Anti-satellite weapon

Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic or tactical purposes. Although no ASAT system has yet been used in warfare, a few countries (China, India, Russia, and the United States) have successfully shot down their own satellites to demonstrate their ASAT capabilities in a show of force. ASATs have also been used to remove decommissioned satellites.

ASAT roles include: defensive measures against an adversary's space-based and nuclear weapons, a force multiplier for a nuclear first strike, a countermeasure against an adversary's anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM), an asymmetric counter to a technologically superior adversary, and a counter-value weapon.

Use of ASATs generates space debris, which can collide with other satellites and generate more space debris. A cascading multiplication of space debris could cause Earth to suffer from Kessler syndrome.

History

The first anti-satellite technologies were developed during the cold war, with the Soviet Istrebitel Sputnikov programme and the American SAINT. Since, other states have also developed or researched ASAT capabilities.

Soviet Union

The specter of bombardment satellites and the reality of ballistic missiles stimulated the Soviet Union to explore defensive space weapons. The Soviet Union first tested the Polyot interceptor in 1963 and successfully tested an orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in 1968. According to some accounts, Sergei Korolev started some work on the concept in 1956 at his OKB-1, while others attribute the work to Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 around 1959.