Russian provenance.
Anti- weapon Satellite
  • Anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons are designed to debilitate and/or destroy satellites that are already in orbit and operational.
  • ASAT weapons violate the OST through the latter’s Article VII, which holds parties to the treaty liable for damaging satellites belonging to other parties, and Article IX, which asks parties to refrain from the “harmful contamination” of space.
  • Russia, in the form of the erstwhile Soviet Union, has had ASAT capabilities since at least 1968.
  • While the Cold War motivated ASAT weapon tests on either side of the Atlantic, the respective programmes refused to dwindle once relations thawed.
  • Most of these weapons are kinetic, meaning they destroy satellites in orbit by rocketing into them or detonating an explosive near them, and blowing them to pieces.
  • Because of the low gravity and lack of an atmosphere, the resulting debris can stay in orbit for a long time depending on their size.
  • This result violates Article IX of the OST.
Space based nuclear weapons
  • In a high-altitude test in 1962 called Starfish Prime, the U.S. detonated a thermonuclear bomb 400 km above ground.
  • It remains the largest nuclear test conducted in space.
  • A Thor rocket launched the warhead to a point west of Hawaii, where its detonation had a yield of 1.4 megatonnes.
  • More importantly, it set off an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) much larger than physicists had expected, damaging a few hundred street-lights in Hawaii, 1,500 km away.
  • The charged particles and radiation emitted by the blast became ensnared in and accelerated by the earth’s magnetic field, distorting the ionosphere and resulting in bright aurorae.
  • Starfish Prime was part of the U.S.’s high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962.
  • The Soviet Union also conducted such tests around then with similar effects.
  • For example, Test 184 on October 22, 1962, detonated a 300-kilotonne warhead 290 km above ground.
  • The resulting EMP induced a very high current in more than 500 km of electric cables and eventually triggered a fire that burned down a power plant.
Threats to Satellites
  • The principal threats to other satellites from a space-based nuclear weapon are the EMP and the release of charged particles.
  • Starfish Prime itself temporarily knocked out roughly a third of all satellites in orbit at the time – and illustrates a failing relevant to the current context.
  • An EMP from a nuclear weapon in space will affect all satellites around the point of detonation, including Russian satellites, those of its strategic allies (such as China), and of countries not involved in a particular conflict.
  • It would also grossly violate the OST. Depending on the strength, location, and directedness of the explosion, it could also blow a large number of satellites to pieces, more than what a ‘conventional’ kinetic ASAT weapon might.
  • In 1987, the Soviet Union launched a rocket bearing a high-power laser that could target and destroy other satellites.
Source- The Hindu

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