China's great leap into space is inevitable. Like the Olympic Games, the launch this week of three astronauts, one of whom will perform China's first "walk" in space, asserts its rise as one of the Great Powers of this new century. The question now beginning to engage Washington is whether China sees itself as a collaborator in space, or as a potential adversary?
This dilemma became apparent on Jan. 11, 2007, the day China launched a missile that destroyed one of its own weather satellites in orbit. The experiment sent a powerful signal to the United States that many of the satellites upon which the U.S. military depends are now vulnerable, at least in theory, to Chinese attack. Nobody really knows if China is trying to acquire such a capability. But many policy experts have come to the conclusion that it's time for the United States to think seriously about some kind of arms-control regime to avoid a destabilizing rivalry in near-space. A Council on Foreign Relations study, released last week, is the latest to endorse this proposal.
For a generation, the United States has opposed any kind of limit placed on what nations can do in earth orbit. Although both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented with anti-satellite weapons during the cold war, each realized that it had too much to lose. Satellites were key to the cold-war nuclear standoff. They informed each side what ICBMs the other deployed, allowed them to track any changes and alerted them almost immediately to any missile launches. Any move to destroy the other's satellites might have been seen as a prelude to a nuclear strike.
Circumstances, however, have changed. Over the past 20 years, America's conventional forces, as well as the nuclear ones, have come to rely on satellites. In Afghanistan, reconnaissance satellites beamed what they saw to the laptops of U.S. Special Forces. Communications satellites enabled the troops to talk with bombers on call overhead.
The constellation of GPS navigation satellites then guided high-precision bombs on to the opposing Taliban. In Iraq now, unmanned drones—piloted from Nevada or California, via communications satellites—give U.S. soldiers an unblinking eye on the routes where bombers lay IEDs.
Over Pakistan's ungoverned northwest frontier, U.S. pilots in California strike at Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders with missile-firing drones.
Conflict with China is unlikely, with one exception: if China tries one day to retake Taiwan by force. Many people in the U.S. defense community believe that China's goal is to target these satellites to neutralize a U.S. defense of Taiwan. If China did such a thing, the United States might be tempted to strike ASAT launch facilities on China's territory, escalating the conflict. How would China reply? When satellites are military tools of strategic significance, should attacks on them be deterred with the threat of nuclear retaliation?
The Bush administration seems to have edged toward this view. It declared in a 2006 "space policy" pronouncement that the United States considers its space capabilities "vital to its national interests." That phrase "carries a lot of freight with it," observes Bruce MacDonald, author of the Council on Foreign Relations study and a veteran of space and arms-control issues through several administrations. "That means in theory one would not rule out even a nuclear response if those interests were attacked."
A near-space rivalry is fraught with potential dangers. The cold war remained cold in part because clear concepts of deterrence were developed, says Thomas Behling, until last year deputy under secretary for intelligence in the Pentagon. "But we do not know how to apply these in space. And we don't pay enough attention to this issue."
The advisory committee giving expert help to author MacDonald in the compiling of his report was a roll call of defense-community heavyweights, chaired by a former commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Dennis Blair, all of whom reportedly shared Behling's concerns.
China's anti-satellite technology raises a collateral, but arguably more pressing, issue: space junk. China's test missile destroyed its target by smashing into it, generating thousands of fragments that are still circling in earth orbit and will be for years to come because the shards are so distant it will take decades for gravity to draw them down to earth.
Low-earth orbit is crowded with commercial satellites, representing an industry with revenues of more than $100 billion, each hurtling round at 18,000 miles per hour. Perhaps 900 or so of the weather-satellite fragments are big enough to damage any satellite that hits them.
Did China realize that? Did China not care? It may be time to try to negotiate international rules of the-road to prevent a repeat of this sort of test. "It is essential that the world's governments provide leadership on space management issues today in order to protect the space activities of tomorrow," said David McGlade, CEO of the giant Intelsat, in a U.S. congressional hearing last year.
Negotiating any sort of international understanding on ASAT activities would be fiendishly difficult. A draft treaty "on the prevention of the weaponization of outer space" proposed years ago by Russia and China has gotten nowhere because, even its sponsors admit, nobody can figure out how to define basic terms like "space weapons" or even "outer space." For similar reasons, a straightforward ban on ASAT weapons and activities is an impossible goal: nobody has ever been able to work out how it could be verified. But some rules could plausibly be negotiated, along with a ban on ASAT test shots like China's of last year. "The question for U.S. policy is what kind of feasible and stable space regime best serves U.S. long-term security interests," says the Council on Foreign Relations report. "This question should be addressed early in the new administration's tenure, if not earlier."
The United States, which has at once the dominant commercial space industry and the military most dependent upon space assets, has every incentive to act.
If the weather holds, China plans to celebrate another milestone on its long march to the moon this week in a PR extravaganza that will rival its Olympic performance a few weeks ago. Fittingly, a Long March II-F rocket will take off from the Jiuquan launch center in Gansu province carrying three astronauts on China's third mission to low Earth orbit. After a live broadcast of the launch and heartwarming made-for-TV linkups between the crew and their families, the ruggedly handsome Zhai Zhigang will open the hatch and emerge into outer space. It will be China's first spacewalk and another step in its ambitious plan to build its own space station by 2015 and—if the rumors are true—to put astronauts on the moon by 2020.
The display will no doubt be lauded as yet another indication that China is ready to join the ranks of the world's space titans, Russia and the United States. But are these missions cause for worry in Washington and Moscow? The Soviet Union performed the first spacewalk in 1965 when Aleksei Leonov stepped out of a Voskhod II capsule, and the United States did it later that year when Ed White left his Gemini capsule. Although the ability to launch payloads can also be used to lob bombs, the military implications of a manned program are virtually nil: nobody has yet figured out what humans can do in space that robotic weapons can't do better.
China sees its spacewalk as a way of proving that it belongs with the United States and Russia in the top tier of space-faring nations. But its true opponent in this space race is not the West so much as its Asian neighbors—India in particular. India has in recent years transformed its space program from a utilitarian affair of meteorological and communications satellites into a hyperactive project that seems designed to make a splash on the world stage. Its robotic-exploration program is scheduled to launch a probe on Oct. 22 that will orbit the moon for two years. And Japan is considering expanding its well-established (if less ambitious) space program—which includes research on the International Space Station and a respectable commercial satellite business—and exploring military applications. Against this backdrop, Beijing's dominance is not unshakable. Just as the Soviet Union's launch of its Sputnik satellite back in 1957 was only a fleeting victory, China's recent accomplishments have provided merely the opening salvos in a modern-day Asian space race.
The two biggest forces driving the race between China and India are their insistence on self-reliance and the idea that space exploration feeds national prestige. Naturally, the two ideas work in tandem. India was shut out from NASA and European space missions for years after testing its first nuclear bomb in 1974; now many technologies for its space program have been developed by Indian engineers with little outside help. (India has agreed to carry U.S. and European payloads on its moon launch.) Beijing has watched U.S.- Russian cooperation on the International Space Station rise and fall with their diplomatic relations.
"The most important thing is that China has developed and formed its own system for space aviation independently," says Huang Hai of the China Aviation Science and Research Institute. Ouyang Ziyuan, a space expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, summed it up to People's Daily: China's program "suggests comprehensive national strength …, increasing China's international prestige and the cohesive power of the Chinese nation."
Beijing's space program electrified the competition when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited the earth in October 2003. Last year China shot down an aging weather satellite, adding an arms-race quality to the battle for prestige. It is now constructing its fourth launch base, on Hainan Island, for a new 25-ton booster rocket that will carry aloft modules for its space station, which will be permanently staffed. Also ahead: robotic moon landings (a data-gathering probe is already in orbit) and even a rumored manned trip to the lunar surface—a prospect that provoked a minor crisis in Washington, culminating in President George W. Bush's State of the Union promise in 2004 to establish a permanent U.S. moon base. Despite technology export controls imposed by the United States, China's commercial satellite business is thriving. It has launched 79 satellites altogether—10 of them in 2007. This year India has launched 11 satellites, including nine from other countries—and it became the first nation to launch 10 satellites on one rocket.
The United States and the Soviet Union were racing in the context of a cold war, but India and China are vying for leadership in a competitive marketplace of people and knowledge industries. It's about developing technology, talent and markets. All of which has stimulated Chinese technology: sensors built for space have ended up in GPS systems, washing machines and other products. The Chinese hope to spin out their rockets and orbiters into inventions and products they can patent. And "they're now right up in the world class of robotics," says British scientist Martin Sweeting, CEO of Surrey Satellite Technology, which built Beijing a pollution-monitoring satellite for the Olympics and does work on China's moon rovers.
None of this has gone unnoticed abroad. China's manned space program "shook up all the neighbors because the Chinese asserted, 'We are the dominant regional power'," says Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. After China used a ballistic missile to blow up the aging weather satellite in January 2007, scattering debris into low orbit, Japan's Parliament overturned a law isolating its space program from military uses, and its space agency is trying to capitalize on the new mood by requesting a 29 percent budget increase at a time when the general science budget is growing by only 1 percent per year. The public, however, worries more about the social problems of an aging population than beating China to the moon. As a stable democracy and charter member of the world's most advanced economies, Japan simply has less to prove.
The repercussions of China's program were felt most strongly in Delhi, where the 36-year-old space program is now ramping up its moon project at launch speed. China first sent a man into space in 2003, and India won't achieve that goal until 2015, but according to unofficial schedules, China will beat India to a moon landing by only a year. Reaching the moon is the childhood dream of Madhavan Nair, chairman of India's space program, which is now spending about $1 billion per year, compared with an estimated $2.5 billion a year in China. If all goes well, at the end of October India will launch the $100 million Chandrayaan-I, its first lunar orbiter, using the workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The orbiter will fire a probe at the moon's surface, kicking up a cloud of lunar dust that scientists will analyze from afar—and it will plant the Indian flag in lunar soil. Its successor, Chandrayaan-II, a cooperative effort with Russia (and, therefore, one looked down upon by Chinese analysts), is expected to land a rover on the moon by 2012. The space agency, if it can persuade Parliament to fund all its dreams, aims to put a man on the moon by 2020, followed by robotic missions to Mars, a nearby asteroid and the sun—an agenda even more ambitious than China's.
