US Space Force creates first unit dedicated to targeting adversary satellites | Hacker News Reader

US Space Force creates first unit dedicated to targeting adversary satellites

space.com

21 pointsmudil14 comments

What's the rational behind this?

The US has far more satellites to lose then any other country, last time I checked. The incentive seems like it should encourage preventing any shift of the overton window to full weaponization of space.

The US' stated pacing threat is the PRC. Talking about a shared overton window between US and China about weaponization of space in the context of full competition is nonsensical. The only way the US can reasonably compel PRC to not employ ASAT weapons (remember, if China is willing to fire on US satellites, then they've already decided that overall conflict with the US is acceptable) is to have a credible force to respond in kind, and hope that some sort of equilibrium can be reached. The most likely equilibrium is both sides going ham on each other's satellites.

Another challenge is that ASAT and BMD capabilities seem to be highly linked (or at least that seems to be the US analysis of China's BMD tests) - see https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/R...

In that sense, since the US cannot reasonably apply any pressure preventing China from developing ASAT systems (since they could just be developed under the guise of BMD), then the only ways to prevent China from employing ASAT systems is to impose a credible risk/cost.

But there is no equilibrium now or anytime in the forseeable future, hence my comment. The US has far more to lose in space then to gain because they have way more satellites then anyone else, that are more valuable on average, etc...

The US airforce can't credibly threaten PRC satellites as long as they also maintain the minimum viable ASAT weaponry too, since trading tit-for-tat would be hugely detrimental in both absolute and relative terms.

But allowing ASAT capabilities to go strongly asymmetric would be even more detrimental, especially in relative terms.

Yes, if the US Air Force was far behind and playing catch up. But they're clearly not.

> What's the rational behind this?

The best defense is a good offense.

The United States has had anti-sat weaponry for 20 years. This isn't new. They're organizing a unit dedicated to the technology and its use which is.

We've had ASAT weapons since the 1960s... The first successful F15 launched ASAT test against a real satellite was in 1985.

I have the same problem, if I don't think about it too closely, I still sometimes think the 80s were 20 years ago.

I was thinking of the anti-sat missile test from the early aughts, but I'll take your excuse and run with it.

It's the best excuse.. :D

I worry that some form of Kessler syndrome [1] developing in the next 50 years seems very likely.

I realize that this article is talking about laser- or cyber-based attacks, but turning space into a battleground seems like a disaster waiting to happen when anti-satellite missiles exist.

What got me thinking about this was the recent Black Hat talk on satellite security [3], which suggests that maybe it wouldn't take much effort to create a lot of (near permanent and self-reinforcing) damage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

[3] https://www.blackhat.com/us-23/briefings/schedule/#houston-w...

> I worry that some form of Kessler syndrome [1] developing in the next 50 years seems very likely.

Global environmental and civilizational collapse will be well underway by then, so it doesn't matter, we'll never be sending anything into orbit again anyway.

Hmm, yeah, you make a compelling argument. Maybe I should stop worrying about problems I can't prevent and just focus on stockpiling ammunition. ;-)

we all seen it in the show, old news

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