The militarization of space is the placement and development of weaponry and military technology in outer space. The early exploration of space in the mid-20th century had, in part, a military motivation, as the United States and the Soviet Union used it as an opportunity to demonstrate ballistic missile technology and other technologies having the potential for military application. Outer space has since been used as an operating location for military spacecraft such as imaging and communications satellites, and some ballistic missiles pass through outer space during their flight. As yet, however, weapons have not been stationed in space, with the exception of the Almaz space station and small handguns carried by Russian cosmonauts (for post-landing, pre-recovery use).
History
World War II and the V-2 rocket
As early as 1927 members of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR) (“Spaceflight Society”) had started experimenting with liquid-fuelled rockets. Rockets using a solid propellant had been used as weapons by all sides in WWI, and as a result, the Treaty of Versailles forbade solid fuel rocket research in Germany. By 1932 the Reichswehr started taking notice of their developments for potential long-range artillery use, and a team led by General Walter Dornberger was shown a test vehicle designed and flown by Wernher von Braun. Although the rocket was of limited ability, Dornberger saw von Braun’s genius and pushed for him to join the military.
Von Braun did so, as eventually did most of the other members of the society. In December 1934 von Braun scored another success with the flight of the A2 (A for Aggregat) rocket, a small model powered by ethanol and liquid oxygen, with work on the design continuing in an attempt to improve reliability. Many different liquid fuels had been developed, but the German military specifically encouraged the use of ethanol as a rocket fuel because Germany had always been hampered by a shortage of crude oil-based fuels. Throughout WWII, a wide variety of military rockets were fueled by ethanol that were derived primarily from potatoes.
By 1936 the team had moved on from the A2 and started work on both the A3 and A4. The latter was a full-sized design with a range of about 175 km (109 mi), a top altitude of 80 km and a payload of about a tonne. This increase in capability had come through a complete redesign of the engine by Walter Thiel. It was clear that von Braun’s designs were turning into real weapons.
The A3 proved to be problematic, and a redesign was started as the A5. This version was completely reliable, and by 1941 the team had fired about 70 A5 rockets. The first A4 flew in March 1942, flying about 1.6 km and crashing into the water. The second launch reached an altitude of 11 km before exploding. The third rocket, launched on October 3, 1942, changed things by following its trajectory perfectly. It landed 193 km away, and became the first man-made object to enter space. Production started in 1943 on the wonder weapon Vergeltungswaffe 2 (reprisal weapon 2), or the V-2 as it became better known, at the insistence of Goebbels‘ propaganda ministry.
The Cold War
By the end of the 1960s, both countries regularly deployed satellites. Reconnaissance satellites were used by militaries to take accurate pictures of their rivals’ military installations. As time passed the resolution and accuracy of orbital reconnaissance alarmed both sides of the iron curtain. Both the United States and the Soviet Union began to develop anti-satellite weapons to blind or destroy each other’s satellites. Directed-energy weapons, kamikaze style satellites, as well as orbital nuclear explosion were researched with varying levels of success. Spy satellites were, and continue to be, used to monitor the dismantling of military assets in accordance with arms control treaties signed between the two superpowers. To use spy satellites in such a manner is often referred to in treaties as “national technical means of verification”.
The superpowers developed ballistic missiles to enable them to use nuclear weaponry across great distances. As rocket science developed, the range of missiles increased and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) were created, which could strike virtually any target on Earth in a time-frame measured in minutes rather than hours or days. In order to cover large distances ballistic missiles are usually launched into sub-orbital spaceflight.
Test of the LG-118A Peacekeeper missile, each one of which could carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads along trajectories outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.
As soon as intercontinental missiles were developed, military planners began programmes and strategies to counter their effectiveness.
USA
In the late 1950s United States Air Force considered dropping an atomic bomb on the Moon to display U.S. superiority to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world (Project A119). In 1959, a feasibility study of a possible military base on the Moon (Project Horizon) was conducted. In 1958, a plan for a 21-airman underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 was developed (Lunex Project).