The Indian space agency is careful to defend the program as more than an ego competition with the Chinese. It argues that its space program has earned a return of $2 on every dollar invested by the government, according to Nair. For example, its remote sensing satellites, which map the Earth's surface at a resolution of close to one meter, have helped find well water in dry regions, saving the government's drill boring program $100 million. And, while only a few years ago Indian space officials ruled out manned missions as too expensive and of dubious scientific value, they now speak—just like the Chinese—of mapping the moon for deposits of aluminum, silicon, uranium and titanium, probably with an eye to lunar mining. "I don't think we're in any race as far as the space program is concerned," says Nair. "We have our own national priorities, and based on those priorities we try to concentrate on developments which will benefit the people."
Moon shots for the masses? "If you ask people [in the space agencies], they will never acknowledge there is a competition," says Pallava Bagla, the author of "Destination Moon," a book about India's moon mission. "But subliminally there is a definite race there." The two sides don't talk about it because, says the Stimson Center's Michael Krepon, "for Beijing, you don't want to put New Delhi on the same playing field. For New Delhi, you don't want to acknowledge anxiety." Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, a member of Parliament and Nair's predecessor, says that in addition to luring Indian engineers from the high-paying IT divisions into astrophysics, the space program will "establish our credentials in the international community." It makes India a player.
The benefits of manned missions for the military are only somewhat clearer. Beijing's satellite shoot-down last year demonstrated the potential vulnerability of objects in space. Its space program—which is ultimately run by the Army—got its start when engineers took military rockets and stuck capsules on the tip. And despite Delhi's claims to the contrary, Western analysts suspect that booster technology developed for India's civilian space program is used by its military arm. But the quick way to strengthen military rockets is to fund them directly, not to fly moon missions. By the same token, ground-based and orbiting lasers would probably make better antisatellite weapons than missiles. "The U.S. military and the Russian military searched for years for good reasons to put military people in space and never found any," says John Logsdon, senior fellow at America's Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
JIUQUAN, China (AP) — China successfully launched a three-man crew into space Thursday to carry out the country's first spacewalk, beginning the nation's most challenging space mission since it first sent a person into space in 2003.
The Shenzhou 7 spacecraft, China's third manned mission, blasted off atop a Long March 2F rocket shortly after 9 a.m. EDT under clear night skies in northwestern China.
The spacewalk by one of the astronauts is expected to take place either on Friday or Saturday.
Underscoring the mission's heavy political overtones, Chinese President and Communist Party head Hu Jintao was shown live on state television hailing the astronauts at the launch site near the northwestern town of Jiuquan.
"You will definitely accomplish this glorious and sacred mission. The motherland and the people are looking forward to your triumphant return," Hu told the three, who were dressed in their flight suits and behind glass to avoid germs.
The mission is expected to last three to four days. The spacewalk will last about 40 minutes.
The spacewalk is expected to help China master the technology for docking two orbiters to create China's first orbiting space station in the next few years.
The spacewalk could happen either Friday or Saturday depending on how well the astronauts adapt to weightlessness and other physical demands of their environment, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
The astronauts would return to Earth soon after the spacewalk, the office said.
The two astronauts who don spacesuits for the Shengzhou 7 spacewalk will be supported by Russian experts throughout the mission. Only one will actually leave the orbiter module to retrieve scientific experiments placed outside.
One of the astronauts will wear China's homemade Feitian suit, while the other will wear a Russian-made suit.
Fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang, an unsuccessful candidate for the previous two manned missions, has been touted by the official Xinhua News Agency as the leading astronaut to carry out the spacewalk.
Zhai and fellow astronauts and fighter pilots Jing Haipeng and Liu Boming — all age 42 — were introduced to journalists at a news conference late Wednesday.
A decade of training together ensured effective, smooth cooperation between the three, Liu said.
"The Shenzhou 7 mission marks a historic breakthrough in China's manned space program," Zhai said. "It is a great honor for all three of us to fly the mission, and we are fully prepared for the challenge."
Before the launch, Chinese Officials again expressed a desire for closer cooperation with other nations in space. But some nations, especially the United States, remain dubious of the Chinese program's military backing and are keeping Beijing at arms-length on projects such as the international space station.
"The U.S. concern is that cooperation with China could lead to a sharing of technology and expertise that could improve Chinese space and missile capabilities, which also could have military utility," the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based group that researches the Chinese space program, said in a report issued Tuesday.
China, meanwhile, sees such restrictions as excessive and believes the U.S. aim is to "slow the pace of China's overall economic and technical progress," the group said.
China has a limited partnership with the European Space Agency on the Galileo navigation satellite network to compete with the U.S. Global Positioning System. Chinese space program officials point to such programs as signs of growing international involvement.
"International cooperation is an inevitable trend in manned space flights, which are large-scale projects with complex technologies and huge investment," Chen Shanguang, director of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.
Chen was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying China could soon begin training astronauts for other countries, a service now provided by Russia and the United States.
Dean Cheng, who tracks Chinese military and technology issues at the U.S. Center for Naval Analysis, says China is likely to "cherry pick" successful foreign know-how, such as the Russian space suit and spacewalk expertise.
But Cheng said he doesn't foresee cooperation in the near future along the lines of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission that brought Cold War rivals the U.S. and former Soviet Union together in space.
"I would suspect the Chinese want to advance the state of their own space capabilities before they engage in a joint mission with the Russians, if only to underscore that they are an equal in space," Cheng said.
China is not the only Asian nation investing heavily in space [EPA]
China's latest manned space launch and what is expected to be its first ever spacewalk is intended to be another showcase achievement for a nation intent on demonstrating its technological clout.
But China is not the only Asian nation investing heavily in space - Japan, India and South Korea also all operate ambitious space programmes in varying degrees of development with plans for a range of manned and unmanned missions.
All have their eyes on a share of the commercial satellite launch business and see a foothold in space as important to their future international standing and economic growth.
But the growing interest in space also has security implications, with some analysts warning of a potential arms race as these emerging space powers look to develop military applications in space, both for intelligence gathering and potential space-based weapons.
Japan
Japan first made its mark as a space power almost 40 years ago, with the launch of the Ohsumi-1 satellite in 1970.
The H-2A rocket carried aloft Japan's first unmanned lunar probe in 2007 [EPA]
In the subsequent years, however, a string of financial and mechanical setbacks cast doubts on the future of the country's space programme.
The indigenously-developed H-2 rocket suffered a series of embarrassing – and explosive – failures in the mid-1990s, sending engineers back to their drawing boards and producing a shake-up in management.
Reorganised under the JAXA national space agency – the Japanese equivalent of Nasa – and driven by anxiety over rival China's achievements in space, recent years have seen major steps forward.
The unreliable H-2 has been reborn as the H-2A, a rocket which successfully carried aloft Japan's first unmanned lunar probe, Kaguya, in late 2007. It subsequently sent back the first high definition video images of the moon's surface.
JAXA now has plans to send probes to Mars and beyond, as well as to send its first manned mission to the moon around the year 2020, with a view to constructing a lunar base 10 years later.
Japan is also a key player in the International Space Station project, and earlier this year saw its first permanent manned foothold in space deployed in the form of the Kibo laboratory – the largest module added to the station.
Recent years have also seen Japan step up its military and defence interest in space, driven by what it sees as the growing challenge posed by North Korea, and what the government describes as "changing global security situations".
Among other threats, that has been seen as a reference to neighbouring China's test last year of an anti-satellite weapon.
In 2007 Japan announced it had completed its first generation network of global spy satellites; a system it plans to upgrade in the coming years to provide increasingly detailed images of what its neighbours are up to.
More recently, in May this year, Japan's parliament voted to back a change in the law ending a 40-year self-imposed ban on the military use of space.
While the change still does not allow the deployment of weapons in space, peace activists condemned the move as an erosion of Japan's traditionally pacifist stance since the end of World War II.
India
With China making steady progress in its space programme, neighbouring Asian giant India is preparing to make its own giant leap spaceward with the launch before the end of the year of its first unmanned lunar probe, Chandrayaan 1.
India's space programme has a reputation for reliable rocket launches at a low cost [EPA]
India's space programme began more than four decades ago, launched its first satellite in 1980 and has developed a reputation for reliable rocket launches at a low cost.
Its homegrown PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) series of rockets have recently launched satellites for Argentina, Israel and Italy among others, as well as a series of Indian-built observational and mapping satellites.
Earlier this year it achieved a space record by launching 10 satellites from just one rocket – a feat that requires an extremely high degree of engineering precision.
When it launches, the Chandrayaan 1 probe is expected to map the entire lunar surface in unprecedented detail.
Operating on a budget said to be less than five per cent that of Nasa in the US, India's equivalent space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), says its primary objective is to develop space applications of benefit to life back on Earth, particularly in the developing world.
Until a few years ago its focus was on weather and communications satellites.
But recently it has unveiled ambitious plans for unmanned missions to Mars and beyond; and to eventually conduct manned space launches, including proposals for a manned lunar mission as early as 2020.
There have also been calls from senior members of the Indian armed forces for the country to develop military applications in space.
In June the head of the Indian army, General Deepak Kapoor, called for India to step up the use of space for defence purposes.
He cited the threat posed by China's space programme which he said was "expanding at an exponentially rapid pace, both in its offensive and military content".
South Korea
A relative late-comer compared to China, Japan and India, South Korea's space ambitions are expected to take a major step forward with the imminent completion of its first space centre, due either later this year or early in 2009.
South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon flew into space on board a Russian craft this year [EPA]
Almost half a billion dollars has been pumped into the launch facility on the southern island of Naro, with the government aiming to develop what it says will be Asia's most advanced spaceport.
It says it wants South Korea to become a leader in space technology and is targeting a 10 per cent share of the international space launch market.
