Center for Strategic and International Studies

Space Force’s Use of Directed Energy Weapons to Maintain Space Superiority

July 24, 2021
ExoNews Editor

July 10, 2021 (bollyinside.com)

• According to a Space Force spokesperson, General Jay Raymond Chief of Space Operations for Space Force has stated that China and Russia have directed energy weapons capabilities that are designed to damage or destroy our satellites. Rep. Jim Langevin, (D-R.I.), asked Gen. Raymond whether the United States was adequately developing a directed energy portfolio “for space dominance”. “Yes sir, we are,” Raymond responded. “We have to be able to protect these capabilities that we rely so heavily on.”

• Space Force, and the Air Force before it, have always been secretive about what Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapons the U.S. military has or is developing. The one with the most public details is the Counter Communications System, a transportable system that can jam enemy satellites. The U.S. also has missiles that can reach satellites in low Earth orbit.

• “[T]he context of the statements …certainly leave the door open to non-kinetic defensive space capabilities of some kind,” said Todd Harrison, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project. “[O]n-board electronic countermeasures, such as ‘laser dazzlers’ and ‘radar jammers’, can be an effective way to defend satellites against certain types of kinetic attacks. And it has the advantage of protecting satellites without producing space debris.” Raymond’s comments didn’t rule out these types of weapons.

• The U.S. government has cited the development of ASAT weapons by China and Russia as a justification for the creation of Space Command and Space Force Since their establishment, military space leaders such as US Space Command’s Gen. James Dickinson have been quick to criticize foreign ASAT development and testing. Perhaps more concerning is a mysterious Russian satellite that has shown the ability to fire a projectile in space which Gen. Raymond refers to as an ‘on-orbit weapon system’.

• The Missile Defense Agency has explored using space-based lasers to intercept ballistic missiles, but Space Force has been mum on what weapon systems — conventional or directed energy — it is developing to protect its satellites or defeat enemy satellites. Raymond’s acknowledgement at the hearing might be the first time he’s publicly confirmed that directed energy systems are under development.

• “Russia has made space a war-fighting domain by testing space-based and ground-based weapons intended to target and destroy satellites. This fact is inconsistent with Moscow’s public claims that Russia seeks to prevent conflict in space,” said Dickinson. “Space is critical to all nations. It is a shared interest to create the conditions for a safe, stable and operationally sustainable space environment.”

• The U.S. has invested heavily in building passive defenses, but it is less forthcoming on its active defenses. Other nations are less secretive. France has stated that it could equip its satellites with weapon, possibly lasers, to defend themselves from adversaries.

• Earlier this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggested that Space Force develop orbital laser weapons to defend American satellites. A CSIS report titled: “Defense Against the Dark Arts in Space” lays out the various types of ASAT weapons and describes several ways that Space Force could defend against them, including passive defenses like building a redundant space architecture that could survive the loss of one or even multiple satellites; and active defenses such as satellite-mounted lasers that could blind incoming threats.

“Yes sir, we are,” Raymond responded, suggesting that they discuss the issue in more detail in a classified setting. “We have to be able to protect these capabilities that we rely so heavily on.” Noting that directed-energy systems could be a possible defensive tool for American satellites, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., asked Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond whether the United States was adequately developing a directed energy portfolio “to be an effective capability for space dominance.”

In a statement to C4ISRNET, a Space Force spokesperson said, “General Raymond

has stated many times that China and Russia have directed energy capabilities that are designed to damage or destroy our satellites. His response to Congressman James Langevin’s question was confirming that our architecture developments in the face of these threats are appropriate.” However, the Space Force — and the Air Force before it — have always been secretive about what ASAT weapons the U.S. military has or is developing. The one with the most public details is the Counter Communications System, a transportable system that can jam enemy satellites. And while the Air Force is developing laser weapons, it’s

not clear what plans — if any — there are to attach them to space systems or direct them at enemy satellites. The U.S. also has missiles that can reach satellites in low Earth orbit.

