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U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

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Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#121

Post by jandrewrogers »

data_acquired wrote: post #98
mrtnmcc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe at The Drive has been writing a ton of Space Force propaganda articles lately. The Defense Budget is getting debated now and this "news" really does seem aimed at Congress. Space Force and SDA want to fund their constellation of hypersonic reentry vehicles based on the SpaceX Starlink platform [1,2,3]. It would provide instant kill capability around the world. China is the justification for this massive buildup o…

+1 on this. Virtually all the sources interviewed are connected with the military or the government itself, which fits a propaganda model or at least a very one-sided view on the gravity of the threats. Not to say that the facts and incidents reported are false, but the framing of the narrative is problematic and missing key issues such as --- 1. To what extent are critical satellites already built to handle these th…

European governments were raising the issue of increasingly sophisticated attacks against their satellites earlier in the year, which makes it less likely it is pure propaganda (it might still be a budget shout though). The US is well-equipped for this, both defensively and offensively, but the frequency and severity of the attacks has been increasing by all accounts.

While not mentioned in the article, my understanding is that some of the current attacks are only quasi-reversible e.g. some appear to be specifically designed to cause satellites to waste all the fuel in their maneuvering thrusters, greatly shortening their service life.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#122

Post by imglorp »

The secrecy part of this game is infuriating, where the existence of some of these birds is not even acknowledged. Everyone knows that stuff is there, egs: stuffin.space and https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database etc.

But if the US wants to respond to some wrong diplomatically, or in kind, there's no point to keeping it secret.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#123

Post by neltnerb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #88
YeBanKo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By this logic, every nation needs to ramp up space combat capabilities, because their perceived or real enemies could also do so. It is a typical arm race. It going on for other types of warfare at the moment, now there is another dimension. Regarding Petrov, I think there were more than one such cases. I remember reading about a similar case on the US side, afaik the operator that decided against pulling the trigg…

> This seems benign compared to nuclear though, as mutual strikes don’t lead to mutual destruction. Not necessarily. A core component of the nuclear deterrent is the satellites that detect launches from Russia/China/etc. If someone took a bunch of those out, the fingers on the nuclear button would be significantly twitchier than usual.

It bears repeating that the US wanted Russia to have earlier warning of launches so that there was a longer time buffer built in before they'd have to decide whether or not a blip was real or not. They still only have five of the six satellites up they'd need to get full coverage.

There is no tactical advantage gained by your enemy having less time to react (we're talking minutes-hours right?) unless you are actually attacking, in which case civilization is "dramatically changing" very soon. If nukes are flying, people need to be on the red phone ASAP!!!

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#125

Post by russli1993 »

On Aug 2020, a US spy satellite moved close to a Chinese satellite, attempting to shadow it closely. It was caught by the Chinese and they maneuvered it to get away from the US satellite. This seems to constitute ill or malign intent. Why would you go and bother the property of another person? What is the intent behind this move?

Trust goes both ways, and it takes effort from both parties to build trust. This kind of actions will only been seen as aggressive and ill intent by the other party, and when there is lack of trust between two parties, the other will come up with defensive and offensive counter measure to protect themselves. And that doesn't help when one party has got an active military branch named space force.

Looks like the space arms race and militarization of space will only escalate in the future. I hope people will realize, like the nuclear arms race before, this kind of wild west arms race is unsustainable for everyone involved, and for humanity as a whole. I hope leaders from all countries involved to have the courage and consideration for all of humanity and our collective peaceful use of space, to put geopolitics aside, to come up rules of responsible use and engagement in space.

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/10/us-china-russia-test-new...

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#126

Post by Eelongate »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #61
pvarangot wrote: post #28

This is propaganda, the US is the only military with operational space drones and space planes. They have the technology and enough budget to defend military and commercial satellites and just looking for political support to actually do so. The CCP military may be ahead in number of rockets but the US is way ahead in number of spy satellites by a far margin and can also commission civilian capabilities for this.

What space plane does the US have? What counts as a drone? Satellites can be steered, are those drones? The article states that Russia is trailing US spy satellites with their own. You make no sense.

> What counts as a drone? Satellites can be steered, are those drones?

Traditionally, any remote controlled aircraft is a drone, it seems fair to say any remote controlled spacecraft is also a drone.

The first drone, from which the term 'drone' came, was a radio controlled de Havilland Tiger Moth created in 1935, named "Queen Bee". It was a gunnery target drone, built for the purpose of being shot down, intended to fly only once. 'Drone' is a pun on that single-flight use and the name 'Queen bee'; male bees, which fly only once before dying, are called drones.

These days it's trendy for people to put forth their own definitions of 'drone' that have qualifiers like "it must have autonomy" or "it must be able to land". But the first drone had neither capability and the term itself is at odds with the latter.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#127

Post by nyokodo »

14 wrote: post #99

Is it really fair to say attack when they openly say “our spy satellites”. Is not spying considered an attack on those you are spying on?

> Is not spying considered an attack on those you are spying on?

It depends on the meaning of “attack.” Spying against a country inside their country is generally illegal in that country but is also not generally treated as an act of war. Spy satellites are not even in the target’s territory and are not doing anything to the target’s territory or their stuff. There isn’t really any rationale to call it an attack. Attacking the satellite though is attacking their stuff, of course everyone does it, but has a better rationale for the word “attack.”

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#128

Post by Rebelgecko »

pvarangot wrote: post #28

This is propaganda, the US is the only military with operational space drones and space planes. They have the technology and enough budget to defend military and commercial satellites and just looking for political support to actually do so. The CCP military may be ahead in number of rockets but the US is way ahead in number of spy satellites by a far margin and can also commission civilian capabilities for this.

This is propaganda, the US is the only military with operational space drones and space planes

Can you expand a bit? It doesn't seem like the types of attacks the general mentioned require those capabilities, so the US monopoly on space drones* comes across as a non-sequitor.

* Which I would argue doesn't exist, due to the existence of autonomous vehicles like Буран and 可重复使用试验航天器

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#129

Post by nradov »

14 wrote: post #102
tzs wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is propaganda, the US is the only military with operational space drones and space planes. The article is mostly about ground-based attacks, which pretty much everyone can do.

And I like how they call it an attack while openly saying they were operating spy satellites. Should a country not be expected to prevent spy satellites from spying on them?

No. Spy satellites are legally allowed to operate based on international treaty. Kinetic attacks on them by another nation would clearly be an act of war. RF and cyber attacks are kind of a gray area.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#130

Post by Rebelgecko »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #2

And why should we believe this? Edit: The "space force" needs to justify its existence, and this is a way for them to do it. Why haven't we heard about this before?

Putin has been talking up Russia's anti-satellite laser weapons since before the US created its space force. As xkcd[1] famously mentioned, just because you're learning about something today doesn't mean it's brand new

[1]: https://xkcd.com/1053/

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