Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• In February 2008, the United States shot down one of its own failed satellites
with a Standard Missile-3, used as an interceptor for the US Navy's missile
defence system.
In fact many states will have the technological ability to blind or interfere with
satellite system even if they can't destroy them. At the start of the Iraq War in 2003,
the United States destroyed several satellite jamming installations the Iraqis were
using to try and jam GPS signals (Schultz and Goler
2003
).
As more states obtain or develop missile technologies that could also have ASAT
capabilities, weaker space power actors may decide to employ space weapons in an
attempt to counter the advantage space confers powerful states. However, a very
dangerous situation would occur if two powerful space power states go to war - and
at the 2010 UN General Assembly, the international community agreed to launch in
2012 a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) to explore transparency- and
confi dence-building measures that could be undertaken to enhance space security.
Growing regional military tensions on Earth, coupled with the increasing military
reliance on space and the growing capabilities of space and missile technology,
mean that there is a grave risk of force being deployed in space at some stage.
3.3.4
New Military Developments
Current and future projects seem set to take warfi ghting more directly into space. In
1976 NASA unveiled the Shuttle as the world's fi rst reusable manned spacecraft,
and the fi rst actual fl ight took place 5 years later when
Columbia
was launched into
orbit from Cape Canaveral by its three main engines and two powerful rocket boost-
ers and glided back to Earth, touching down on a runway 54 h later. The Shuttle
programme operated for 30 years and secret military operations accounted for part
or all of its many missions. Shuttles were equipped with a large cargo bay and a
robotic manipulator arm which was used for placing satellites (some of which were
for military communications) into orbit or retrieving them. The fi rst defence-related
payload was carried by
Columbia
on its fourth orbital fl ight in June 1982, and the
fi rst all-military Shuttle mission was made by
Discovery
in January 1985. Another
6 all-military classifi ed fl ights were to follow and other missions included some
military activity, with an unclassifi ed series of military-related experiments being
carried out on
Discovery
in April 1991 (Cleary
1994
).
No wonder then that the US Space Shuttle programme was always viewed with
suspicion by the Russians; as the shuttles were frequently used to fl y military mis-
sions, there was some concern that they might even carry bombs and become mili-
tary space planes. Indeed, one of the Shuttle's successors now being tested by the
United States is a reusable remotely piloted space plane. The X-37B began as a
NASA project in 1999 and was transferred to the Department of Defense in 2004. It
has fl own three test missions to date, the second of which in 2011-2012 involved a
16-month stay in space. In addition, the US Army is running fi eld tests of a new
hypersonic fl ight weapon 'designed to fl y within the earth's atmosphere at hypersonic
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