Flexibility in Direct-Ascent Anti-Satellite Ops

[Gray Rinehart]

The recent and well-publicized shoot-down of our failing reconnaissance satellite not only demonstrated that we can put together a direct-ascent ASAT capability, but also that the capability is remarkably flexible. Not as flexible, perhaps, as the old F-15 ASAT system from so long ago, but still a remarkable feat of coordination, short-term planning, and innovative use of an established weapon system.

Not only is it notable that the system operated from aboard ship, which allows for the inherently mobile launch site to be relocated across broad swaths of the earth's surface, but the fact that the missile used was not specifically designed for that purpose raises interesting questions:
- What other weapons in our inventory can be adapted to similar use?
- Given the demonstrated performance against a satellite in a degrading (and therefore abnormally low) orbit, what other orbital tracks could the weapon reach?
- Even more ominous, given the capabilities of other countries (see, e.g., this old forum thread (http://www.graymanwrites.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17)), how easy or hard will it be for potential adversaries to develop their own direct-ascent ASAT capability from missiles they already own?

[Gray Rinehart]

(Maybe this warrants a thread of its own ... nah.)

According to C4ISR Journal, "The U.S. Air Force has temporarily pulled a television advertisement depicting a missile destroying an American satellite."


“The Air Force stopped airing the spot due to a misleading statement about the ability of a single missile to take out multiple satellite capabilities,” Araujo said, adding that new language is under review. “We’re looking at the story board and making sure it doesn’t have any misleading statements.”

... [C]ellular-phone communications and bank transactions would crash without timing signals from the Air Force’s GPS constellation.... But several GPS satellites would have to be destroyed to disrupt those services....

Link: USAF Pulls Controversial TV Spot (http://www.c4isrjournal.com/story.php?F=3530863)

It seems to me that the ad would've been more realistic if the missile, instead of hitting a single satellite, had carried a nuclear warhead. Granted, the separation distances in MEO as opposed to LEO are such that even a nuclear blast might not affect very many satellites (not to mention whether the EMP, as it got further from the source, could still overcome rad-hard electronics), but it might get more than one.