Russia has launched yet another spacecraft with anti-satellite capabilities. That’s right – another killer satellite in near-Earth space that’s increasingly crowded with them.
It’s all well and good as long as these spacecraft hold their fire. In the event of war, however, the orbital clash could spread millions of high-velocity fragments of plastic and metal, raising the risk to the satellites we depend on for communication, navigation and other strictly peaceful purposes. Even the International Space Station would be in danger.
In 2019 and 2022, the Russian space agency launched into low orbit a clutch of small, maneuverable “inspection” satellites whose ostensible role is to rendezvous with and inspect other satellites in order to diagnose malfunctions.
But with their sensors and manipulator arms, these same satellites could tamper with or even destroy other satellites.
Russian inspection satellites tend to be short-lived. After a couple of years, they run out of fuel, lose altitude and burn up in the atmosphere. To maintain an orbital arsenal for a possible future space war, the Kremlin must launch a fresh batch of inspection satellites every few years.
Thus, on May 16, Russian launched – from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia – a mysterious satellite designated Cosmos 2576. Four days later on May 20, Ambassador Robert Wood, the US alternate representative for special political affairs in the United Nations, claimed Cosmos 2576 is “likely a counter-space weapon, presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit.”
Chillingly, Cosmos 2576 apparently already has a target in its proverbial sights. “Russia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite,” Wood said. That American satellite, designated USA 314, reportedly has reconnaissance capabilities.
The purported pattern is a familiar one. Two years ago, Russia launched inspection satellite Cosmos 2558 to tail the American reconnaissance satellite USA 326.
If Cosmos 2576 actually tampered with USA 314, it would be an act of war. But if that’s what Russia wanted – open warfare – it would be a top priority of Russia’s space force to blind or render mute as many American recon and comms satellites as possible, as fast as possible.
Taking out those sats could deprive US forces on the ground of one of their biggest advantages: their access to a wide array of spacecraft that spot targets, relay radio messages and guide – via GPS – literally hundreds of thousands of American missiles, drones, warplanes, warships, ground vehicles and even infantry squads.
The damage would be long-term, however. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists in Massachusetts, there are an estimated 384,000 fragments of debris at least one centimeter across in low Earth orbit, as high as 1,200 miles over the surface.
As many as 152,500 of those fragments are the result of a single 2007 test of a Chinese anti-satellite rocket, which struck a defunct weather satellite. It’s “the largest debris cloud ever
generated by a single event in orbit,” according to Brian Weeden from the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation.
Not every destruction of a satellite would produce more than 100,000 fragments, but some might. Imagine if tens of Russian inspection satellites went on an orbital rampage targeting scores of American satellites. Millions of dangerous fragments could scatter across low orbits.
Now consider: more than 30 times since 1999, the International Space Station has had to fire boosters and change its altitude in order to dodge dangerous debris. The rate of evasive maneuvers is increasing as the quantity of space debris also increases – and this is happening in peacetime.
Open warfare could render the busiest low orbits practically unusable. In that sense, Russia’s constantly replenishing arsenal of potentially destructive spacecraft isn’t just a threat to existing American craft. It’s a threat to everything humanity does in that low region of space.
The Russians aren’t solely to blame for this looming danger, of course. The Americans have inspection satellites, too, and a ‘secret space warplane’ capable of meddling with other nations’ spacecraft – and so do the Chinese. The big difference is that the United States and China aren’t currently waging an escalating major war on Earth’s surface, making plain their recklessness as world powers, and space powers.
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