Space Weaponisation: Feasibility Analysis

The recent claims by the Pentagon spokesman Airforce Major General Pat Ryder, regarding Russia’s launch of weaponised satellites capable of destroying other satellites. This incident naturally raised speculations regarding the future of weaponisation, its feasibility and its capabilities.

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The current use of technology in space has been directed towards the daily critical functioning of modern society, such as communication, networking and navigation, without posing direct threats as of now. 

As the domains of warfare expand and cross-domain warfare becomes the norm, conventional warfare has become interlinked with cyber-warfare. Due to this, the current spectrum of space weaponization deals with interfering with these critical systems by hampering the functionality of these satellites indirectly or by destroying them.

The technology to achieve this has existed for almost two decades, and has become a prerequisite for nations to be established as space superpowers, namely the ASAT (Anti-satellite weapon system). India was the fourth nation to successfully test its ASAT capabilities in 2019, with nations like Israel following suit, raising questions regarding international security and the feasibility of developing and investing in space weaponization. 

If the current space ecosystem were to drift towards modernizing weaponization and to be directed towards compromising the security of a nation, it would be through compromising these essential systems which would be detrimental.

The alternative path to establishing space militarization is direct implementation of weaponized satellites with capabilities to inflict physical destruction to a geographic location. This can be done via two methods: kinetic and non-kinetic weapons.

Kinetic weapons involve projectiles which may or may not carry some sort of payload, allowing themselves to be propelled by gravity, with the latter involving the projection of radiation beams that could be radioactive, electromagnetic, or microwave. These, while posing a tremendous threat, have major obstacles to overcome in the current space race.

Firstly, without a more efficient way to get satellites to escape velocity apart from jet-fueled propulsion, it will be a very expensive project without much assurance in its reliability, keeping into consideration the environmental question. Secondly, space crowding has become a serious concern for all missions as it has given rise to a phenomenon that is lethal to any technology up there: space debris.

Pieces of equipment deployed in the orbit naturally deteriorate over time due to many reasons, creating orbital junk. Which can vary anywhere from a few millimetres to huge pieces of metal scrap travelling at speeds as high as 18,000 miles per hour due to Earth’s gravity.

The space debris crisis has brought forth a dystopian hypothesis of humans grounding themselves to Earth due to excessive debris, making all orbital programmes impossible. It is almost impossible to imagine having a weapon system that can withstand an attack from a wave of projectiles faster than any man-made weapon.

What sort of surety would there be in a weapon system which functions in an area where even a fleck of paint could destroy it? Additionally, the current evolution of supersonic and subsonic missiles have provided us with the capability to target anywhere in the world with precision and efficiency, which makes putting them up in space an even less appealing project. 

Irrespective of these setbacks, mankind’s ability to overcome problems has never failed and it is the way of the future. The lack of enforcement of space laws, just like any other international law, will inevitably be unable to restrict conflict in this realm. 

Despite the existence of United Nations organisations and the cumulative efforts of many nations to uphold the values of carefully articulated laws, the lack of enforcement is evident in prevailing conflicts across the world. Similarly, the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs has been in operation since 1958, and yet it is unable to offer international security with the existence of ASAT. 

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Conclusively, space weaponisation, whether inspired by science fiction or not, is inevitable but with the current state of technology and the developing problems arising from space crowding and environmental degradation, it is a viable investment in the long run with the development of a better propulsion system, which could be either through more efficient fuel utilisation or methods independent of this concept.

The current leader in this field is an organisation known as SpinLaunch, which is developing a fuel-free method to launch projectiles into space using purely kinetic energy.  The application of such revolutionary technology will pave the way for this method.

Inherently, this will require an even stronger framework to regulate and enforce laws in this sphere of conflict, as it is the least accessible fear as of now. Though this offers great hope in global security, as any weapon, it has the flip side of being on the other side of the barrel and is something that can only be determined with time.

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BY ALAKSHENDRA SINGH

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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