Why India Needs to Demonstrate Anti Satellite (ASAT) Capability - Publicly

India Needs to Demonstrate ASAT Capability

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 76.4%
  • No

    Votes: 12 21.8%
  • Too Late

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • Total voters
    55
I was answering this question @Shashank . I may not be a good lecturer in terms of explaining ability but I was saying that mini satellites can't be maneuvered from their orbit with pin point accuracy.

It is not a question of give up or not. I too had such ideas a few years back. But when I researched I found that it was impractical and no one has tried it yet. Even the satellite launch doesn't yield 100% accuracy in placing satellites in orbit and the satellite has internal fuel to do its own maneuvering to adjust the orbit. If you can find any example of this, please tell.
Just read your statement prior to my reply. You are attributing that statement to me.

For a moment let's presume I really made that statement. How tough it is to have sone kind of steering mechanism with small mini engines into those conceptual satelite. If something is already in orbital space it won't require huge power like a lifting rocket or missile needs. It needs very small power to change directions.
 
Though not related to India but is relevent.

Russia Claims It Now Has Lasers To Shoot Satellites

Russian defense companies have created a plane-mounted laser that can hit satellites — at least according to an anonymous source quoted by Russian news agency Interfax. On Saturday, an Interfax report cited the source as saying that weapons maker Almaz-Antey has “completed work on the anti-satellite complex,” which includes the laser and associated ground control gear.

Independent and Western observers have not yet verified the claim. But the Russian program does exist. Last April, Almaz-Antey general designer Pavel Sozinov told Russian news agency Ria Novosti that Russian leadership had ordered the company to develop weapons that could interfere electronically with or achieve “direct functional destruction of those elements deployed in orbit.”

The program builds off the Soviet-era Beriev A-60, a gas laser fitted inside a heavily modified Ilyushin Il-76MD cargo plane. The effort also bears some resemblance to the Soviets’ 1984 Kontakt 30P6 program, which sought to modify a MiG-31D to draw targeting data from the Krona-N space and satellite observation complex and shoot down an enemy satellite with a 79M6 Kontakt missile.

The new laser will be fitted aboard a brand-new, as-yet-unnamed aircraft, as part of a new anti-satellite “complex” that will likely involve ground and radar elements as well, Interfax reported.

Samuel Bendett, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, said, “Russia considers American satellites a significant threat when it comes to potential confrontation, and is actively working to counter U.S. technologies in space, such as possible electronic warfare technologies that can target hundreds of kilometers up. The developments in laser technologies are in step with U.S. and Chinese advancements in this area.”

U.S. defense officials are increasingly concerned about anti-satellite weapons. “We assess that Russia and China perceive a need to offset any U.S. military advantage derived from military, civil, or commercial space systems and are increasingly considering attacks against satellite systems as part of their future warfare doctrine,” Dan Coats, who directs the director of the Office of National Intelligence, told lawmakers last May.

A Joint Staff report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in January, predicted that Russia or China would be able to destroy U.S. satellites within a decade.

Russia Claims It Now Has Lasers To Shoot Satellites