China destroys satellite with missile

Crayons and playdough. China has filled the niche of being the world's factory, which has allowed other countries to become more specialized in other areas. This has led to an increase in global trade and efficiency. In summary, China has successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon, causing concern about the vulnerability of US satellites and a possible arms race in space. This could also affect advanced weapons that use GPS for targeting. Additionally, the fact that many products are made in China raises concerns about the impact of giving them access to US technology and jobs.
  • #1
Rach3
Freedom!

Hurray! Our president is bringing us freedom!

Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test

China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite weapon last week, signaling its resolve to play a major role in military space activities and bringing expressions of concern from Washington and other capitals, the Bush administration said yesterday.

...Arms control experts called the test, in which the weapon destroyed an aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could foreshadow an antisatellite arms race. Alternatively, however, some experts speculated that it could precede a diplomatic effort by China to prod the Bush administration into negotiations on a weapons ban.

“This is the first real escalation in the weaponization of space that we’ve seen in 20 years,” said Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks rocket launchings and space activity. “It ends a long period of restraint.”

...Despite its protest, the Bush administration has long resisted a global treaty banning such tests because it says it needs freedom of action in space.

...In late August, President Bush authorized a new national space policy that ignored calls for a global prohibition on such tests. The policy said the United States would “preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space” and “dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so.” It declared the United States would “deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/w...&en=f9cca6749a53bb61&ei=5094&partner=homepage
 
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  • #2
What do you want to do? Run about the streets screaming "hypocrisy"?

I'd be very surprised to hear that the US doesn't possesses this capability. From what I've read or heard before, low orbit reconsats are easy prey to a slightly modified F-15 or F-22.
 
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  • #3
Gokul43201 said:
What do you want to do? Run about the streets screaming "hypocrisy"?

I'd be very surprised to hear that the US doesn't possesses this capability.

USA has had the capability since the '80's, as you'd know if you'd read a mere five lines into the quoted article. It's implementing the capability that counts.
 
  • #4
I'm with Gokul43201 -- you don't appear to have made any point at all.
 
  • #5
No point? China is developing anti-satellite weapons, and the neocons will follow in kind, because it is their American "freedom" to spend hundreds of billions on a new arms race whether anyone likes it or not. What's not to be concerned about?
 
  • #6
Rach3 said:
No point? China is developing anti-satellite weapons, and the neocons will follow in kind, because it is their American "freedom" to spend hundreds of billions on a new arms race whether anyone likes it or not. What's not to be concerned about?
None of this, of course, appeared in the opening post. :tongue:

Hrm, you have literally quoted a statement of fact in the OP, and then you misquoted it here. Okay, so what? Facts are just facts (and misquotes are just dumb); they do not constitute a point.
 
  • #7
Rach3 said:
Hurray! Our president is bringing us freedom!
Oh, my mistake, I missed this. I guess you were making a point after all. I'm glad you're happy, but I think you misunderstood the article; it doesn't say he's bring us freedom. It says that the government intend to preserve what freedom we already have.
 
  • #8
No, Bush doesn't say he's preserving our freedom, he says he's excercing his freedom, specifically "freedom of action", which is his personal euphemism for "freedom to fulfill whatever multibilliondollar harebrained scheme I think up."
 
  • #9
Rach3 said:
No, Bush doesn't say he's preserving our freedom, he says he's excercing his freedom, specifically "freedom of action"
You're reading the same article I am, right?

the United States would “preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space”

the United States would “deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests.”​

which is his personal euphemism for "freedom to fulfill whatever multibilliondollar harebrained scheme I think up."
I don't see this in the article either.


I doubt that you opened this thread as an exercise in reading comprehension, so I'll ask again: what is your point?
 
  • #10
Rach, all you ever do is hype things up. Get a life.
 
  • #11
He wants to preserve the freedom to deny freedom.
 
  • #12
WASHINGTON — The Chinese military used a ground-based missile to hit and destroy one of its aging satellites orbiting more than 500 miles in space last week, demonstrating China's ability to target regions of space that are home to U.S. spy satellites and missile-defense systems.

