The Space Front: American Satellites Under Attack

[Husky_Khan]

According to one Space Force General, David Thompson whose the Vice Chief of Space Operations.

Space Force general says US satellites are attacked on daily basis

China and Russia regularly strike US satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber attacks, Gen. David Thompson said.

nypost.com

A Space Force general said American satellites are attacked by adversaries every day in ways that flirt with “acts of war,” and the US will lose a space arms race if it doesn’t take action.

China and Russia regularly strike US satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber attacks, Gen. David Thompson told The Washington Post in an op-ed published Tuesday.

Thompson disclosed a 2019 incident when a Russian satellite flew so close to a US “national security satellite” that authorities believed it could be an offensive. But the spacecraft backed away and tested a projectile, according to the op-ed.

 

[Zachowon]

I think we are working on going at them back.
Idk though

 

[PsihoKekec]

Ok, I can understand the jamming of the satellite radio frequency and computer attacks, but attack with a laser? To damage anything but the lowest of the low orbit satellites, you would need an insanely powerful laser, it's not yet feasible.

 

[Bacle]

Ok, I can understand the jamming of the satellite radio frequency and computer attacks, but attack with a laser? To damage anything but the lowest of the low orbit satellites, you would need an insanely powerful laser, it's not yet feasible.

The laser is on one of the Russian sats, not on the ground.

 

[PsihoKekec]

The laser is on one of the Russian sats, not on the ground.

I haven't found anything on Russian laser satellites, where could I get info about it?

 

[Bacle]

I haven't found anything on Russian laser satellites, where could I get info about it?

There probably isn't any publicly available info.

But I expect that the lasers are part of other Russian sats that have official purposes and specs that leave the offensive weapons/tools they have on board out of public press releases.

 

[PsihoKekec]

So for now it's just speculation? Because Russia putting combat level lasers on their satellites would mean a considerable increase in their technical capabilities, missiles would make more sense for them.

 

[Bacle]

So for now it's just speculation? Because Russia putting combat level lasers on their satellites would mean a considerable increase in their technical capabilities, missiles would make more sense for them.

Amp'ed up laser pointers are not that complex a hardware, and not that bulky either.

And if the sats are close together, you do not need that much power in a laser to simply fry infrared sensors or the like, that weren't designed to deal with anything like the directed energy of even a decent sized infrantryman's red-dot laser or dazzler.

 

[Captain X]

Pretty sure they just use laser to try to wreck cameras and the like.

 

[Wilykit]

Might be time to dust off the F-15s ASAT missile.

 

[Scottty]

Amp'ed up laser pointers are not that complex a hardware, and not that bulky either.

And if the sats are close together, you do not need that much power in a laser to simply fry infrared sensors or the like, that weren't designed to deal with anything like the directed energy of even a decent sized infrantryman's red-dot laser or dazzler.

Laser weapons of the "melt a hole through the satellite" level, on the other hand, run into a basic physics problem if mounted on something in space - dumping waste heat.
Vacuum is a good insulator.

 

[ATP]

Laser weapons of the "melt a hole through the satellite" level, on the other hand, run into a basic physics problem if mounted on something in space - dumping waste heat.
Vacuum is a good insulator.

What about Honorverse style missiles with warheads with X-ray lasers? USA should be capable of doing something like that.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

What about Honorverse style missiles with warheads with X-ray lasers? USA should be capable of doing something like that.

I don't think we've really figured out Bomb-pumped lasers.

 

[Scottty]

What about Honorverse style missiles with warheads with X-ray lasers? USA should be capable of doing something like that.

I don't think we've really figured out Bomb-pumped lasers.

I'm going to guess that at current tech, the device would manage to turn only a small percentage of the energy yield into a collimated beam before being vaporized by the explosion.

The rest of it would be omidirectional - and exploding nuclear devices in orbit has been shown to do bad things. And not the sort where you get to apply all the badness only to the enemy.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

The big problem is that I'm not even sure the research to date has actually resulted in a bomb pumped laser actually occurring. From what I've read, no one has been able to duplicate the research experiment.

 

[Bacle]

The big problem is that I'm not even sure the research to date has actually resulted in a bomb pumped laser actually occurring. From what I've read, no one has been able to duplicate the research experiment.

That probably has more to do with test ban treaties than lack of will power or interest.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

That probably has more to do with test ban treaties than lack of will power or interest.

The US govt was conducting underground test for this project up to '92 I believe. It got heavily defunded prior to that because the project was not showing gain or replicatability.

 

[ATP]

The US govt was conducting underground test for this project up to '92 I believe. It got heavily defunded prior to that because the project was not showing gain or replicatability.

So,USA do not worked on that from 1992.Which mean,that,if it is only problem with computers making simulations,it could be solwed with much better computers now.

 

[Scottty]

So,USA do not worked on that from 1992.Which mean,that,if it is only problem with computers making simulations,it could be solwed with much better computers now.

I'm told there's a quite a few nuclear-related fields where the USA stopped doing research a while back, but certain other countries... didn't.

 

[ATP]

I'm told there's a quite a few nuclear-related fields where the USA stopped doing research a while back, but certain other countries... didn't.

China with Honorverse-style missiles.Great,that is was we all needed