“Russia has made space a war-fighting domain by testing space-based and ground-based weapons intended to target and destroy satellites. This fact is inconsistent with Moscow’s public claims that Russia seeks to prevent conflict in space,” said Dickinson after a Russian ASAT test in December. “Space is critical to all nations. It is a shared interest to create the conditions for a safe, stable and operationally sustainable space environment.” Reports from the intelligence community and observers have highlighted the development of kinetic weapons — such as those mentioned above — as well as non-kinetic weapons — such as ground-based jammers or laser systems that can effectively blind satellite sensors — by nations deemed American adversaries.

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The Ripple Effects of a Military Space Skirmish

July 31, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Ramin Skibba and Undark July 12, 2020 (theatlantic.com)

• On April 22, with the successful launch of a military reconnaissance satellite, Iran joined a growing list of nations having weapons and military systems in orbit. In April, Russia tested a missile program designed to destroy satellites, and in March 2019, India launched an anti-satellite weapon. Many more countries now have space programs, including Iran, North Korea, France, Japan, and Israel.

• Two think-tanks, e.g.: the Secure World Foundation in Broomfield, Colorado, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., both released reports this year (see SWF report here; see CSIS report here) pointing to an increase in countries deploying satellite-destroying weaponry and disruptive technologies that could put all peaceful activities in space at risk. Many of these technologies could ratchet up an arms race or spark an actual skirmish in space.

• “What worries us in the international community is that there aren’t necessarily any guardrails for how people are going to start interfering with others’ space systems,” said Daniel Porras, a space security fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.

• Thousands of satellites already circle low-Earth orbit (below an altitude of 1,200 miles) to provide key services such as internet access, GPS signals, long-distance communications, and weather information. More than half of those satellites are from the U.S., and most of the rest are from China and Russia. Any missile that smashes into a satellite would disperse thousands of bits of debris. “If you create debris, it might just as well come back and hit one of your own satellites,” says David Burbach, a national security affairs expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. “So I think we’re pretty unlikely to see countries actually use those capabilities.”

• When China conducted an anti-satellite missile test in 2007, it created a massive cloud of space junk that drew international condemnation. India’s engineers tried to limit debris from their recent test by conducting it at a low altitude, so that Earth’s gravity would pull the pieces down and they would burn up on descent. But some pieces were flung up to the International Space Station’s orbit. There were no collisions; as of February, only 15 trackable pieces of debris remained in orbit.

• A number of countries are developing new military technologies for space. France is working on laser beams that could dazzle another country’s satellite, preventing it from taking pictures of classified targets. North Korea is studying how to jam radio frequency signals sent to or from a satellite. And Iran is devising cyberattacks that could interfere with satellite systems. Meanwhile, the big three space heavyweights – the U.S., Russia, and China – are already capable of all three approaches, according to the SWF report.

• The big three have also begun to develop satellites that can be used as surveillance devices or weapons. A satellite could maneuver within miles of a rival’s classified satellite, snap photos of equipment and transmit the pictures down to Earth. Or the satellite could sidle up to another and spray its counterpart’s lenses or cover its solar panels, cutting off power and rendering it useless. Russia may be ahead with this technology. Last fall, Space Force General John “Jay” Raymond accused Russia of deploying a satellite near a U.S. spy satellite, which he called a “potentially threatening behavior.”

• The SWF report notes that an incident or misunderstanding could escalate tensions if it’s perceived as an attack. With the new Space Force, the U.S. Defense Department seeks to “strengthen deterrence” and improve capabilities to “defend our vital assets in space,” says Space Force spokesperson Christina Hoggatt. The U.S. military will focus on making satellites more resilient to attack, however, rather than developing offensive weapons, said Hoggatt.

• Tense regional relationships could be particularly unpredictable. For example, if North Korean leaders found themselves in a standoff with South Korea and the U.S., they might launch and detonate a nuclear weapon in space where the radiation would disable most satellites. The U.N. and other international groups – including SWF and the Outer Space Institute, a global research organization based in British Columbia – are working to avoid such scenarios.

• Existing international laws offer little guidance. While the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibit weapons of mass destruction in space, they don’t explicitly limit other kinds of space weapons, tests, or military space forces. So until non-interference rules involving space weaponry are hammered out, unexpected satellite tests will inevitably fuel speculation and paranoia.