The test of anti-satellite technology is believed to be the first of its kind in 20 years by any nation, and it raised concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. satellites and a possible weapons race in space.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003531646_chinasat190.html [Broken]

We have spent $ billions trying to hit an incoming nuclear weapon, you know, the old hit a bullet with a bullet quasi technology. Now China spends a fraction of that amount and shows that they can knock out our surveillance satellites as well as our GPS system. Most of our advanced weapons use GPS for targeting.

This is interesting, the Chinese can now stop us from starting a war unless we do it strictly low tech. We can however clean up the mess with Chinese made Hoover vacuum cleaners.:rolleyes: Some car owners might even have to learn how to read a road map again.

It really irks me that I can not come up with a significant list of useful products that are not made in China. We do still make Crayons and playdough, but so does China.

Perhaps American corporations have given the Chinese a bit too much of our technology. In years to come I doubt that we will see that there was any benefit in giving China our jobs and our factories so that we could maintain a faux appearance of prosperity.
 
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  • #13
Why does it worry you that China produces so much? If it didn't, I suspect you would need to pay more for it.
 
  • #14
edward said:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003531646_chinasat190.html [Broken]
This should probably be merged with https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=152038
 
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  • #15
Gokul43201 said:
This should probably be merged with https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=152038

Done. Thanks Gokul.
 
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  • #16
edward said:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003531646_chinasat190.html [Broken]

We have spent $ billions trying to hit an incoming nuclear weapon, you know, the old hit a bullet with a bullet quasi technology. Now China spends a fraction of that amount and shows that they can knock out our surveillance satellites as well as our GPS system. Most of our advanced weapons use GPS for targeting.
Not quite. They can hit our low orbiting satellites provided we maneuver them to make them easier to hit. They can't hit a GPS because GPS satellites have too high of an orbit.
 
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  • #17
BobG said:
Not quite. They can hit our low orbiting satellites provided we maneuver them to make them easier to hit. They can't hit a GPS because GPS satellites have too high of an orbit.

Bob
What would make you think that they can't go higher? If not now, at the rate they are absorbing our technology, they will in the near future.
 
  • #18
verty said:
Why does it worry you that China produces so much? If it didn't, I suspect you would need to pay more for it.

That is also what the Romans suspected. China has our industrial base in a strangle hold and everyone looks the other way because we can buy a cheap microwave oven. And it is not just that, China is using our technology for military advancement. Plus they are producing more engineers than we are.
 
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  • #19
The Chinese may be planning to put GPS satellites in orbit, and use a dirty trick they learned from the French. Apparently they’re going to make the network’s signal frequency so close to the American GPS system’s that one can’t be jammed without jamming the other.

Another dirty trick: The Chinese were allowed to participate in the development of Europe’s Galileo GPS system based on the belief that the technology could only be used for civilian purposes, but China used their involvement to develop their military system.

When will the West learn that China’s rapid tech rise is based almost entirely upon theft?
http://www.havelaptopwilltravel.com/future-chinese-gps-system-cant-be-jammed/

Now we add this:

China's decision to expand the functionality of its satellite navigation network could undermine the economics of Europe's nascent Galileo system, according to sources close to the project.

Until now, experts believed that China's "Beidou" navigation system – a 35-satellite constellation – would only be used by its armed forces. This explained China's decision to invest €200 million in Europe's €2.5 billion Galileo programme.

But things appear to have changed in Beijing. On 2 November, the country's official news agency Xinhua reported that Beidou would, from 2008, begin providing an "open" level of service, with 10-metre accuracy, in addition to its "authorised", encrypted military service.

Precisely how open this 10-metre service will be, remains unclear, but the Xinhua report implied that it would be available free to all Chinese citizens and to other countries whose governments strike a deal to use the signal in satellite navigation devices.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10472-chinas-satellite-navigation-plans-threaten-galileo.html

They use the technology of the west to build systems and products that compete with our own. They produce it cheaper, we buy from them. It has gone on that way for far too long.
 
