The United States government has announced that it will no longer conduct anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons tests. In a public statement during a visit to Vandenberg Space Force Base, Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed that this policy is primarily intended to set an example for other countries. This represents an important step towards establishing “space norms” for all countries to follow.
ASAT weapons date back to the early years of the Cold War. According to the Naval Institute’s World Naval Weapons Systems Guide, ASAT weapons are designed for strategic and tactical military purposes. Satellites have long been used by the military to navigate, communicate and gather information about enemy movements and activities through sophisticated satellite imagery: spy satellites.
Although ASAT weapons have never been used in actual military action, China, India, Russia and the US have demonstrated their capabilities. These weapons have so far only been used by these countries in tests against their own targets, such as decommissioned satellites.
If you’re wondering why blasting your own satellites out of the sky is necessary at all, it might help to remember that it reminds anyone watching that they can destroy a satellite at will. It’s a threat: “If you threaten our infrastructure, we can retaliate.” But each successful test throws thousands of new pieces of debris into orbit.
Conceptual representation of pollution in Earth orbit
The risks of space junk may not seem obvious at first. After all, space is huge, and you might not think that a few pieces are very likely to hit anything important. But it’s worth remembering that every single object in space, from the International Space Station (ISS) to the tiniest blob of paint, is hurtling around Earth at tremendous speed, and we keep putting more stuff there. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) maintains an index of objects launched into space. At the end of January 2022, this list numbered 8,261 individual satellites, an increase of almost 12% over the previous 10 months. And as Starlink and its rivals get down to business building their own mega-constellations of communications satellites, that growth will only accelerate. In fact, there have already been collisions between satellites, and it is no longer unusual for satellite owners to avoid each other’s satellites.
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Photo of Canadaarm2 hit by space debris
So as harmless as it may seem to blow your own stuff into space, there’s a very real threat looming. Every time a satellite is destroyed, whether it was attacked by an ASAT weapon or simply collided with something, it results in thousands of small pieces of debris scattered around the orbit of the original satellite. On earth, that would just mean a lot of trash to collect, but in space and in orbit, it means thousands of pieces of metal, plastic, and ceramic that circle the planet many times faster than a rifle bullet.
A good example of this was when Russia conducted its last ASAT test in November 2021. Debris from the destroyed satellite came dangerously close to the International Space Station and urgent action was needed to move it out of harm’s way. This is the root of the problem. Most of the larger debris from tests like this can be tracked by ground-based radar, which is how satellite operators can be warned in advance, but the smaller stuff is effectively invisible. Depending on how high it is, it can stay in orbit for a very long time.
Addressing this issue was the main purpose of VP Harris’ announcement. By establishing such norms, we hope that other countries will follow suit. According to Robin Dickey, principal analyst at the Aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy, “There are tons of different conversations about norms — there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for how to develop them. The approach you take is likely to be very different depending on the content and context.”
The global astronomical community and scientists around the world fully support the idea of eliminating space debris, which includes the use of anti-satellite tests, but it may still take time for this to become a reality. Russia and China have excluded themselves from the European and American space programs, making the prospect of a “universal protocol” difficult to achieve at this stage.
It may take longer than we hope, but the circumstances are not as bleak as they seem. Projects such as ClearSpace1 are underway to manage “space junk” by collecting it and performing controlled atmospheric burns. And if we can reach a global agreement to end ASAT, it sets the stage for sustainable long-term management. This historic announcement from Vice President Harris is an important step in the right direction.
At the rate at which we are launching things into orbit, building consensus among all private enterprises and space agencies will become vital. According to the MIT Technology Review, by 2025 there could be as many as 1,100 satellites launched each year. As Dickey says, “Defining these common expectations about what is acceptable and unacceptable in space is a critical step in ensuring that space is safe and usable for everyone for decades to come.”
The increasing volume of things orbiting the Earth will become a problem in the near future.
More information: Carnegie Institution
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