In a rare disclosure, The Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I imagine they also don't want our peer adversaries picking up our space trash and reverse engineering what we're doing.
Satellites are flimsy things, all one would need to do is break the mirror/telecom array to stop satellite guided weapons.
[capable] nations operating sensitive satellites and other space assets absolutely are monitoring foreign objects maneuvering in their orbital vicinity.
"Fighting in a gravity well. That means it's cheaper to go down than up."
0 - If you've never read it, I have a short review of Ender's game here: https://alexpotato.com/books/?l=hn#EndersGame
And I reviewed that one too: https://alexpotato.com/books/?l=hn#EndersShadow
Ender's Shadow (Ender's Game from Bean's perspective) is also excellent.
This was actually a concern with the space shuttle! I suppose it could be a concern for any spacecraft that can carry a payload into orbit.
I’m not sure what value there’d be in dropping one or two nukes on an enemy. Any nuclear capable power would not be disabled by a few nukes going off, they’d know who dropped they nukes, and they could retaliate. If we had 10K nukes in orbit and could synchronize them to blanket a country & disable its nuclear response capability, maybe that would be worth something if the other side didn’t also fill space with nukes (which they would).
No, it's only a concern for spacecraft with significant cross range capability, like Shuttle and X37B.
All other spacecraft have predictable trajectories, like ICBM's.
The upcoming generation of hypersonics are worse: they are significantly harder to detect on top of speed and maneuverability.
For the X-37 to deliver on a surprising vector it would have to sacrifice itself by deorbiting and manoeuvring, which I suppose is feasible. But modern MaRVs also have some re-entry cross-range and HGVs considerably more.
All the legs have trade-offs, which is why you want more than one:
Silos are immobile.
Bombers are slow, limited-range and vulnerable.
Submarines have to hide and thus are difficult to keep in touch with reliably. They’re also damn complicated and may have systemic vulnerabilities we don’t fully understand.
A long-orbit, large-payload space plane brings some interesting new trade-offs to the strategic nuclear game, though who knows if that’s actually how it might be used.
I mean, it’s an argument to be had, but the advantages of a dominant multi-modal nuclear arsenal go beyond binary assurance of mutual destruction in total war—today.
You’re the Chinese premiere in 2030 or 2040 choosing whether to try to match US strategic capability. How many chips that requires in the pot for a call makes a difference in that calculation.
If that's its job then it is in breach of the Outer Space Treaty. No weapons of mass destruction in space.
Anyway this is all incredibly speculative. Nobody knows the real strategic purposes of this thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USAF_Bomb_Wings_and_Wi...
The US bombed some Houthi launch sites within the last couple of months. Israel bombed Beirut this last week.
But mobile launchers aren't. Russia and China use those, but we don't.
> presumably obsoleting strategic bombers
We'd have to have hundreds of warheads in orbit at all times to obsolete strategic bombers.
If the x-37b is to be used for carrying (or deploying) orbital nukes, then at least for now it has to be a very few nukes. Re-entry vehicles are visible because they glow white hot as they re-enter, so while surprising (because there is no boost phase to detect, and because the detectable flight time will be less than half that of an ICBM) they will not provide enough plausible deniability to be worth using at all. This is why I doubt the x-37b is being used to carry nukes.
Various treaties prohibit having weapons in orbit, but X-37B provides the capability without actively having to have such a system deployed.
Why would the US military specifically need it I'm not sure, but having the option is probably a good thing for them.
A better objection is that a single one is not going to make a difference, and having a big fleet ready to launch is going to raise eyebrows.
This might simply be about having the capability on stand by even if there are currently few scenarios were it would realistically be usable.
But not "at the point of hostilities", as GP put it.
"States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;"
I assume the problem with subs is prompt communication. Also they are more of a retaliatory strike weapon thank first strike capability.
The lack of awareness of the Tiangong stations in the west is distinctly strange.
Meanwhile a chinese space station doing a dozen small physics experiments doesn’t capture the same interest.
[0] I say less directly because some nations like Russia have doctrine that states they may respond with nuclear weapons to conventional attacks that degrade it's ability to use their nuclear weapons or detect launches so messing with their observation satellites could snowball. According to some reporting one of the big hold ups with the US and other countries authorizing Ukraine to use provided weapons to strike inside Russia is there are dual use facilities that Ukraine would love to strike but also serve as important parts of the Russian nuclear system (early warning radars in the south that monitor airspace over Ukraine and provide launch warnings from places like Turkey/the Mediterranean).
On the whole I think it's very unlikely that the x-37b is placing nukes in orbit.
Vs. the X-37B program is likely to be a highly profitable cost-plus contract with the Pentagon. Which is a far bigger Boeing customer.
I'd figure that Boeing has kept its eyes on the bottom lines when assigning people and resources to the two programs.