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  • #20
edward said:
Bob
What would make you think that they can't go higher? If not now, at the rate they are absorbing our technology, they will in the near future.
You don't think it is a more than significant technological leap to go from shooting down weather satellites orbiting directly overhead at an altitude of 500 miles to taking out GPS satellites orbitting somewhere at an altitude of over 10,000 miles? Do you anticipate the US technology to remain stagnant during the time it would take to make this transition?
 
  • #21
edward said:
http://www.havelaptopwilltravel.com/future-chinese-gps-system-cant-be-jammed/

Now we add this:


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10472-chinas-satellite-navigation-plans-threaten-galileo.html

They use the technology of the west to build systems and products that compete with our own. They produce it cheaper, we buy from them. It has gone on that way for far too long.

How are either the Chinese (or the Europeans) going to make money on navigation satellites when the US makes navigation data available for free?

In fact, pressure from foreign competitors is what motivated the US to remove the 'selective availability' from the data they did provide. It would reduce the chance of other countries going through the expense of developing their own satellite constellation, meaning the US could still reinstate selective availability in an emergency (and it would have to be a huge emergency).

The remote chance of having navigation data taken away might provide some room for someone to provide guaranteed navigation data for a fee, but it seems to me that relying on a Chinese nav constellation built for the military would have the same risk as relying on a US nav constellation built for the military. Either one could be taken away.
 
  • #22
edward said:
Bob
What would make you think that they can't go higher? If not now, at the rate they are absorbing our technology, they will in the near future.

I'm sure they can go higher.

The problem with hitting high altitude satellites is that it's hard to launch directly into a high altitude orbit. The typical method is to launch into a low orbiting parking orbit and then boosting the satellite into the target orbit (via a Hohman Transfer, for example).

The problem is further complicated by needing to launch your ASAT into an orbit that matches the target satellite. That means a major satellite maneuver after launch or waiting the until the orbital plane of the target satellite happens to be directly over the launch site. Ground launched ASATs leave a lot to be desired. For high altitude satellites, you have to boost your satellite anyway, so you might as well combine the orbit plane change with your orbit boost, but that still puts some strict constraints on when you boost your satellite. You have to time your maneuvers so you wind up in the same orbit plane and wind up intersecting the target satellite and, unless you're going to leave a whole lot to faith, you have to be able to see your own ASAT to control it.

Rather than developing or absorbing technology, the only way to streamline the process is to discover or absorb some new laws of physics.

If a foreign country can detect your satellite launches and has a more effective method of destroying low orbiting satellites than you, then your ASAT might never live long enough to reach the higher orbit. You have to make sure your enemy doesn't know the satellite you just launched is an ASAT until it's too late to do anything about it.

Which gets back to the original post. A treaty banning ASATs isn't worth much unless you can verify the other country doesn't have ASATs. About the only reliable verification is to allow the other country to inspect every satellite prior to launch and that's not going to happen. Without verification, any treaty is really just saying 'Let's trust each other'. If you really trust the other country, you could do that without a treaty.
 
  • #23
BobG said:
How are either the Chinese (or the Europeans) going to make money on navigation satellites when the US makes navigation data available for free?

In fact, pressure from foreign competitors is what motivated the US to remove the 'selective availability' from the data they did provide. It would reduce the chance of other countries going through the expense of developing their own satellite constellation, meaning the US could still reinstate selective availability in an emergency (and it would have to be a huge emergency).

The remote chance of having navigation data taken away might provide some room for someone to provide guaranteed navigation data for a fee, but it seems to me that relying on a Chinese nav constellation built for the military would have the same risk as relying on a US nav constellation built for the military. Either one could be taken away.

The free data is irrelevant ,I am talking about the Chinese marketing the hardware for GPS. ie hand held and automotive. As a matter of fact they already are. edit: And when their systems start selling for a fraction the cost of ours they will have taken over yet another US industry.

http://www.made-in-china.com/produc...code=0&word=GPS&comProvince=nolimit&x=26&y=15
 
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  • #24
edward said:
The free data is irrelevant ,I am talking about the Chinese marketing the hardware for GPS. ie hand held and automotive. As a matter of fact they already are. edit: And when their systems start selling for a fraction the cost of ours they will have taken over yet another US industry.

http://www.made-in-china.com/produc...code=0&word=GPS&comProvince=nolimit&x=26&y=15
So what does that have to do with China setting up a GPS-like satellite navigation system? :confused: That article makes no sense and the idea of China (or Europe) spending billions to create a product to sell against a competitor who provides a better one for free doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.
 