To boost domestic interest in space in 2007 South Korea held a TV reality show contest to select the country's first astronaut, who flew into space earlier this year on board a Russian Soyuz space craft for a short visit to the international space station.
South Korea had initially hoped for US assistance on its space programme, but concern in Washington over the potential military spin-offs and the consequences for regional stability led to those requests being turned down.
With rockets for launching satellites not that different from rockets for launching warheads, US officials believed the programme could help fuel an arms race with South Korea's neighbours.
So instead South Korea turned to Moscow for the necessary technological help, signing an agreement on space-technology co-operation in 2004.
The result is the KSLV-1 (Korea Satellite Launch Vehicle) - rocket which officials hope will make South Korea only the ninth country in the world capable of independent space launches.
Scientists are already working on the blueprints for the much larger KSLV-2, a rocket they say will be built using exclusively South Korean technology.
An arms race in space is an "historical inevitability", a senior Chinese air force commander has warned, marking an apparent shift in Beijing's opposition to weaponising outer space.
By Peter Foster in Beijing
Published: 12:56PM GMT 02 Nov 2009
A top China air force commander has called the militarisation of space an 'historical inevitability' Photo: AFP
China, which hopes to put a man on the moon by 2020, has long stated that it supported the peaceful uses of outer space and opposed the introduction of weapons there.
However Xu Qiliang, a senior Chinese air force commander, said it was imperative for the PLA air force to develop offensive and defensive operations in outer space.
"As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space," he told the People's Liberation Army Daily in an interview to mark last month's 60th Anniversary of Communist China, "this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back."
Although Beijing has also sought to establish an international treaty to control the deployment of weapons in space, China surprised the world in 2007 when it shot down one of its own weather satellites in a test seen by many, including the United States, as a possible trigger of an arms race in space.
"The PLA air force must establish in a timely manner the concepts of space security, space interests and space development," Mr Xu added, "We must build an outer space force that conforms with the needs of our nation's development (and) the demands of the development of the space age."
Superiority in outer space can give a nation control over war zones both on land and at sea, while also offering a strategic advantage, Xu said, noting that such dominance was necessary to safeguard the nation.
"Only power can protect peace," the 59-year-old commander added.
China is currently in the process of rapidly modernising its armed forces, investigating the construction hardware such as aircraft carriers as well as cyber warfare techniques that could paralyse enemy's command and control systems.
Last year's annual Pentagon report to the US Congress warned that Chinese militarisation was changing the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region.
China, however, dismisses such talk as alarmist and says that its rise will be peaceful. China currently spends 1.4 per cent of GDP on its armed forces, compared with two per cent in Britain and France and four per cent in the United States.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Under China's three-phase lunar probe plans for orbiting the moon, landing on the moon and returning back to Earth, China is scheduled to launch the Chang'e-3 and softly land it on the moon, where it will release a moon rover to explore the lunar surface, by 2013.
China will carry out an unmanned lunar landing around 2017 before making manned lunar landings and building research bases on the moon, said Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's lunar probe program, in Shanghai on May 9.
Ouyang made the remarks during the opening ceremony of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
He said that the Chang'e-2 has operated safely for 200 days as of May 1. During the operation of the Chang'e-2 in space, four tiny cameras on the satellite recorded clear photographs, marking China's first-ever aerospace application of CMOS imaging technologies, first space surveillance engineering application, first photograph captured at the moment of igniting the 490N engine and first photograph of the Earth taken by a camera on an orbiting lunar orbiter.
However, is the ultimate mission of the Chang'e-2 to test soft-landing technologies for the Chang'e-3 or to test Earth reentry technologies for follow-up Chang'e series satellites after their lunar landings? Ouyang said that the ultimate mission of the Chang'e-3 Satellite has yet to be determined. Whatever mission is selected, the Chang'e-2 will test key technologies for follow-up tasks of Chang'e series satellites before completing its lunar trip.
For instance, the Chang'e-2 can either make a "pilot" soft-landing in order to test technologies for the Chang'e-3 or return to Earth orbit under ground control and simulate the return of future Chang'e series satellites to earth after 2013.
Ouyang said that the Chang'e-3 will be equipped with a 70-kilogram lander and a 120-kilogram moon rover. The satellite will weigh about 500 kilograms and will have a designed life of three months. As the intelligent robotic technology develops, the rover will be able to determine its own routes, climb slopes, avoid obstacles and pick a good spot to perform science experiments with a collection of sensors. Furthermore, it will even be capable of collecting samples from the moon and sending them back to Earth for further studies.
Ouyang said that China plans to send recoverable rovers and humans to the moon at appropriate times. In addition, China is also considering building a research base on the moon and exploring Mars and other parts of outer space. To achieve its goal, the country is building a new satellite launch center and is making great efforts to develop more advanced rocket engines.
U.S. strategic military satellites are vulnerable to attack in a future space war and the Pentagon is considering a major shift to smaller satellites in response, the commander of the Air Force Space Command said Tuesday.
Gen. William Shelton said in a speech that China currently has a missile that can destroy U.S. satellites and warned that the threat of both space weapons and high-speed orbiting debris is growing.
The threat of attack to large communications and intelligence satellites is prompting a major study on whether to diversify the current satellite arsenal of scores of orbiters.
The four-star general also said he is wary of the United States joining an international code of conduct for space, an initiative promoted by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The code likely would constrain the United States’ freedom of action in the increasingly contested realm of space, he said during remarks at George Washington University.
Over the past several decades, satellites have revolutionized war fighting and caused a shift in the character of military forces from large ground armies to forces that emphasize agility and speed.
Shelton said the United States’ highest priority military satellites are those that provide survivable communications and missile warning. Current systems cost about $1 billion each.
If any of these critical satellites are attacked and destroyed in a conflict or crisis, the loss “would create a huge hole in our capability” to conduct modern, high-tech warfare, Shelton said.
“Space has become contested in all orbits, where we face a host of man-made threats that may deny, degrade, or disrupt our capabilities,” Shelton said, noting electronic jamming, laser attacks and “direct attack weapons,” which are all systems being developed by China’s military.
Jamming satellites is “a cheap and effective way of blocking our signals from space” and lasers “can blind our imaging systems, and in the future, they could prove destructive to our satellites,” he said.
“Direct attack weapons, like the Chinese anti-satellite system, can destroy our space systems,” Shelton said.
China’s successful landing of a robot rover on the moon last month revealed “an aggressive Chinese space program,” Shelton said.
China is also building anti-satellite weapons that range from ground-launched missiles that destroy orbiting satellites, ground-based lasers, electronic jammers, and cyber attacks, according to defense officials.
The latest annual report of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated that China recently conducted a test of a high-earth orbit anti-satellite missile.
The test signaled “China’s intent to develop an [anti-satellite] capability to target satellites in an altitude range that includes U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and many U.S. military and intelligence satellites,” the report said. The Free Beacon first reported the test.
Defense officials also disclosed in January 2013 that China launched three small maneuvering satellites as part of its ASAT program, including one with a robotic arm that can be used to capture or destroy orbiting satellites.
Shelton said he favors better communication with the Chinese military on its space warfare efforts and that recent exchanges are encouraging and could avert a future military “miscalculation” in space.
“Miscalculation is one of the biggest threats we face,” he said.
China has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. government efforts to engage in discussions on space weapons and warfare, among the Chinese military’s most secret programs.
“Like the old Billy Joel song says, we didn’t start the fire, but we’re certainly in it, and it would be irresponsible for us, irresponsible at a minimum, not to protect ourselves,” he said.
To better protect satellites in a future conflict, the military is currently studying new ways of replacing or restructuring satellite systems, along with better methods to dissuade and deter enemies from attacking them.
The policy of loading large satellites with numerous types of sensors and missions worked well in the past. But in the new contested space environment, a new strategy and architecture are needed, Shelton said.
One new strategy advocated by the general calls for “architectural alternatives” that are currently being studied by both military and industry.
The new focus calls for shifting away from large, multiple-payload satellites in favor of a larger number of smaller and simpler systems, which would be less expensive and conform to the currently tight defense budgets.
“By distributing our space payloads across multiple satellite platforms, we increase our resiliency to the cheap shot or premature failure,” Shelton said. “At a minimum, it complicates our adversaries’ targeting calculus.”
A new system of “disaggregation” also calls for new satellite operating methods. In one recent experiment, the military equipped commercial communications satellites with a missile-warning sensor. Shelton said the test was “very successful.”
Bureaucratic opposition in government and industry to a smaller, diversified satellite structure can be expected.
But Shelton warned: “Now, I’m not a fan of waiting for a catastrophe to propel change. The signs of a radically different space environment are all there. We just have to pay attention to them.”
America’s enemies have been studying U.S. war fighting efforts in the past several decades and are “going to school on us,” Shelton said, specifically the revolutionary way the U.S. military uses satellites to integrate information assets in combat.
He compared the current threat of space warfare to the beginning of the space flight age in the 1960s.
“Just as the start of space flight signaled a fundamental shift in military operations, in my mind, so does this new era of challenging another nation’s space assets,” he said. “Sad, but true, in every medium, mankind has found a way to make it a medium of conflict. Land, sea, undersea, air and now space and cyber.”
The growing threats to space, now crowded with around 1,000 active satellites and 23,000 pieces of space debris, has increased the need for closer space intelligence and surveillance, currently based on radar and optical sensors at ground stations around the world and a dedicated satellites orbiting 23,000 miles in space to track things in high-earth orbit.
“Keeping a constant eye on space and the activity that’s going on there is vital to our national security,” Shelton said, noting over 60 nations have a financial stake in at least one satellite and 11 countries have space launch capabilities.
Shelton said all nations have a right to access space but U.S. policy calls for opposition to “aggressive behavior and debris creation.”
“We believe in freedom of navigation and freedom of maneuver and we will constantly work to maintain both,” he said.
On the space code of conduct, Shelton said he favors the concept but is concerned that an international accord would “unnecessarily constrain us.”
“We believe in freedom of action and freedom of maneuver in space,” he said. “If we have gotten to the place with a code of conduct that it ties our hands in some way with what we need to do to accomplish national security objectives, I think that’s problematic.”