On April 22, after several failed attempts, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a successful launch of what it described as a military reconnaissance satellite. That satellite joined a growing list of weapons and military systems in orbit, including those from Russia (which in April tested a missile program designed to destroy satellites) and India (which launched an anti-satellite weapon in March 2019).

Experts like Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation (SWF), a nonpartisan think tank based in Broomfield, Colorado, worry that these developments—all confirmed by the newly rebranded United States Space Force—threaten to lift earthly conflicts to new heights and put all space activities, peaceful and military alike, at risk. Researchers at SWF and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., both released reports this year on the rapidly evolving state of affairs. The reports suggest that the biggest players in space have upgraded their military abilities, including satellite-destroying weapons and technologies that disrupt spacecraft, by, for instance, blocking data collection or transmission.

Many of these technologies, if deployed, could ratchet up an arms race and even spark a skirmish in space, the SWF and CSIS researchers caution. Blowing up a single satellite scatters debris throughout the atmosphere, said Weeden, co-editor of the SWF report. Such an explosion could hurl projectiles in the paths of other spacecraft and threaten the accessibility of space for everyone.

“Those are absolutely the two best reports to be looking at to get a sense of what’s going on in the space community,” said David Burbach, a national security affairs expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, who was not involved in the new research.

Today, Burbach added, the world is very different compared with the Cold War era, when access to space was essentially limited to the United States and the Soviet Union. Many more countries now have space programs, including India, Iran, North Korea, France, Japan, and Israel.

Despite this expansion—and the array of new space weapons—relevant policies and regulatory bodies have remained stagnant. “What worries us in the international community is that there aren’t necessarily any guardrails for how people are going to start interfering with others’ space systems,” said Daniel Porras, a space security fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. “There are no rules of engagement.”

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China In Space: Does the US Contest Or Cooperate?

May 17, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Theresa Hitchens May 04, 2020 (breakingdefense.com)

• In an April 2020 Brookings Institution Report entitled “Managing China’s Rise In Outer Space” (see Brookings Report here), author Frank Rose asserts that “The United States faces a fundamental dilemma as it attempts to effectively manage China’s rise as a major actor in outer space.” The U.S. must find a balance between countering China’s anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons efforts and cooperating with China to address the key challenges facing the outer space environment, namely orbital debris and the rise of mega constellations.

• With over 120 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit, China is second only to the U.S. This includes 14 Gaofen satellites, China’s most advanced class of high resolution imagery satellites launched since July 2018. China also operates 34 communication satellites, four of which are dedicated exclusively for the military. China’s BeiDou ‘precision, navigation, and timing’ system (similar to the U.S.’s GPS system) will this year reach its goal of global coverage. The report notes that this will lessen China’s dependence on our GPS system, making it less vulnerable to U.S. interference, especially “during a crisis”.

• In the Brookings Report, Rose, who was Assistant Secretary for Arms Control in the Obama State Department, says that the US must live with the fact that China will be a peer in space, both militarily and in the civil and commercial spheres. While the U.S. needs to deter China’s growing ASAT capabilities, it also must also boost languishing diplomatic relations with Beijing on space issues. Rose accuses Trump of failing to continue the “robust period of dialogue during the Obama administration.” The bilateral US-China dialogue on space security has been largely neglected in the Trump administration,” the report says. The only inroads that Trump has pursued with China have been over the legal status of commercial mining of the Moon and asteroids.

• Rose believes a diplomatic strategy should include: deterrence against Chinese anti-satellite weaponry; reinvigorating bilateral dialogue on space security and civil policies; developing norms of behavior for outer space; and overcoming Congressional limitations on cooperative civil space projects with China.

• A recent study by the Secure World Foundation (see SWF study, “Global Counterspace Capabilities”, here) stated that China’s premier SC-19 mobile-launched ballistic missile can destroy “low earth orbit” satellites up to 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) in altitude – the altitude of most “observation” satellites.

• Another March study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see CSIS study, “Space Threat Assessment 2020”, here) says that China has already started training specialized units of the Strategic Space Force in the use of “direct-ascent kinetic” anti-satellite weaponry. The studies found open-source evidence of a variety of Chinese efforts to develop counterspace-related technology from radio-frequency jamming to lasers for blinding satellites to ground-based missiles to on-orbit ‘killer satellite’ techniques.