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  • #25
russ_watters said:
So what does that have to do with China setting up a GPS-like satellite navigation system? :confused: That article makes no sense and the idea of China (or Europe) spending billions to create a product to sell against a competitor who provides a better one for free doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.


Once again since you apparently missed it, I was primarily talking about the hand held and automotive units. That is where the money is in GPS. The process of setting up their own systems is currently underway in both Europe and China. The Chinese hold an interest in the European system that gives them access to their data.

The Chinese are already making cheaper GPS devices that use our satellite free data feed. Yet they are adding another layer of control by deploying their own satellites. Essentially in a few years they will have taken over yet another US industry. If that is OK with you that is just fine and dandy.:rolleyes:

From a military point of view, if the Chinese system uses a radio frequency close enough to ours, we will not be able to jam theirs without jamming our own, and possibly the Galileo system too. As I look again at the situation it seems that there would be no need for them to want to destroy our GPS satellites., which relates back to the OP.
 
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  • #26
I got to admit , the politicians are right on top of this China trade thingy.:wink:

Last November, the Bush administration announced plans to cap imports of Chinese brassieres, nightgowns, and knit fabrics. Days later, China canceled plans, announced just weeks earlier, to make big purchases of U.S. agricultural products. Some worry the heated rhetoric and this tit-for-tat may mark the beginning of a trade war.

http://www.freetrade.org/node/294
 
  • #27
edward said:
Once again since you apparently missed it, I was primarily talking about the hand held and automotive units. That is where the money is in GPS. The process of setting up their own systems is currently underway in both Europe and China. The Chinese hold an interest in the European system that gives them access to their data.
I understand all of that. My question is why build their own system? To which you say...
Yet they are adding another layer of control by deploying their own satellites. Essentially in a few years they will have taken over yet another US industry. If that is OK with you that is just fine and dandy.:rolleyes:
Control of what? Why would someone use China's satellite constellation when they can use ours? And if they choose to do that, why should we care? If you tell me why it should bother me, maybe I'll agree, but you haven't made any point I can see...
 
  • #28
russ_watters said:
I understand all of that. My question is why build their own system? To which you say... Control of what? Why would someone use China's satellite constellation when they can use ours? And if they choose to do that, why should we care? If you tell me why it should bother me, maybe I'll agree, but you haven't made any point I can see...

It is pretty simple Russ. Their GPS units will be cheaper to purchase, but will not work on American satellite data.

They are also attemting to move heavily into the computer industry, in so much as making systems that will only be capable of using their technology.

But as China moves to expand its own technology industries, its Government has taken unusual steps that are leading to new trade tensions, say Silicon Valley executives, trade experts and US Government officials.

These measures include efforts to develop Chinese software standards for wireless computers, the introduction of exclusive technology formats for future generations of cell phones and DVD players, and even tax policies that favour computer chips made in China and sold in the Chinese market.

"The issue here is what path will China take as it develops its technology industries," says Bruce Mehlman, a former technology policy official in the Bush Administration who is executive director of the Computer Systems Policy Project, an industry group. "Will it take a more global, market-based approach, or will it try to change the rules and disadvantage others?"

Concerns over China's strategies intensified last month when it announced that foreign computer and chip makers that want to sell certain kinds of wireless devices in China would have to use Chinese encryption software and co-produce their goods with a designated list of Chinese companies.

Foreign computer makers have protested. In addition to their concern about the separate standard, they are worried about the possible loss of intellectual property if they are forced to work with Chinese companies that could become rivals.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/14/1073877901469.html

The Chinese companies have become rivals and in nearly every facet of manufacturing. The Chinese incursion into American industry and technology has happened one little step at a time. Twenty years ago we wouldn't even sell them computers, now they are making computers for sale in the USA. Unless we can somehow get over this, "they can make it cheaper" mentality, at some point they will be able to set their own rules in the global market.

