“Parasitic” Weapon Eyed for Space

The Air Force’s cadre of space war plan­ners has always liked to dream big. Take the cur­rent issue of Air & Space Power Journal, for instance. In it, fif­teen USAF offi­cers muse about how best to apply (and extend) the American military’s supe­ri­or­ity above the skies. Maj. Mark Steves fore­sees a fleet of air­ships, oper­at­ing at the atmosphere’s edge, keep­ing watch and relay­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions around the globe. Les Doggerel, a civil­ian at Air Force Space Command, looks for­ward to an array of cheap, “plug and play” satel­lites that can be launched at a moment’s notice.
But per­haps the most ambi­tious plan comes from ICBM com­bat crew com­man­der Capt. Joseph T. Page II, who calls for launch­ing cyber­at­tacks on enemy satel­lites — and then cap­tur­ing the orbiters, or toss­ing them into the atmos­phere, if the need arises.
Military plan­ners have long con­sid­ered space to be the “ulti­mate high ground.” And to defend that high ground, Air Force doc­trine calls for two main strate­gies defen­sive coun­ter­space (pro­tect­ing our satel­lites) and offen­sive coun­ter­space (knock­ing out the other guys’).
Capt. Page isn’t too impressed with play­ing defense. “It will not increase the bal­ance in our favor but only ‘hold the line’ against enemy attacks,’” he writes.
But offen­sive coun­ter­space has proved tricky, with the specter of shards of bro­ken satel­lites strewn in space, or crash­ing down to Earth. Page’s sug­ges­tion: hijack an enemy orbiter’s atti­tude con­trol sys­tem — which runs every­thing from propul­sion to com­mu­ni­ca­tions and replace it with a “par­a­sitic atti­tude con­trol sys­tem,” or PACS.

The idea of covertly sup­plant­ing a satel­lites ACS is tech­no­log­i­cally fea­si­ble and may become a desired, mature capa­bil­ity when con­flict arises in space. [It] involves con­trol­ling an enemy satel­lite by sup­plant­ing its orig­i­nal ACS and negat­ing the satel­lites mis­sion with the PACS. [It] can con­trol a satel­lite in numer­ous ways
Depleting the satel­lites pri­mary fuel until the satel­lite is drift­ing (denial/​disruption). Once a satel­lite runs out of maneu­ver­ing fuel to counter drift­ing, it is con­sid­ered dead.
Stressing and strain­ing the satel­lite bus until body-​​part sep­a­ra­tion occurs from changes in angular-​​momentum spin rates (destruc­tion). Assuming the satel­lite is three-​​axis sta­bi­lized, enough rota­tional veloc­ity would put tremen­dous stress on the solar panels/​deployed anten­nae. Application of enough stress and strain will sep­a­rate the appendages, depend­ing upon the rate of spin applied to the satel­lite bus.
Realigning… anten­nae for friendly-​​force intel­li­gence col­lec­tion by mov­ing the direc­tional anten­nas foot­print away from hos­tile ground-​​station cov­er­age areas and towards space-​​based signals-​​intelligence satel­lites or sim­ply aim­ing the anten­nae into deep space, away from Earth (deception/​denial)…
Pushing the satel­lite into trans­fer orbit for atmos­pheric reen­try or phys­i­cal cap­ture (destruction/​denial/​degradation/​disruption). Deliberate move­ment of the satel­lite out of its expected orbital plane would allow the PACS con­troller full, pos­i­tive con­trol over the satel­lites des­ig­nated path. Physical cap­ture by friendly space­craft and crews becomes pos­si­ble by bring­ing the satel­lite down to an accept­able orbital alti­tude. If the plan calls for its phys­i­cal destruc­tion, low­er­ing the satel­lites alti­tude and speed can allow atmos­pheric fric­tion to heat up and struc­turally weaken or burn up the satel­lite bus and pay­load. (empha­sis mine)

Now, to be clear, this is just one Captain’s con­cept not some offi­cial Air Force pro­gram. And other writ­ers in the cur­rent Journal take much more sober views of the lim­its of U.S. space power. Retired Lt. Col. Mel Tomme calls B.S. on the idea of launch­ing lit­tle, “tac­ti­cal” satel­lites into low-​​earth orbit. Space and Missile Systems Center com­man­der Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel says that the military’s space capa­bil­i­ties have badly eroded, and that it’s time to get “back to basics.“
But Page sees efforts under­way now that could even­tu­ally lead to his “par­a­sitic” space-​​weapon: pro­to­type orbital tug­boats, that would move satel­lites from one orbit to the next; small space ships designed for “prox­im­ity oper­a­tions” near another satel­lite. Both are, in effect, phys­i­cally cor­rect­ing a satellite’s flight. Maybe soft­ware could do a bet­ter job Hey, a Captain can dream, can’t he?
UPDATE 4:17 PM: Via Gyre, here’s a bozo Captain argu­ing for an orbital con­stel­la­tion of death.

June 2nd, 2006 | Space | 191530 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/06/02/parasitic-weapon-eyed-for-space/%22Parasitic%22+Weapon+Eyed+for+Space2006-06-02+16%3A16%3A11david_axe You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.