• [Editor’s Note] In a a recent ExoArticle (see “The Truth Behind Russia’s Mystery ASAT Launch – ‘Not Operational’” here), director of the ‘Russian Nuclear Forces Project’ and senior research fellow at the ‘United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research’, Pavel Podvig pointed out that the Russian anti-satellite ‘Nudol’ interceptor can target satellites up to 1,240 miles in low earth orbit. Most U.S. spy satellites are in geostationary orbits of about 22,200 miles above the earth. “[I]t’s hard to imagine a military mission in which this capability would be useful,” said Podvig. The Chinese ASAT weapons mentioned here have a range of only about 2,000 kilometers (or 1,240 miles) as well.

Once again however, I fear that all of this hand-wringing over Chinese and Russian ground-to-space ballistic missiles being able to reach our low earth orbit ‘observation’ and GPS satellite constellation is a smokescreen hiding the real space race going on among the respective nation’s secret space programs.

Dr Michael Salla has just published a new book entitled Rise of the Red Dragon: Origins & Threat of China’s Secret Space Program (see here for book info) which looks behind the curtain of China’s secret space program. I reached out to Dr Salla to comment on the concerns and military threats that Frank Rose presents in the foregoing Brookings Institute Report.

“The threat posed by China’s expansion into space is far greater than it simply developing anti-satellite weapons systems to neutralize the US military’s extensive satellite grid,” said Dr Salla. “China has been developing a secret space program with electromagnetic propulsion and weapons systems that have been developed through the acquisition of foreign technologies gained through espionage and corporate theft. Perhaps even more significant has been China’s secretive reverse-engineering programs of off-world technologies. These advanced space technologies are being enhanced through China’s unrestrained adoption of Artificial Intelligence for communications and control systems. China is devoting significant resources into the expansion of its secret space program as part of the asymmetric “Assassin’s Mace” strategy of countering US hegemony on Earth and in space.”

“The long term strategy of China’s ruling Communist Party is to exceed US space capabilities by 2030, and it will exploit the vagaries of international law and space law to advance its hegemonic aspirations. There needs to be full disclosure of the capabilities and technologies all major space powers to prevent a future Space Pearl Harbor as China expands its military presence in space.”

WASHINGTON: The US must find a balance between countering China’s antisatellite (ASAT) weapons efforts and cooperating with it to stave off broader risks to the space operational environment, says a new Brookings Institution report.

“The United States faces a fundamental dilemma as it attempts to effectively manage China’s rise as a major actor in outer space,” says author Frank Rose,,State Department assistant secretary for arms control under President Barack Obama. “On one hand, China’s development of anti-satellite weapons represents a direct threat to U.S. and allied space systems. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how the United States and the international community will be able to address the key challenges facing the outer space environment — i.e., the growth of orbital debris and the rise of mega constellations — without engaging with China.”

“Managing China’s Rise In Outer Space” says the US must live with the fact that China will be a peer in space, both militarily and in the civil and commercial spheres. For example, the report points out that China is second only to the US in the number of military and commercial remote sensing satellites it operates.

While the US needs to deter China’s growing ASAT capabilities, it also must boost languishing diplomatic relations with Beijing on space issues that are, by necessity and physics, of mutual concern.

Such a strategy should include:
 “Enhancing deterrence and increasing resiliency against Chinese ASAT threats;
 Reinvigorating the U.S.-China bilateral dialogue on space security issues;
 Continuing the U.S.-China Civil Space Dialogue;
 Developing bilateral and multilateral norms of behavior for outer space;
 Identifying ways to cooperate with China on pragmatic civil space projects; and,
 Reviewing current congressional limitations on civil space cooperation with China.”

Rose notes that, while the Trump administration has taken efforts to counter Chinese ASAT capabilities, it has also allowed diplomatic efforts to languish.

“After a robust period of dialogue during the Obama administration, the bilateral U.S.-China dialogue on space security has been largely neglected in the Trump administration,” the paper says.

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Tag: Center for Strategic and International Studies

Space Force’s Use of Directed Energy Weapons to Maintain Space Superiority

The Ripple Effects of a Military Space Skirmish

China In Space: Does the US Contest Or Cooperate?