Also, verifying a space agreement would require honest participants, he said.
The Obama administration announced in 2012 that it was considering joining the European Union in formal talks on the code, which has been promoted by Russia and China.
The Pentagon’s Joint Staff in an assessment of the code of conduct warned at that time it would constrain U.S. military operations in space.
“Just simple calculation: My search volume, if you will, of what I’m responsible for protecting is 73 trillion cubic miles, geosynchronous orbit to the surface of the earth. Think about trying to monitor the activity in that vast space and making sure nobody’s doing anything to violate either that code of conduct or the treaty or whatever it is you’ve come up with in terms of an international agreement,” Shelton said.
“We have to think this through, and I guess I put myself in the realist class instead of the idealist class,” he said. “And if it doesn’t have reality to it, I’m not sure it’s got a whole lot of value.”
On deterring space warfare and dissuading states from waging it, Shelton said both subjects are a concern.
“How does the United States deter activity against its space capability? How does it dissuade nefarious actions in space? How does it dissuade people even building systems that provide that capability to potential adversaries?”
“To me that is a tremendous challenge because if you look at traditional deterrence theory and try to apply that to space, part of it works, but a big part of it doesn’t work at all.”
Developing the most powerful U.S. space weapons to deter adversaries may not be useful for deterrence and dissuasion, he said.
Nuclear war deterrence theory during the Cold War would be very different when applied to both the space and cyber domains, Shelton said.
China military affairs expert Richard Fisher said Shelton’s emphasis on “disaggregation” of strategic satellites relies on passive defenses. China, on the other hand, is building active, offensive space warfare capabilities.
“The United States also needs to develop its own active military space systems to deter China,” Fisher said. “The U.S.needs multiple anti-satellite systems, that can be launched from ground, naval, and air platforms.”
To counter any U.S. attempts to make strategic satellites more resilient, China is investing in micro and ultra-small satellites, Fisher said, noting that China’s entire space program is run by the People’s Liberation Army.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Test is part of a new arms race for super fast weaponry
BY: Bill Gertz
China’s military last week conducted the first flight test of a new ultra-high speed missile vehicle aimed at delivering warheads through U.S. missile defenses, Pentagon officials said.
The test of the new hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out Jan. 9 and the experimental weapon is being dubbed the WU-14 by the Pentagon, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The hypersonic vehicle represents a major step forward in China’s secretive strategic nuclear and conventional military and missile programs.
The new hypersonic vehicle was detected traveling at extremely high speeds during the flight test over China, said officials who discussed some details of the test.
The hypersonic craft appears designed to be launched atop one of China’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, and then glides and maneuvers at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound from near space en route to its target, the officials said.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the test but declined to provide details.
“We routinely monitor foreign defense activities and we are aware of this test,” Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeffrey Pool, the spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon.
“However, we don’t comment on our intelligence or assessments of foreign weapon systems,” Pool said in a statement. “We encourage greater transparency [by the People’s Republic of China] regarding their defense investments and objectives to avoid miscalculation,” he added.
The United States, Russia, and China are all engaged in a hypersonic arms race. All three nations are developing high-speed aerospace vehicles. India is also developing a hypersonic variant of its BrahMos cruise missile.
Hypersonic weapons use cutting edge technology for flying and maneuvering at ultra-high speeds in space and air.
Future weapons will include powered and unpowered hypersonic vehicles fired from the last stages of ICBMs and submarine missiles, and from the bomb-bays of strategic bombers. Hypersonic cruise missiles and surveillance drones also are expected.
The military advantages of hypersonic craft include precise targeting, very rapid delivery of weapons, and greater survivability against missile and space defenses.
Hypersonic speed is between 3,840 miles per hour and 7,680 miles per hour, also known as Mach 5 to Mach 10.
China military affairs specialists said the hypersonic vehicle test is a significant milestone and appears to be part of China’s development of asymmetric warfare weaponry that Beijing calls “assassin’s mace” weapons—high-technology arms that would assist China’s overall weaker military forces to defeat the more technologically advanced U.S. military.
Mark Stokes, a former U.S. Air Force officer and specialist on China’s strategic weapons systems, said China is working on two hypersonic flight vehicle programs that are long-range strategic arms. Last week’s test appears to be a new post-boost vehicle designed to launch from a missile.
China is also developing a hypersonic, scramjet-powered vehicle that can take off independently or be launched from a bomber.
The hypersonic glide vehicle is likely missile-launched after the rocket’s initial boost phase that then takes off toward its target from near space, or less than 62 miles from earth, Stokes said.
“A boost glide missile theoretically would be intended to counter existing mid-course missile defenses,” he said, noting that Chinese technical studies have shown the vehicle would use penetrating radar for its high-altitude targeting.
The vehicle is part of China’s aerospace weaponry designed to blend the characteristics of space-transiting ballistic missiles with ground-hugging cruise missiles, Stokes said.
“Hypersonic aerospace flight vehicles exemplify the merging of the air and space domains from both operational and industrial perspectives,” Stokes said.
Stokes, an analyst with the Project 2049 Institute, said Chinese military reports indicate that its hypersonic glide vehicles will travel from the edge of space at speeds ranging between Mach 8 and Mach 12, or between 6,084 miles per hour and 9,127 miles per hour.
Such speeds would challenge the current system of U.S. missile defenses. Those defenses include a combination of long-range interceptors, medium-range sea and land-based interceptors, and interceptors designed to hit incoming missiles closer to targets.
Lora Saalman, a specialist on Chinese strategic systems with the Carnegie Endowment, said China’s hypersonic arms are part of a program to develop precision-guided missiles and other advanced weapons capabilities.
Saalman, who spent years in China studying Chinese military and other writings, said writings on Chinese hypersonic arms indicate Beijing may be seeking high-speed weapons that are more limited in range and conventionally armed, although with strategic nuclear potential.
The U.S. Prompt Global Strike program seeks hypersonic and other conventional and nuclear weapons capable of attacking any location on earth within an hour. Elements of the U.S. system are expected to be fielded in the next 10 to 15 years.
China’s hypersonic capabilities also appear to be an outgrowth of precision strike missiles, like the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, and China’s own version of missile defenses, which use high-speed hit-to-kill capabilities, Saalman said, noting that China has been streamlining its weapons development process.
“With the integration of strategic analysis and planning into technical research, China’s pursuit of hypersonic and high-precision weaponry promises to be faster and more focused than that associated with its previous [anti-satellite] and [ballistic missile defense] related research and programs,” Saalman said in an email. “This recent test is a manifestation of this trend.”
Hypersonics and precision guidance “are growth areas within China in terms of what they are intending to do with their military,” she said in a recent speech.
Rick Fisher, another China military affairs expert, said the Chinese hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) test represents a significant military advance for Beijing.
“The beauty of the HGV is that it can perform hypersonic precision strikes while maintaining a relatively low altitude and flat trajectory, making it far less vulnerable to missile defenses,” said Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
Fisher said arms control advocates often view the U.S. Prompt Global Strike and similar Chinese hypersonic weapons as part of an isolated competition caused by misperceptions that can be resolved through arms talks.
“I’m not against that, but the lessons of recent history are pretty stark: a paranoid Communist dictatorship is going to seek maximum power to sustain its position no matter how friendly you try to treat it,” Fisher said.
Fisher said that in addition to China’s hypersonic weapons and other weaponry similar to the arms in the U.S. Prompt Global Strike program, China is also building its strategic military capabilities to support its global power projection.
The Chinese are “actively seeking global military power to challenge the United States, and it is not yet in any mood to talk, or engage in arms control, about it,” he said.
Instead of seeking military and other hot line communications, the U.S. government should build on select military superiorities in order to deter China into the 2020s and beyond, Fisher said. “I don’t see this administration being seized with this real challenge,” he added.
The Pentagon’s most recent annual report on the Chinese military said that in May 2012 China opened a new JF12 shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel—the largest of its kind in the world—that replicates flying conditions between Mach 5 and Mach 9.
A Chinese technical paper from December 2012 revealed that China plans to use on-board precision guidance systems that would be corrected in-flight using both satellite and celestial navigation.
A second paper from April concluded that hypersonic weapons pose “a new aerospace threat.” It reveals that China has studied the U.S. Air Force’s experimental X-37B Space Plane in order to “effectively track and intercept” hypersonic vehicles.
“Hypersonic aircraft in aerospace usually have the following unique characteristics: high, fast, and small,” the paper states. “Their motion is highly variable. As a result, this type of target is very difficult to track.”
Both the United States and Russia are also developing hypersonic weapons.
Current U.S. hypersonic research is being carried out by the Pentagon and Air Force through the Force Application and Launch from Continental United States, known as the FALCON program.
Several vehicles are being studied, including the Lockheed HTV-2 or Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, an unmanned, missile-launched maneuverable aircraft that glides to earth at speeds up to Mach 20, or 13,000 miles per hour.
Boeing is also working on the X-51 WaveRider, an aircraft-launched, scramjet-powered vehicle that is being designed for hypersonic attack, reconnaissance, and commercial transport.
The U.S. Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 / Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Another vehicle is the U.S. Air Force experimental X-37B Space Plane that has been orbiting earth since December 2012.
Russia also is making advances in hypersonic weaponry, including technologies for both offensive high-speed attacks and defending against hypersonic strikes.
The Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in its annual report on missiles last year that Russia is building “a new class of hypersonic vehicle” that would “allow Russian strategic missiles to penetrate missile defense systems.”
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin recently compared the development of hypersonic weapons to the emergence of atomic weapons in the 1950s. He said the first nation to master hypersonic weapons would launch a new revolution in military affairs.
Rogozin denied Moscow was engaged in a new arms race with the United States in June. However, he has confirmed that Russia is working on hypersonic weapons.
“Today, we are experiencing a revolution in military science,” Rogozin told Russian television June 23. “This revolution is connected with the rapid development of highly accurate means of destruction. These are cruise missiles and high-speed rocket weapons. In the future, there will be hypersonic weapons.”
