Going Forward - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 193

center at an undisclosed location that would accelerate domestic satellite
launches. 66 Iran contracted with a Russian firm to design and launch its first
satellite, Sinah-1, aboard a Kosmos rocket from northern Russia in 2005. 67 It
launched its first homegrown satellite in 2009 and sent up another in 2010,
along with a capsule carrying turtles, a rat, and a worm. 68 A 2011 attempt to
launch a monkey into space failed, but Tehran claimed to have successfully
orbited and returned a monkey to Earth in January 2013. That was widely
declared a hoax after photographs of the monkey before and after the flight
did not match. A February 2012 satellite launch was successful, but Iran delayed
its remote-sensing Fajr satellite several times in 2012 and again in 2013. Some
Western intelligence sources believe the delay announcements have been
attempts to cover up launch failures. 69 It would be Iran's first satellite with
maneuvering thrusters if it ever reaches space. 70 After several highly publi-
cized failures, North Korea launched what it called an Earth observation sat-
ellite into orbit in December 2012. South Korean analysts who recovered the
rocket booster reported evidence that the launch masked a military icbm test,
and astronomers said the satellite appeared dead. 71
All of these activities lead some to conclude that an arms race is underway
in space. Brian Weeden, technical advisor for the Secure World Foundation
and a former Air Force captain at the U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Space
Operations Center, notes that controlling an arms race in space is difficult
because so many basic space technologies can be used for good or ill. For exam-
ple, the same technology that enables automatic rendezvous and docking with
the International Space Station could direct a co-orbital asat. 72 Dr. James Clay
Moltz, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in the Department of
National Security Affairs, describes four competing schools of thought driving
U.S. space policy. They are space nationalism, which seeks dominant military
power to control space; technological determinism, which advocates the selec-
tive military restraint of the Cold War; social interactionism, which empha-
sizes commercial cooperation; and global institutionalism, which favors
international management regimes. 73 Which approach or combination of
approaches will ultimately prevail is an open question.
Meanwhile space-tracking technology is on the rise. To overcome the limi-
tations of monitoring orbital objects with ground-based radars and telescopes,
the United States launched its first Space Based Space Surveillance (sbss) sat-
ellite in September 2010 . 74 Nearly two years later, in August 2012, the Air Force
declared initial operational capability for the largely classified program. 75 The