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Analysts: Space assets vulnerable, but putting weapons there debatable

Jefferson Morris

A panel of military space analysts agreed that America's space assets are highly vulnerable to potential attacks, although opinion diverged as to whether the current threat warrants putting weapons in space.

Speaking at a Cato Institute conference on military space in Washington, D.C. September 5, John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, argued that while there is no pressing need for America to develop offensive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, U.S. dependence on satellites provides incentive for others to do so.

"There's nothing up there for us to shoot at ... but there are obviously things up there for the bad guys to shoot at," said Pike. "We've got about half a dozen, very important, very expensive imagery intelligence satellites in low earth orbit, and I would suggest that those satellites are some non-trivial fraction of the reason the United States today is a superpower and no other country is." Calling this situation a "singular vulnerability," he suggested that providing redundancy by launching more satellites, as well as moving satellites to higher orbits, would be a good first defensive step.

However, he said, even more vulnerable than the satellites themselves are the ground stations that control them. "We have only three primary ground stations that are responsible for operating those satellites, one of which is less than 10 miles from where we're sitting right now," said Pike. "That satellite station is easily within mortar range of a variety of public access areas."

Microsat weapons

Charles Pena, senior defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said that on-orbit anti-satellite capabilities might already be in the works. "If there is going to be an ASAT [weapon], I think one that bears taking notice of is the so-called 'microsat threat,'" he said, citing reports that the Chinese military has ground-tested microsatellite weapons. Such microsats could be capable of covertly attaching themselves to other satellites, or hiding inside seemingly non-threatening satellites until they are activated.

"This threat should not be cavalierly dismissed," said Pena. "The question is, what's the appropriate response? Maneuverability is one possibility - allowing our satellites to evade or dodge an attack," he said. He estimated that adding this capability to a satellite might boost system costs 10 to 20 percent. He said a more feasible, and less costly, option for protection in the short term might be the creation of decoys that would simulate the radar and optical signature of satellites at risk - a tactic he estimated would raise costs only 1 to 10 percent.

Pena warned against the deployment of space-based weapons, however. "I think the U.S. has more to lose than to gain by making space the next theater of operations, and an extended battlefield," he said.

Peter Huessy of the National Defense University Foundation said arguments that claim establishing defenses in space might spark an orbital arms race are spurious. "Many people [in the 1930s] said that building radar stations in Britain would push Britain's adversaries to build more bombers. You may find that argument familiar to what you hear today," he said. However, he added, "if our space assets are a singular point of vulnerability, then not protecting our space assets, making them more redundant, would be equivalent to a 'Pearl Harbor' defense of our space systems."

Huessy called for the deployment of a long-range precision strike capability, which although it would not be permanently based in space, could be deployed from a future military spaceplane or CAV (Common Aero Vehicle - DAILY, May 16).

At a 1998 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "every one of the chiefs, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every one of the secretaries of the services, and the commandant of the Marine Corps said this question of long-range precision strike through space is the most critical unmet need in the United States military," he said.