Personally I see the Chinese waging a silent war on American industry.
 
  • #29
edward said:
It is pretty simple Russ. Their GPS units will be cheaper to purchase, but will not work on American satellite data.
So what? As you showed us, the Chinese already make cheaper ones that do work with our satellites. If you think Chinese competition in retail products in general is a bad thing, ok, but what's the difference whether they work with ours or not? (And for now I'm assuming that their system will be just as good as ours...we are, after all, on our 3rd generation of it)
The Chinese companies have become rivals and in nearly every facet of manufacturing. The Chinese incursion into American industry and technology has happened one little step at a time. Twenty years ago we wouldn't even sell them computers, now they are making computers for sale in the USA. Unless we can somehow get over this, "they can make it cheaper" mentality, at some point they will be able to set their own rules in the global market.

Personally I see the Chinese waging a silent war on American industry.
Ok, fine, and there are some legitimate concerns there, but none of that has anything to do with wheter or not it is a good or bad idea (for them or us) for them to lauch a constellation of gps-like satellites.
 
  • #30
russ_watters said:
So what? As you showed us, the Chinese already make cheaper ones that do work with our satellites. If you think Chinese competition in retail products in general is a bad thing, ok, but what's the difference whether they work with ours or not?

Sooner or later push will come to shove with the Chinese. If they have cornered the market on GPS hardware as they have with other electronic devices, they can simply quit making the units that are compatible with the American system. They will of course keep selling the units that are only compatible with their own satellites.

If they go to the extreme they can do the same with any technology that they have monopolized. If they quit making ours, then we have to buy theirs. We will have no choice. When our factories are closed and gone they are gone forever.

BTW their latest entry into the US market is cheap toilets. If you need an inexpensive porcelain convenience, AKA crapper visit Costco.:wink:
 
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  • #31
An update on the aftereffects of China's ASAT test from CelestTrak.

1,337 pieces have been cataloged as of Apr 5. 44 of those pieces will re-enter the atmosphere within 10 years. Most will orbit for centuries. Since the test, there's routinely been more than 2500 close approaches (within 5 km) of space debris per week.

This stands to become one of the dumbest stunts staged in space history (Westford Needles back in the 60's was pretty dumb, as well - I can't think of any others that are comparable).

CelestTrak has some interesting data and some interesting scenarios. You have to download AGI's viewer software to watch the scenarios, but the viewer software is free.
 
  • #32
hopefully if there is ever a war in space where opposing sides try to destroy all the other side's satellite, we don't end up with such a thick debris field around Earth that it becomes too difficult to put satellites in orbit again. i bet a trash collection project for orbital debris would be extremely expensive.
 
  • #33
Then again the US has a huge military advantage over China in terms of utilising space and the modern military parlance lays great emphasis on 3 dimendional warfare so perhaps the Chinese intention was to show the US it can severely limit 1 dimension by effectively mining space using the US's own satellites as mine material.

So although a severe nuisance in terms of making the peaceful exploration of space more difficult militarily it may not be so stupid.
 

What exactly happened when China destroyed a satellite with a missile?

In 2007, China successfully destroyed one of its own weather satellites using a ground-launched missile. This was the first known instance of an anti-satellite weapon test in space.

Why did China destroy a satellite with a missile?

The Chinese government claimed that the test was conducted for scientific and defensive purposes, to demonstrate its ability to protect its own satellites from potential attacks.

What are the potential consequences of China's satellite destruction?

One major consequence of this event is the creation of a large amount of space debris, which poses a threat to other satellites and spacecraft in orbit. This also sparked international concerns about the militarization of space.

Has China conducted any other anti-satellite weapon tests?

Yes, China has reportedly conducted several other anti-satellite weapon tests, including one in 2013 where a missile was launched from a ship and destroyed a target satellite in low Earth orbit.

What is the current status of China's anti-satellite weapon capabilities?

China is believed to have developed and deployed various anti-satellite weapons, including ground-launched missiles, directed energy weapons, and cyber attacks. However, the exact capabilities and readiness of these weapons are not publicly known.

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