Rogozin described Moscow’s test of an advanced road-mobile ICBM, called the RS-26, as a “missile defense killer.” Russian news reports said the missile flight test involved three dummy warheads that are hypersonic arms designed to defeat missile defenses.
Russian military experts have written about combining hypersonics with precision guidance and some have suggested including U.S. hypersonic weapons in future arms control talks, following Moscow’s past pattern of using arms agreements to constrain U.S. high-tech weapons.
Russia also is developing an air and space defense system called the S-500 with interceptors capable of shooting down hypersonic vehicles.
Ian Easton, in a report published by the Project 2049 Institute, said China’s hypersonic weapons are part of what he called “the Great Game in space.”
“If there is a great power war in this century, it will not begin with the sound of explosions on the ground and in the sky, but rather with the bursting of kinetic energy and the flashing of laser light in the silence of outer space,” Easton said.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Well, if it's very targeted, perhaps they will just use it for a decapitation strike. This way it's just the assholes in Washington get blown up and we're left alone.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
The Chinese military executed a hypersonic missile test last week and three members of Congress are already saying the Chinese “appear to be leaping ahead of us” in regards to developing the technology.
It’s hard to tell if they are correct as few details have been released on the test and how it compares to the advances made by the U.S. military, which has executed multiple hypersonic tests in the past few years.
A hypersonic missile must travel between Mach 5 and Mach 10, or 3,840–7,680 miles per hour in order to be considered hypersonic.
U.S., China, India and Russia have all researched hypersonic missiles in order to pierce missile defense systems not built to intercept such fast moving missiles. Today’s cruise missiles travel about 500 to 600 miles per hour.
Republican House Armed Services Committee members Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, Rep. Randy Forbes and Rep. Mike Rogers issued a joint statement Tuesday saying they are concerned in light of hearing about the Chinese test about America’s ability to maintain its technological advantage with the level of budget cuts that Congress has approved.
“While round after round of defense cuts have knocked America’s technological advantage on its back, the Chinese and other competitor nations push towards military parity with the United States; in some cases, as in this one, they appear to be leaping ahead of us,” the lawmakers said in the statement. “This situation does nothing to support peaceful coexistence in the Pacific. We have dithered for three decades now, delaying badly needed replacement equipment for our troops, relying on hardware that was built during the Reagan years.”
It’s unclear how much the committee members know about the test versus what information exists in the media as all three attended a closed committee hearing Tuesday. However, for the Chinese to have leaped ahead of the U.S. on hypersonic missile technology, it means their missile test must have been as successful as the one flown by the U.S. last May.
During that test, the hypersonic missile tested by the U.S. Air Force reached a maximum speed of Mach 5.1 at 60,000 feet after the missile was released from a B-52H Stratofortress.
Called the X-51 WaveRider built by Boeing Co., the test was declared by the Air Force as the “longest air breathing hypersonic flight ever.” The test was the fourth and final mission of the nine-year $300 million project.
The WaveRider program has run out of money and the Air Force is waiting to see when a follow-on hypersonic missile program will be approved. Officials have said they hope to deploy unmanned hypersonic weapons as early as 2025.
The test executed by the Chinese appears to be different than the one completed by the U.S. Air Force in May. China has reportedly set up programs to develop both a scramjet that could be launched from a bomber and one launched from an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The test conducted last week by the Chinese was by a hypersonic missile launched from an intercontinental ballistic missile traveling over China. Under this scenario, the hypersonic weapon was launched from the ICBM before it returned to Earth. It’s unclear if the hypersonic missile hit a target or the speed the Chinese had hoped.
In 2011, the Army completed a similar test when it launched a three stage booster rocket equipped with the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon. The AHW glide vehicle reached hypersonic speeds after it was launched from Hawaii. The missile never left the Earth’s atmosphere.
Again, it’s hard to say if the Chinese hypersonic test was more advanced based on the lawmakers’ statement.
THE United States has been beaten in a hypersonic arms race after China successfully tested a 'spaceship' that can carry weapons across the world 10 times faster than the speed of sound.
GLIDER: The vehicles are designed to carry missiles and monitor military activity from space [IG]
The unmanned aircraft can therefore leave the Chinese capital Beijing and be hanging over Washington D.C in less than 45 minutes - raising worries in the White House.
With an advanced radar system that can target locations from the edge of space, this ultra-fast vehicle can manouvre itself anywhere around the globe.
The futuristic carrier, which can fly almost 20 times as fast as a jumbo jet, can hold ballistic missiles with hypersonic cruise missiles and smaller surveillance drones expected to be on board.
This latest design in foreign weapon intelligence comes as China refuses to take up arms talks with its economic rivals.
A Pentagon official confirmed a WU-14 hypersonic glide vehicle broke record speeds over China on January 9 but refused to give details.
Former US Air Force officer Mark Stokes believes the vehicles are likely to be used in a space race defence.
He told US newspaper Washington Free Beacon: "A boost glide missile theoretically would be intended to counter existing mid-course missile defenses."
Stokes believes that hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) could reach Mach 12 speeds of up to 9,127 miles per hour which could break through any US missile defence.
MACH20: Some hypersonic fliers can get to speeds of up to 12,000mph [DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY]
“The beauty of the HGV is that it can perform hypersonic precision strikes while maintaining a relatively low altitude and flat trajectory”
Mark Stokes, former US Air Force officer
Rick Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center said: “The beauty of the HGV is that it can perform hypersonic precision strikes while maintaining a relatively low altitude and flat trajectory, making it far less vulnerable to missile defenses."
Fisher added: “They [the Chinese government] are actively seeking global military power to challenge the United States, and it is not yet in any mood to talk, or engage in arms control, about it.”
Tensions have increased in the past two years with China, the US and Russia striving for more bigger, better defence technology.
The US discovered last year that China were building the hypersonic weapons, which according to the Chinese "pose a threat".
But the Western superpower have been creating missile aircrafts of their own of similar speeds.
Developers in the US are in the process of perfecting the Lockheed HTV-2, that can also travel at speeds of up to Mach 20, or 13,000 miles per hour.
Russia have also taken to creating new potentially dangerous equipment.
Defence experts in Moscow are working on the latest model of the RS-26 Rubezh.
Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said in June last year: “Neither current nor future American missile defense systems will be able to prevent that missile from hitting a target dead on.
"We are experiencing a revolution in military science.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
And once again we see the true victim of redistribution of wealth. Instead of just taking it from the damned Rich White Millionaires and giving it to the poor blacks in the inner city it's being diverted from the military budget, defense spending and R&D to give to idiotic welfare programs, Obamacare, Obamaphone, Obama's Family (Hawaii trip at Christmas anyone?) and in general a take back of capitalism by marxism.
The destruction of this country will be complete the day the Chinese take out the rest of our economy.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Pentagon Intel Official Says China’s Hypersonic Weapon Poses Major Challenge
January 31, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner · in Asia/Pacific Pivot, China, CIA, espionage, spying, foreign policy, Intelligence Community, military history, national security, Navy, US Military · 1 Comment
WASHINGTON FREE BEACON
High Speed Threat
Pentagon Intelligence Official Says Chinese Hypersonic Weapon Poses Major Challenge
BY: Bill Gertz
January 31, 2014 5:00 am
China’s testing of a new ultra-high-speed maneuvering warhead represents a major threat to U.S. military forces, a Pentagon intelligence official said on Thursday.
Lee Fuell, a technical intelligence specialist with the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center, said during a congressional China commission hearing that the recent test of what the Pentagon has called the WU-14 hypersonic glide vehicle “represents a considerable challenge.
“It is very difficult to defend against,” Fuell told the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission during a hearing on China’s military buildup. He noted that the weapon is “an area of great concern.”
The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed the test of an experimental hypersonic glide vehicle on Jan. 9. The vehicle appears to be an unpowered maneuvering vehicle that is lofted to near space and then is guided to its target at speeds of up to Mach 10 or nearly 8,000 miles per hour.
Chinese military commentators said the vehicle is planned for use in potential attacks against aircraft carriers at sea.
Fuell’s comments expressing concerns about the hypersonic threat contrast with those of Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, who said last week that he was not particularly concerned by the Chinese hypersonic weapon. Locklear later acknowledged to reporters that the high-speed weapon would be a factor in “the calculation of how we’re going to maintain a peaceful security environment in the future.”
Commission member Larry Wortzel, who asked Fuell about the hypersonic weapon, said China is developing the high-speed vehicle as an outgrowth of its anti-ship ballistic missile, the DF-21D.
“It’s a big deal,” Wortzel said in an interview.
Wortzel said that unless the U.S. military develops directed energy weapons, including lasers and pulsed rail guns “we don’t have a counter” to the hypersonic missile threat.
“It really forces us further away from China’s coasts,” he said.
In a prepared statement for the hearing, Fuell said China is developing a range of systems designed to counter ballistic missile defenses, including maneuverable reentry vehicles, or MaRVs, and multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs. The hypersonic glide vehicle is considered a maneuvering re-entry vehicle.
Other anti-anti-missile systems include decoys, chaff, jamming, thermal shielding, and anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, he said.
“Together with the increased mobility and survivability of the new generation of missiles, these technologies and training enhancements strengthen China’s nuclear force and enhance its strategic strike capabilities,” Fuell said.
New long-range mobile missiles and China’s beginning of strategic missile submarine patrols are expected to give the Chinese military more sophisticated command and control systems.
On China’s multiple warhead missiles, Fuell said the additional warheads will bolster the capability of its strategic nuclear forces.
“MIRVs provide operational flexibility that a single warhead does not,” he said. “Specifically, they enable more efficient targeting, allowing more targets to be hit with fewer missiles, more missiles to be employed per target, or a larger reserve of weapons held against contingency.”
China is expected to use its MIRVs to be able to hit more targets and allow a greater number of weapons to be held in reserve.
He did not say whether China has deployed multiple warheads only that it appears to be preparing to do so in the future.
The use of multiple warheads is likely to renew debate within U.S. intelligence circles about the number of China’s nuclear warheads. U.S. intelligence agencies claim China has around 200 to 300 warheads.