The Safeguard Program was deployed in the mid-1970s and was based on the Sentinel Program. Since the ABM treaty only allowed for construction of a single ABM facility to protect either the nation’s capital city or an ICBM field, the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex was constructed near Nekoma, North Dakota to protect the Grand Forks ICBM facility. Though it was only operational as an ABM facility for less than a year, the Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR), one of Safeguard’s components, was still operational as of 2005. One major problem with the Safeguard Program, and past ABM systems, was that the interceptor missiles, though state-of-the-art, required nuclear warheads to destroy incoming ICBMs. Future ABMs will likely be more accurate and utilize hit-to-kill or conventional warheads to knock down incoming warheads. The technology involved in such systems was shaky at best, and deployment was limited by the ABM treaty of 1972.
In 1983 American president Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based system to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear missiles. The plan was ridiculed by some as unrealistic and expensive, and Dr. Carol Rosin nicknamed the policy “Star Wars”, after the popular science-fiction movie franchise. Astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out that in order to defeat SDI, the Soviet Union had only to build more missiles, allowing them to overcome the defense by sheer force of numbers. Proponents of SDI said the strategy of technology would hasten the Soviet Union’s downfall. According to this doctrine, Communist leaders were forced to either shift large portions of their GDP to counter SDI, or else watch as their expensive nuclear stockpiles were rendered obsolete.
United States Space Command (USSPACECOM), a unified command of the United States military was created in 1985 to help institutionalize the use of outer space by the United States Armed Forces. The Commander in Chief of U.S. Space Command (CINCUSSPACECOM), with headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado was also the Commander in Chief of the bi-national U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (CINCNORAD) and for the majority of time during USSPACECOM’s existence also the Commander of the U.S. Air Force major command Air Force Space Command. Military space operations coordinated by USSPACECOM proved to be very valuable for the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
A USAF F-15 Eagle launching an ASM-135 ASAT anti-satellite missile.
The U.S. military has relied on communications, intelligence, navigation, missile warning and weather satellite systems in areas of conflict since the early 1990s, including the Balkans, Southwest Asia and Afghanistan. Space systems are considered indispensable providers of tactical information to U.S. war-fighters.
As part of the ongoing initiative to transform the U.S. military, on 26 June 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that U.S. Space Command would merge with USSTRATCOM. The UCP directed that Unified Combatant Commands be capped at ten, and with the formation of the new United States Northern Command, one would have to be deactivated in order to maintain that level. Thus the USSPACECOM merger into USSTRATCOM.
USSR
The R-36ORB was a Soviet ICBM in the 1960s that, once launched, would go into a low Earth orbit whereupon it would de-orbit for an attack. This system would approach North America over the South Pole, thereby striking targets from the opposite direction from that to which NORAD early warning systems are oriented. The missile was phased out in January 1983 in compliance with the SALT II treaty.
The SALT II treaty (1979) prohibited the deployment of FOBS systems:
- Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy:
- (…)
- (c) systems for placing into Earth orbit nuclear weapons or any other kind of weapons of mass destruction, including fractional orbital missiles;
On May 15, 1987, an Energia rocket flew for the first time. The payload was a prototype orbital weapons platform Polyus (also known as Polus, Skif-DM or 17F19DM), the final version of which according to some reports could be armed with nuclear space mines and defensive cannon. The Polyus weapons platform was designed to defend itself against anti-satellite weapons with recoilless cannon. It was also equipped with a sensor blinding laser to confuse approaching weapons and could launch test targets to validate the fire control system. The attempt to place the satellite into orbit failed.
Post-Cold War
A Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile (LEAP), which attaches to a modified SM-2 Block IV missile used by the U.S. Navy
As the Cold War ended with the implosion of the Soviet Union the space race between the two superpowers ended. The United States of America was left as the only superpower on Earth with a large concentration of the world’s wealth and technological advancement. Despite the United States’ new status in the world, the monopoly of space militarization is in no way certain. Countries such as China, Japan, and India have begun their own space programs, while the European Union collectively works to create satellite systems to rival those of the United States.
