Dr. Namrata Goswami discusses attacks on US satellites, the Great Powers Competition, China’s grand strategy for space, and the current Shadow War in space between the US, China & Russia.
Gen. David Thompson, the Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations, told the Washington Post that “Both China and Russia are regularly attacking U.S. satellites with non-kinetic means, including lasers, radio frequency jammers and cyber attack,” and these attacks are happening “every day”.
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Dr. Namrata Goswami discusses attacks on US satellites, the Great Powers Competition, China’s grand strategy for space, and the current Shadow War in space between the US, China & Russia.
Gen. David Thompson, the Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations, told the Washington Post that “Both China and Russia are regularly attacking U.S. satellites with non-kinetic means, including lasers, radio frequency jammers and cyber attack,” and these attacks are happening “every day”.
Breaking Defense described another type of attack, with Chinese satellites “Buzzing, Spoofing, and Spying” on American satellites. Jim Cooper from COMSPOC called this “ The development of a tactic, technique and procedure, a TTP, to spoof an enemy’s network for space situational awareness”.
There’s also the potential for physical attacks on satellites as well. China's Shijian-21 space debris mitigation satellite recently towed a dead satellite to a high graveyard orbit – and a new class of “inspector satellites” can rendezvous with other satellites to inspect, manipulate, and potentially damage them.
Finally, Bloomberg has written that “China has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites,” and both China and Russia have been developing ground-launched anti-satellite missiles.
So, we have satellites blinding, spoofing, damaging, and destroying each other in space, and ground systems designed to shoot them down. Jack Detsch, writing in Foreign Policy, said that the net effect of all this is to speed up the militarization of space.
The takeaway is this: space is no longer the safe haven it once was, and while human lives aren’t being lost, a long-term, low-grade form of military conflict is already underway, and like to follow the human race to the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and beyond.
Links:
Scramble For The Skies (Amazon)
by Dr. Namrata Goswami & Peter Garretson
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1498583113/
US / China “Shadow War” in space:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/30/space-race-china-david-thompson/
US, China, Russia Test New Space War Tactics: Sats Buzzing, Spoofing, Spying:
https://breakingdefense.com/2021/10/us-china-russia-test-new-space-war-tactics-sats-buzzing-spoofing-spying/
China, Russia Speeding Up Militarization of Space:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/14/china-russia-us-space-race-catching-up/
China has weapons to hit US Satellites:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-12/china-russia-seek-weapons-to-hit-u-s-satellites-pentagon-says
Chinese Inspector Satellites:
https://spacenews.com/an-in-orbit-game-of-cat-and-mouse-close-approaches-prompt-calls-for-communications-and-norms/
China and Russia are on track to set up a Moon base by 2036:
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/horizons-china-russia-moon-base
(in 2021) China announces plans to build a base on Mars starting in 2033:
https://room.eu.com/news/china-announces-plans-to-build-a-base-on-mars-starting-in-2033
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