However, outside analysts insist that, based on the number of strategic missiles and the estimated large amount of fissile material produced by China, Beijing’s strategic warhead stockpile is far larger, perhaps between 600 and 1,000 warheads.
Fuell testified that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is steadily building up both ballistic and cruise missiles that are increasing in range and precision.
“PLA ballistic and cruise missile development is progressing at a steady pace,” he said in prepared remarked. “The PLA is expanding its conventional medium range ballistic missiles to increase the range at which it can conduct precision strikes against land targets and naval ships, including aircraft carriers, operating far from China’s shores out to the first island chain.”
Conventional intermediate-range missiles, like the maneuvering DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is also being developed and will “increase [China’s] capability for near-precision strike out to the second island chain” – hundreds of miles from Chinese coasts.
China is also building long-range air- and ground-launched cruise missiles, he said.
“In the sense that China is developing a large number of new precision guided weapons, whereas 10 years ago they had very few, there has been an acceleration in modernization,” Fuell said.
“New precision guided munitions and conventional missiles continue to emerge and will continue for the foreseeable future as Chinese investment in these technologies remains high.”
Land-attack cruise missiles (LACM) will be combined with ballistic missile strikes in combat, Fuell said. The weapons combine the capability of hitting targets at long distance with high accuracy, he said.
“These weapons are likely to reduce the burden on ballistic missile forces, as well as creating somewhat safer strike opportunities for Chinese aircrew, allowing them to engage from much longer distances and/or from advantageous locations of their own choosing,” Fuell said. “This in turn will complicate their adversaries’ air and missile defense problem.”
By combining attacks with both cruise and ballistic missiles, the Chinese will be able to hit a range of targets while making it more difficult for missile defenses, he said.
On China’s naval forces, Jesse L. Karotkin, senior intelligence officer for China with the Office of Naval Intelligence, said China’s navy is expanding from a coastal force to a modern, high-tech force, with an aircraft carrier, large numbers of submarines, and advanced warships.
The new Chinese navy is preparing for a conflict with Taiwan and the enforcement of its broad maritime claims.
The PLA Navy “currently possesses approximately 77 principal surface combatants, more than 60 submarines, 55 medium and large amphibious ships, and roughly 85 missile-equipped small combatants,” Karotkin said.
Last year over 50 naval ships were laid down, launched, or commissioned and a similar number is expected for this year.
“Major qualitative improvements are occurring within naval aviation and the submarine force, which are increasingly capable of striking targets hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland,” he said.
In particular, anti-ship cruise missiles and China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile “will allow China to significantly expand its ‘counter-intervention’ capability further into the Philippine Sea and South China Sea over the next decade,” he said.
“Many of these capabilities are designed specifically to deter or prevent U.S. military intervention in the region.”
China is also building up its naval aviation forces and has deployed armed drones, he said.
China’s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is still being developed and has limited capabilities, Karotkin said.
“The Liaoning is suited for fleet air defense missions, rather than U.S.-style, long range power projection,” he said.
China’s most modern submarine is the Yuan class attack submarine. Eight of the submarines, which are equipped with an advanced and quiet air-independent power propulsion, are currently deployed and up to 12 more are being built.
Its nuclear submarines include three JIN-class missile submarines that will begin operational deployments this year. They are armed with JL-2 submarine-launched missiles.
“With a range in excess of 4,000 nautical miles (4,600 miles), the JL-2 submarine launched ballistic missile, will enable the JIN to strike Hawaii, Alaska, and possibly western portions of [the continental United States] from East Asian waters,” he said, noting that a total of five submarines are planned.
Chinese military drones (UAV) include several strike and intelligence aircraft.
“For well over a decade, China has actively pursued UAV technology and they are emerging among the worldwide leaders in UAV development,” Karotkin said. “China’s latest achievement was the unveiling of their first prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle, the Lijan, which features a blended-wing design as well as low observable technologies.”
Karotkin warned that China intends to settle its several maritime disputes through diplomatic means but is preparing to use force in the future.
“In the event of a crisis, the PLA [Navy] has a variety of options to defend its claimed territorial sovereignty and maritime interests,” he said. “The PLA [Navy] could lead an amphibious campaign to seize key disputed island features, or conduct blockade or [sea lanes of communication] interdiction campaigns to secure strategic operating areas.”
Rick Fisher, a China military affairs specialist, said the testimony by the two intelligence officials was significant.
“It seems that the Obama administration is turning a corner on its willingness to disclose China’s military buildup,” Fisher said.
“Following on Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall’s stark warning on Monday that China could overtake U.S. military technology in five years, both the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center have provided their most detailed assessments of China’s rapidly improving naval and air power,” he said.
“It is this level of detail that should also be reflected in the Pentagon’s annual report to the Congress on PLA modernization.”
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the air force to adopt an integrated air and space defence capability, in what state media on Tuesday called a response to the increasing military use of space by the United States and others.
While Beijing insists its space program is for peaceful purposes, a Pentagon report last year highlighted China's increasing space capabilities and said Beijing was pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.
Fears of a space arms race with the United States and other powers mounted after China blew up one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile in January 2007.
A detailed analysis of satellite imagery published in March provided additional evidence that a Chinese rocket launch in May 2013, billed as a research mission, was actually a test of a new anti-satellite weapon.
Visiting air force headquarters in Beijing, Xi, who is also head of the military, told officers "to speed up air and space integration and sharpen their offensive and defensive capabilities", Xinhua news agency said late on Monday.
It gave no details of how China expects to do this.
China has to pay more attention to its defensive capabilities in space, the official China Daily said on Tuesday.
"The idea of combining air and space capability is not new to the Chinese air force, as a host of experts have underscored the importance of space," it said.
Wang Ya'nan, deputy editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine in Beijing, said Xi's call for integrated air and space capability is to answer the need of the times.
"The United States has paid considerable attention and resources to the integration of capabilities in both air and space, and other powers have also moved progressively toward space militarization," Wang Ya'nan was quoted as saying.
"Though China has stated that it sticks to the peaceful use of space, we must make sure that we have the ability to cope with others' operations in space."
The United States was the first country to develop anti-satellite weapons in the 1950s, but currently has no known weapons dedicated to that mission.
China has been increasingly ambitious in developing its space programs for military, commercial and scientific purposes. Xi has said he wants China to establish itself as a space superpower.
But it is still playing catch-up to established space superpowers the United States and Russia. China's Jade Rabbit moon rover has been beset by technical difficulties since landing to great domestic fanfare in mid-December.
Jonah Bennett
Reporter, Daily Caller News Foundation
The Chinese military believes war in space is inevitable, so China is developing a space program advanced enough to disrupt U.S. military communications. That, according to a new report prepared by the U.S.-China Economic and Secretary Review Commission for Congress.
The report, compiled by the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), was released by the commission on Monday and reveals that China is interested in attaining space supremacy, adding that Chinese military leaders think that control of space determines control of Earth.
Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that, “Chinese and Russian military leaders understand the unique information advantages afforded by space systems and services and are developing capabilities to deny access in a conflict. Chinese military writing highlights the need to interfere with, damage and destroy reconnaissance, navigation and communication satellites.”
Based on considerable research, IGCC believes that “China’s improving space capabilities have negative-sum consequences for U.S. military security.”
Although China has long been behind in the game to develop space capabilities, IGCC argues that the country has made stunning progress and is actively trying to shroud its movements and motives in secrecy, misleading outside observers on anti-satellite weapons’ testing.
“China is probably truthful when it says that it is not in a space race, [but] such statements mask the true intent of its space program: to become militarily, diplomatically, commercially, and economically as competitive as the United States is in space,” the report notes.
U.S. defense officials remain wary of Chinese military developments, often citing them as justification for why sequestration should be set aside when looking at the 2016 defense budget. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has also warned that sequestration may result in China and Russia taking the lead on military technology.
Additionally, the Chinese Navy now possesses more diesel and nuclear-powered submarines than the U.S. Navy. And although Navy Secretary Ray Mabus insisted that U.S. submarines are of higher quality, he also argued that, “Quantity has a quality all its own. That means we must have a properly sized and balanced fleet.”
As a result, on Friday, Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio led a group of 70 Republicans in petitioning for a budget of at least $561 billion dollars.
“Since the onset of sequestration, we have held countless hearings, heard testimony from military leadership, and seen firsthand the challenges these complex threats pose to our primary mission of keeping our nation and citizens safe,” the legislators argued, according to The Hill. “It is clear that further reductions to national defense accounts are unacceptable and place too great a burden on our warfighters.”
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
China has a long way to go at this point. On the other hand they have a reason to try, and to expand. The US on the other hand figures, rather like Rome, that we can sit here on our asses and not worry about the Mongols at the door.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
US Department of Defence’s annual report warns of Beijing’s ‘destructive’ space programme
May 11, 2015
In what could ring alarm bells for the Indian security establishment, a report of the United States Department of Defence (DoD), has warned about China “destructive” space programme of stalling or destroying satellites of other countries and how its nuclear-powered submarines now make forays into the Indian Ocean.
Released on May 8, the DoD’s annual report to the US Congress on ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015’ talks about a mystery ‘object’ that Beijing had launched in space on a ballistic trajectory with a peak altitude above 30,000 km.
This trajectory took it near geosynchronous orbit, where many nations maintain communications and earth-sensing satellites. The “object” re-entered Earth’s orbit 9.5 hours after launch. The US report failed to identify it and stated: “The launch profile was not consistent with traditional space-launch vehicles, ballistic missiles or sounding rocket launches used for scientific research. It could, however, have been a test of technologies with a counterspace mission.”
“China continues to develop a variety of capabilities designed to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by adversaries, including the development of directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers”, the US report warned. The US expressed concern “China’s continued development of destructive space technologies represented a threat to all peaceful nations”.
Presently, India has 27 satellites in space. As many as 11 are dealing with communication for a direct home TV relay, telephony and wider public applications like tele-education, tele-medicine, and disaster management. These also include indigenous military-use satellite named GSAT-7 with advanced multi-band communication facility and will keep an eye over 70 percent of the Indian Ocean.