The USSR Space Forces were established as the Ministry of Defense Space Units in 1982. In 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated. The Russian Armed Forces were established on 7 May 1992, enabling the creation of Russian Space Forces later that year on 10 August. In July 1997 the Space Force was dissolved as a separate service arm and incorporated to the Strategic Rocket Forces along with the Space Missile Defense Forces, which previously were part of the Troops of Air Defense. The Russian Space Forces were officially reborn on June 1, 2001 as an independent section of the Russian military.
Post Cold War space militarization seems to revolve around three types of applications. (The word “seems” is used because much of this subject matter is inconclusively verifiable, due to the high level of secrecy that exists among the great powers with regard to the details of space sensing systems.) The first application is the continuing development of “spy” or reconnaissance satellites which began in the Cold War era, but has progressed significantly since that time. Spy satellites perform a variety of missions such as high resolution photography (IMINT), communications eavesdropping (SIGINT), and covert communications (HUMINT). These tasks are performed on a regular basis both during peacetime and war operations. Satellites are also used by the nuclear states to provide early warning of missile launches, locate nuclear detonations, and detect preparations for otherwise clandestine or surprise nuclear tests (at least those tests or preparations carried out above-ground); this was the case when, in 1998, India and Pakistan both conducted a series of nuclear tests; in addition, a nuclear-detection satellite of the Vela type was also reported to have detected a nuclear detonation in the Indian Ocean in 1978 that was believed to be a South African nuclear test in what was famously called the Vela Incident. Early-warning satellites can also be used to detect tactical missile launches; this capability was used during Desert Storm when America was able to provide advance warning to Israel of Iraqi SS-1 SCUD missile launches.
Global Positioning Systems
Artist’s conception of a Global Positioning System satellite in Earth orbit.
The second application of space militarization currently in use is GPS or Global Positioning System. This satellite navigation system is used for determining one’s precise location and providing a highly accurate time reference almost anywhere on Earth or in Earth orbit. It uses an intermediate circular orbit (ICO) satellite constellation of at least 24 satellites. The GPS system was designed by and is controlled by the United States Department of Defense and can be used by anyone, free of charge. The cost of maintaining the system is approximately US$400 million per year, including the replacement of aging satellites. The first of 24 satellites that form the current GPS constellation (Block II) was placed into orbit on February 14, 1989. The 52nd GPS satellite since the beginning in 1978 was launched November 6, 2004 aboard a Delta II rocket. The primary military purposes are to allow improved command and control of forces through improved location awareness, and to facilitate accurate targeting of smart bombs, cruise missiles, or other munitions. The satellites also carry nuclear detonation detectors, which form a major portion of the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System. European concern about the level of control over the GPS network and commercial issues has resulted in the planned Galileo positioning system. Russia already operates an independent system called GLONASS (global navigation system), the system operates with 24 satellites that are deployed in 3 orbital planes as opposed to the 4 GPS is deployed in. The Chinese “Beidou” system provides China a similar regional (not global) navigation capability. India is currently developing its own regional satellite navigation system, the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System.
Military communication systems
The third current application of militarization of space can be demonstrated by the emerging military doctrine of network-centric warfare. Network-centric warfare relies heavily on the use of high speed communications which allows all soldiers and branches of the military to view the battlefield in real-time. Real-time technology improves the situational awareness of all of the military’s assets and commanders in a given theater. For example, a soldier in the battle zone can access satellite imagery of enemy positions two blocks away, and if necessary e-mail the coordinates to a bomber or weapon platform hovering overhead while the commander, hundreds of miles away, watches as the events unfold on a monitor. This high-speed communication is facilitated by a separate internet created by the military for the military. Communication satellites hold this system together by creating an informational grid over the given theatre of operations. The Department of Defense is currently working to establish a Global Information Grid to connect all military units and branches into a computerized network in order to share information and create a more efficient military.
— Article & Photos courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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