The US report talked about how China, for the first time, had deployed submarines to the Indian Ocean, including a nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN). “The submarines were probably conducting area familiarisation, and demonstrating an emerging capability both to protect China’s sea lines of communications and increase China’s power projection into the Indian Ocean”, the report said.
India, assumes a lead role in the Indian Ocean and China’s foray is a challenge. New Delhi has a total of only 14 submarines, including the one nuclear powered ISN Chakra, leased from Russia. It does not carry any nuclear warheads. The report said: “China has 69 subs”.
China continues to produce the JIN SSBN (Type 094) with associated JL-2 ( Julang-2) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), with a range of 7,400 km. “China will likely conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrol sometime in 2015”, it said.
In Naval parlance ‘Deterrence patrols’ means a sub at sea is ready to fire within seconds of a nuclear strike by the adversary. A nuclear submarine is militarily considered to be one of the most potent second-strike platforms for retaliation to a nuclear strike.
On nuclear weapons, the US report said China’s new generation of mobile missiles with maneuverable reentry vehicles ensure China’s strategic deterrent. “India’s nuclear force is an additional driver behind China’s nuclear force modernisation,” the report said.
The West — particularly the U.S. — relies on ever expanding constellations of communications and surveillance satellites to maintain its information edge over potential rivals and China is seeking ways to erode that advantage in the event of a conflict, according to the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015 report to Congress.
“China continues to develop a variety of capabilities designed to limit or prevent the use of space- based assets by adversaries during a crisis or conflict, including the development of directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers,” read the report.
Dubbed counterspace, the efforts follow several demonstrations of China’s capabilities to interdict satellites with ground-based missiles in the last several years.
Perhaps the most well known is Jan. 11, 2007 test in which a modified Chinese ballistic missile successfully destroyed a defunct weather satellite in polar orbit — littering Earth’s orbit with debris and surprising the West.
Since then, the Pentagon report has cited several instances in which it appears the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has conducted similar — albeit non-destructive — tests.
A July 2014 missile test “did not result in the destruction of a satellite or space debris, read the report.
”However, due to the evidence suggesting that this was a follow-up to the 2007 destructive test, the United States expressed concern that China’s continued development of destructive space technologies represented a threat to all peaceful space-faring nations, and was inconsistent with China’s public statements about the use of space for peaceful purposes.”
Additionally, in 2013 a suspicious Chinese launch sent an object into an orbital neighborhood crowded with geosynchronous communications satellites.
“Analysis of the launch determined that the booster was not on the appropriate trajectory to place objects in orbit and that no new satellites were released,” read the report.
After a little more than nine hours, the mystery object landed, leaving the rest of the space faring world puzzled to what the object was.
“The United States and several public organizations expressed concern to Chinese representatives and asked for more information about the purpose and nature of the launch. China thus far has refrained from providing additional information,” read the report.
The report feared the test could “have been a test of technologies with a counterspace mission in geosynchronous orbit.”
The U.S. relies heavily on satellites for communications and some targeting of its weapons a fact that has not been lost on the PLA.
“PLA writings emphasize the necessity of ‘destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance … and communications satellites,’ suggesting that such systems, as well as navigation and early warning satellites, could be among the targets of attacks designed to ‘blind and deafen the enemy’,” read the report.
“PLA analysis of U.S. and coalition military operations also states that ‘destroying or capturing satellites and other sensors … will deprive an opponent of initiative on the battlefield and [make it difficult] for them to bring their precision guided weapons into full play’.”
The report to Congress comes as some in the Air Force have called for a more robust defense of U.S. space assets, according to a Monday analysis from Jane’s Defence Weekly.
“The USAF’s outgoing military acquisition chief recently acknowledged that the Pentagon is devising new concepts for protecting its space assets, hinting at the need for new types of deterrence. ‘We have to put some resources and some focus on protection capability,’ Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski said in April,” read the Monday report.
(Updated) DN-3 missile spotted preparing for launch
BY: Bill Gertz Follow @BillGertz
December 9, 2016 5:00 am
China is preparing to conduct a flight test of a new missile capable of destroying satellites in space, one of Beijing’s most potent asymmetric warfare weapons.
Test preparations for the Dong Neng-3 anti-satellite missile were detected at a military facility in central China, according to Pentagon officials familiar with reports of the impending test.
Intelligence agencies were alerted to the impending test by China’s announcement of air closure zones covering the expected flight path of the DN-3.
The flight test could come as early as Thursday, the officials said.
No other details of the missile test were available.*A Pentagon spokesman and a State Department official both said, “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”
Asia watcher Henri Kenhmann reported on his website Eastpendulum.com this week that missile tests were expected from the People’s Liberation Army satellite launch facility known as Jiuquan, located in Inner Mongolia, and a second launch complex at Korla, located in Xinjiang, western China.
The expected tests were based on Chinese government announcements of air closure areas for Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 near those sites.
Kenhmann said the flight tests could involve a missile defense interceptor test.
China’s ballistic missile defense and anti-satellite missile programs are closely intertwined.
After Beijing came under international criticism following a 2007 anti-satellite missile test that left thousands of pieces of floating debris in space, it*began conducting its anti-satellite missile program under cover of a missile defense system.
The last time China tested a DN-3 anti-satellite missile was Oct. 30, 2015 from the Korla Missile Test Complex.
“The PLA is acquiring a range of technologies to improve China’s counterspace capabilities,” the Pentagon’s latest report on the Chinese military said.
“In addition to the development of directed energy weapons and satellite jammers, China is also developing anti-satellite capabilities and has probably made progress on the anti-satellite missile system it tested in July 2014.”
In addition to missiles and lasers, China also is working on small maneuvering satellites that can grab and destroy orbiting satellites.
Richard Fisher, a China military affairs specialist, said the DN-3 appears to be based on the Kuaizhou-1 (KZ-1) mobile space launch vehicle.
“It’s about the same size as the DF-31 solid fuel mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM),” he said.
Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the DN-3 could be capable of hitting satellites more than 18,640 miles away in space—more than enough to reach large U.S. surveillance satellites that occupy orbit 186 to 620 miles from earth.
“In late 2016 or by mid 2017 the PLA may test a larger solid fuel mobile space launch vehicle called the KZ-11, with a 2-meter diameter motor similar in size to the new large and multiple warhead armed DF-41 ICBM,” Fisher said.
Another space launcher on a mobile transporter is being developed called the Long March-11 (LM-11).
“Both the KZ-11 and the LM-11 are four-stage solid fuel mobile missiles that could also be used for anti-satellite missions,” Fisher said.
“The bottom line is that the PLA now has at least two deployed ground-launched, mobile, solid fueled direct-ascent ASAT [anti-satellite] systems and may be able to soon field two more larger third generation ground-launched ASAT systems,” he added.
The anti-satellite weapons programs are believed to be under the PLA’s new Strategic Support Force, a dedicated space warfare and cyber warfare service set up in late 2015.
The developmental KZ-11 and LM-11 systems may be used by China to target U.S. Defense Support Program (DSP) early warning satellites, along with high-orbit Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation satellites.
The DN-3 is known as a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile that destroys satellites with a warhead that rams into orbiting systems at high speeds. The DN-3 is also said to have the capability to intercept ballistic missiles in flight.
If the DN-3 test is carried out, it will be China’s ninth known anti-satellite missile test. An earlier anti-satellite missile test was carried out in July 2014.
For both the October 2015 and July 2014 tests, China asserted the tests were part of a missile defense interceptor program.
U.S. officials, however, said both test involved anti-satellite weapons.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.
Frank Rose, assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance said in February 2015 that Beijing engaged in deception about the 2014 test.
“Despite China’s claims that this was not an ASAT test; let me assure you the United States has high confidence in its assessment, that the event was indeed an ASAT test,” Rose said.
“The continued development and testing of destructive ASAT systems is both destabilizing and threatens the long-term security and sustainability of the outer space environment,” he added.
Chinese netizens posted photos of the purported 2015 ASAT test near Korla, showing contrails said to be the result of the missile.
China also has two additional anti-satellite missiles known as the SC-19 and DN-2.
Update 11:01 A.M.:*This article has been updated to reflect that a Pentagon spokesman said, “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”
Pedestrians walk past a large picture of a Chinese astronaut on the outskirts of Shanghai, China in October 2007. China has made significant gains in placing satellites in Earth's orbit since 2007, grabbing the attention of military officials and intellectuals focused on the U.S.'s security in space. Qilai Shen/EPA Updated | In their techno-thriller Ghost Fleet, authors Peter Singer and August Cole describe a cataclysmic world war that begins with a Chinese sneak attack against the U.S. in space. First, soldiers at China’s Cyber Command Headquarters in Shanghai hack into the Pentagon’s network of GPS satellites and scramble their signals. The cyberattack sows chaos among U.S. forces, which can no longer navigate accurately, track targets or hit them with precision munitions.
Then, from a space station orbiting 200 miles above Earth, Chinese astronauts train a laser gun on three dozen U.S. satellites the military relies upon for virtually all of its communications and critical surveillance. By the time the Chinese are done, America’s technological edge on this new, 21st-century battlefield has been reduced to the predigital levels of World War II.
Such scenarios may read like science fiction, but the threat of what military experts call a “space Pearl Harbor”—a sneak attack on U.S. satellites that cripples American forces before a shot has been fired—has Pentagon planners seriously worried. Space is the ultimate high ground for today's warriors, and no military has dominated those strategic heights as successfully as America's. But its constellations of GPS, surveillance and communications satellites are largely undefended, a vulnerability that hasn’t escaped notice in China and Russia. The result: a new three-way space race—the first since the end of the Cold War, and one that now includes the development of weapons to knock out the other side’s space assets.
“The U.S., China, Russia are all working on not just using space but also taking it away from the other side,” Singer, a military strategist at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, tells Newsweek.
Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a high-profile visit last month to air force headquarters in Beijing, where he ordered his generals to sharpen the country’s defensive and offensive capabilities in space in preparation for what many Chinese military analysts believe is an inevitable war in space with the U.S. Like the U.S. and Russia, China has sent astronauts into space and landed a spacecraft on the moon, and it is developing its own space station. The Pentagon also notes that Beijing continues to ramp up its military capabilities in space, launching 142 satellites to provide intelligence, navigation, communications and weather forecasting that can “limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by adversaries during times of crisis or conflict.”
A war in space would have staggering implications. If conflict were to erupt, say, over China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea or Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe, America’s military satellites wouldn’t be the only space assets at risk. Fighting would also likely cripple the civilian satellites that control so much of modern life, from cellphone networks to ATMs and personal GPS units. And although such a conflict might start in space, experts say it could easily turn into full-scale war on Earth. “If war does extend into space someday—and I hope it never does—the first [nuclear] response is not going to be in space,” warns General John Hyten, head of the U.S. Air Force Space Command.
This year, the Pentagon will spend $2 billion on measures to counter threats to its national security satellites. That amount is expected to soar as part of the $22 billion set aside to maintain U.S. superiority in space in 2017. Senior U.S. officials explain such large investments reflect the Pentagon’s recognition of a major shift in U.S., Chinese and Russian capabilities. For the first 25 years after the Cold War’s end, they note, America’s conventional forces were unmatched, thanks largely to the advantages their satellites gave them on the battlefield. Making their debut in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, satellites have guided American precision munitions, provided U.S. commanders with worldwide communications and helped American forces navigate the globe ever since.
But over the past 15 years, a period in which U.S. defense dollars were diverted to pay for the wars in the Middle East, China and Russia have developed advanced weapons that “challenge our advantages...especially in cyber, electronic warfare and space,” says Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work. “As a result, our margin of technological superiority is slowly eroding.”
Today, Beijing and Moscow can no longer be ignored. With their ability to deny, disrupt and degrade America’s hard-to-defend satellites, warns Lieutenant General David Buck, commander of the 14th Air Force, “there isn’t a single aspect of our space architecture that isn’t at risk.”
Missiles, Lasers and Space Bots
Last December, the U.S. Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs held a large-scale war game set in outer space in 2025. Some 200 U.S. military and civilian experts, as well as representatives from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, took part. The details remain highly classified, as does the U.S. military’s arsenal of space weapons. But the Space Command said the exercise “included full-spectrum threats across diverse operating environments.” Translation:
The participants had to deal with all the known dangers to U.S. satellites, plus a few that are suspected to exist.
The known threats include Chinese ballistic missiles that can hit U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit about 500 miles up and possibly those in high geostationary orbits some 22,000 miles above the Earth. China and Russia also have ground-based lasers that can blind the camera on a reconnaissance satellite or burn up the spacecraft altogether, and experts say spacecraft-mounted lasers are just a few years away. Moscow and Beijing are also believed to be developing satellites that can disable, bump off course or destroy other satellites.
Any combat in space also would involve cyberattacks like the one in 2011, when a Romanian hacker gained access to NASA’s confidential satellite data. Three years later, U.S. officials say, China hacked the satellite network of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s weather forecaster, forcing it to shut down for two days. The penetration exposed a dangerous vulnerability: In a scenario similar to the one Singer and Cole describe in their novel, hackers could reprogram a U.S. satellite to send false weather reports, coordinates and other disinformation to American and allied forces, throwing off planning, navigation and targeting. Singer, who serves as a consultant to the Air Force Space Command and the U.S. intelligence community, says satellite hackers could even redirect a U.S. missile to strike its own forces or alter the course of the satellite.
This isn’t the first time that military planners have worried about the threat of war in space. In the years following the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, the U.S., fearing a Soviet nuclear attack from space, began exploring ways to shoot down satellites. The U.S. military also conducted a series of nuclear tests in space. One, carried out some 250 miles above the South Pacific in 1962 , generated an electromagnetic pulse so powerful that it fried the electronics of five U.S. satellites and caused power, telephone and radio blackouts thousands of miles away. The tests were stopped in 1967 under the U.N.’s Outer Space Treaty, which banned placing weapons of mass destruction in space.
China's Long March-6 rocket, carrying 20 micro-satellites, blasts off from a launch pad in Taiyuan, China on September 20, 2015. China already has missiles that can take out U.S. military early-warning satellites, and it is working on extending their missiles’ range. China Daily/Reuters
For the remainder of the Cold War, powerful surveillance satellites became the key component in U.S. and Soviet early-warning systems to detect preparations for a nuclear test or a missile launch. But that didn’t stop the rival superpowers from figuring out ways to grab an advantage in space. The Soviets developed the space equivalent of a suicide car bomb—an unmanned vehicle that could sidle up to an orbiting U.S. satellite and then blow up beside it. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan launched his multibillion-dollar Strategic Defense Initiative, derisively nicknamed Star Wars, which called for a combination of ground-based interceptors and space-based lasers to shield the United States from a Soviet nuclear ballistic missile attack. In 1985, Reagan demonstrated U.S. prowess when an Air Force F-15 fighter flying at 38,000 feet launched a missile that destroyed a faltering U.S. satellite.
Yet the U.S. and Soviet Union never fought in space. That’s because each side knew the other regarded its early-warning satellites as a critical component of its nuclear arsenal, U.S. officials say. Any strike against the other’s satellites would be seen as the opening shot in a nuclear attack, triggering immediate nuclear retaliation. “Both we and the Soviets understood the red lines in terms of attacks on space systems that we dared not cross,” says Work, the deputy defense secretary.
But after the end of the Cold War, in 1991, the situation in space grew far more complicated. Some 60 other countries eventually joined the U.S. and Russia in space, contributing to a wreath of an estimated 1,100 satellites circling the globe. Meanwhile, U.S. forces became ever more dependent on their satellites—not only for nuclear early warning but also for conventional military requirements such as communications, weather reports and navigation. The Pentagon, however, spent little time thinking about how to protect them. The military leaders of the world’s sole superpower came to regard space as an American sanctuary, and both personnel and budgets were shifted to other priorities. “Our adversaries noticed all that,” says Singer.
Surviving an Attack
Suspicions that China was developing anti-satellite weapons arose in January 2007, when Beijing fired a missile that hit one of its own aging weather satellites in low Earth orbit. Then, in 2013, China tested a missile that climbed to 18,000 miles—high enough to take out U.S. GPS satellites and nearly reaching the military’s early-warning satellites that hang in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth. China is believed to have conducted similar tests in 2010, 2014 and 2015, leading Pentagon planners to conclude it will deploy these missiles, placing U.S. space systems under constant threat. “You don’t have a seven-year development plan if you’re not going to make it operational,” Hyten, the Air Force Space Command chief, said last year.
Meanwhile, lingering suspicions about Russia’s newest space weapons center on its launch of four military satellites in 2013 and 2014. According to Brian Weeden, a former Air Force captain specializing in space surveillance, three of the satellites have changed orbit several times. They moved close to a Russian spacecraft and even collided with it. The fourth satellite maneuvered close to several newly launched Russian satellites and came very close to two Intelsat commercial communications satellites. “The technology could be used for ASATs,” Weeden tells Newsweek, using the military abreviation for anti-satellite weapons. But he adds it's not clear that the Russians were conducting ASAT tests.
U.S. military planners are now debating how to protect the country’s military satellites and maintain the flow of information from space if some of those satellites are taken out in a conflict. The Pentagon is stressing the idea of resiliency, broadening the use of defenses already on some of the military’s latest satellites. They range from adding a thick shutter to a spy satellite’s camera for protection against a laser attack to boosting a satellite’s signals to prevent jamming. Other methods include frequency hopping, which enables satellites to transmit data on alternative frequencies if some are jammed. The military also has diversified its information sources by acquiring data from neutral countries and commercial satellites.
Military officials are now seeking alternatives to GPS navigation. They’re also taking a hard look at two multibillion-dollar programs for satellites that are critical for the country’s strategic nuclear defenses but also sport conventional communications and surveillance capabilities. Such add-ons became commonplace back when space was uncontested and the military’s main concern was getting the most bang for its buck with each expensive satellite launch. But with these multitasking satellites presenting such juicy targets to U.S. adversaries, Pentagon officials say, it might make more sense to spread their capabilities around on smaller, less expensive satellites—an approach they call disaggregation.
“The changing nature of the threats in space, namely anti-satellite weapons and jammers being developed by countries such as China and Russia, are driving some of the thinking,” Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, told a Washington gathering of space businesspeople in February.
As the Pentagon explores new ways to protect its satellites, America’s fallback policy remains deterrence by threat of retaliation. Depending on which satellites are attacked, the U.S. could confine itself to taking out the enemy’s equivalent satellites. But if China or Russia destroyed the Pentagon’s nuclear early-warning and strategic communications satellites, military strategists say, it’s unlikely the U.S. response would stay in space.
“We would interpret such an attack as going to war against us,” says Singer. Under this scenario, commercial satellites, along with the Earth’s space-based civilian infrastructure, would probably be destroyed. “War in space would very quickly involve the civilian world,” he says.
Such scenes play out in Ghost Fleet, which is now required reading for military planners in the U.S. Space Command, as well as in the Army, Navy, Marines and CIA. Singer recently testified before Congress and briefed White House National Security Council staff on the real-world lessons of his thriller, which contains 400 footnotes based on the space weaponry and battle plans of the United States, China and Russia. “It’s a novel, but it’s a realistic look at how a war might play out when we lose the opening battle in space,” Singer says, adding: “Let’s hope it stays in the realm of fiction.”
Correction: This article originally incorrectly cited former U.S. Air Force Captain Brian Weeden as saying that Russia conducted anti-satellite weapons tests in 2013 and 2014. Weeden says the technology demonstrated in those tests could be used in anti-satellite weapons, but it's not certain the purpose of those tests was to demonstrate Russia's anti-satellite capabilities.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Space Wars with China
Reply With Quote
China's Long March-6 rocket, carrying 20 micro-satellites, blasts off from a launch pad in Taiyuan, China on September 20, 2015. China already has missiles that can take out U.S. military early-warning satellites, and it is working on extending their missiles’ range. China Daily/Reuters 
Bookmarks