In early 2008, when the United States Navy used a missile launched from
a guided missile cruiser to shoot down a failed American reconnaissance
satellite, many people in the United States and around the world
interpreted it as a response to the Chinese test of an anti-satellite
(ASAT) weapon a year before. Although the US government went out of its
way to assert that the action was entirely prompted by concern that
toxins in the satellite could reach a populated area, it is certain
that, during the weeks leading up to the shootdown, officials in the
government debated the political aspects of the act, asking how it
would be interpreted by other nations. Considering that both Russia and
India have since stated their intentions to acquire ASAT capability, it
is possible that the Chinese and American actions have had unintended
political consequences. The only question remains whether or not
political considerations actually contributed to the American
decision to shoot down the satellite. Was the Bush Administration
trying to send a message to the Chinese and the world? Perhaps someday
an enterprising researcher will obtain declassified documents of the
debate within the Bush administration and shed some public light on the
calculations.
American interest in ASATs in the 1970s was driven in large part by a
desire to counter Soviet ocean reconnaissance satellites. (credit: USAF)
It is certain that such a debate occurred because we know of periodic
debates throughout the space age about the utility of the United States
acquiring an ASAT capability. Over the fifty-plus years of the space
age the United States has had an inconsistent—some might even say
schizophrenic—attitude toward developing ASATs. In fact, for much of
that time the United States has lacked an ASAT capability. Sometimes
this was due to a policy decision to pursue arms control rather than
space weaponization. (See: “Blunt arrows: the limited utility of ASATs”,
The Space Review, June 6, 2005) Hovering over all of these decisions
was the fact that ASATs have rather limited utility; they have rarely
been viewed as magic bullets.
Some recently declassified documents from the mid-1970s have shed
some new light on the American pursuit of ASAT weapons. What the
documents indicate is that in the last year of the Ford Administration,
the United States government determined that Soviet satellite
capabilities had changed sufficiently to justify the development of a
limited American ASAT capability. The purpose for this new ASAT was to
destroy Soviet ocean surveillance satellites, including their
nuclear-powered radar ocean surveillance satellites known as RORSATs.
The United States had possessed an ASAT capability from the
mid-1960s until 1972. Known as Program 437, it used spacecraft carrying
1.4 megaton nuclear bombs and launched atop Thor intermediate range
ballistic missiles from an island in the Pacific Ocean. Program 437 was
an expensive and limited capability weapon, and after a storm damaged
the launch pad, the Air Force shut the program down. At the time this
debate took place within the Ford Administration, the United States had
been without an ASAT capability for several years. Meanwhile, the
Soviet Union was actively testing their own system.
A little light on the ASAT debate
In late 2009, the State Department declassified a handful of documents from 1976 concerning a study led by the National Security Council (NSC) on several issues related to the vulnerability of American satellites to attack and the need for a new U.S. ASAT capability. The documents are contained in the most recently published version of a State Department series known as Foreign Relations of the United States (or FRUS for short). The recent FRUS volume includes a chapter on space.
The existence of this 1976 discussion is not news. Paul Stares wrote about it in his excellent 1985 book on ASAT history, The Militarization of Outer Space. Stares based his discussion of the NSC study on several interviews he conducted with anonymous former NSC staffers. The account in Stares’ book differs slightly in tone with the newly declassified documents. Whereas Stares emphasized the international and arms control aspects of the NSC discussion, as well as the focus on American satellite vulnerability, the documents indicate that the NSC actually became concerned about a newly-emergent Soviet threat that required an American ASAT capability.
During this time period the Soviet Union was conducting tests of its co-orbital ASAT, which launched into orbit, moved near its target, and then exploded a conventional fragmentation warhead, like taking down a pigeon with a shotgun blast. The Soviets continued testing their ASAT despite the fact that in 1972 they had signed an arms control treaty with the United States agreeing to not interfere with “national technical means of verification”—i.e. American reconnaissance satellites.
One of the FRUS documents, from June 1973, was a memo from Kenneth Rush, Deputy Secretary of State, to the acting Secretary of Defense. Rush referred to a recent DoD study of US responses to Soviet ASAT activities which called for a study of US space system vulnerability and development of a plan for an anti-satellite technology program. Although the Program 437 ASAT had not been completely shut down at the time Rush wrote his memo, it was clearly non-operational and in the process of dismantling. Rush noted that any new American efforts to start an ASAT program would likely become public and that there would be possible negative consequences. In fact, a year earlier, when Rush had been Deputy Secretary of Defense, he had signed an order declaring ASAT research to be classified. Clearly he did not think that it could stay secret. Now Rush recommended a high level interagency review of the issues involved concerning ASAT research.
A test of an ASAT launched from an F-15. (credit: USAF)
Smashing satellites
In early November 1976, the NSC panel produced its final report on the need for an American ASAT weapon.
The panel concluded that Soviet space capabilities had changed from
general intelligence collection to direct support of military forces,
and that their new capabilities, particularly to use satellites to
target American warships at sea, justified the development of an
American ASAT. The panel stated that “there is an urgent need for the
U.S. to have the capability to destroy a few militarily important
Soviet space systems in crisis situations or in war.”
In particular, the Soviets had developed electronic ocean
surveillance satellites (commonly referred to as EORSATs) and radar
ocean surveillance satellites (RORSATs) that could provide the
locations of American warships to Soviet surface ships and submarines.
The Soviet vessels also had acquired long-range missiles and “this
long-range missile threat to the U.S. surface Navy is of great concern
and, if not countered, could bring the viability of the surface fleet
into serious question.”
The Soviet satellites were few in number and at low altitude, and if
they were destroyed the Soviets would be forced to find American ships
using submarines and aircraft, which were limited and could be
countered by the Navy.
In addition to the Soviet ocean surveillance threat, the Soviets
also operated low altitude communications satellites and
photo-reconnaissance satellites that could also be targets. But these
were lower priority than the EORSATs and RORSATs.
The report noted that a previous Air Force Aerospace Defense Command
requirement for US ASAT capability called for the ability to destroy 20
low altitude, 5 intermediate altitude, and 15 high altitude satellites
within 24 hours. This requirement to wipe out 40 satellites in a range
of orbits and a short period of time “would result in a long
development program and a high cost operational system,” according to
one official.
The NSC panel recommended much less stringent requirements. They
suggested that the ASAT be capable of limited operations by the end of
1980, be directed at low altitude satellites, have a response time of
about a day from Soviet launch until US intercept, and be capable of
making 6–10 intercepts in a week.
The panel’s final presentation was made to Ford in December 1976, by
which time it was clear that Jimmy Carter would replace Ford as
president. According to Stares, Ford was apparently so alarmed by what
he regarded as the Department of Defense’s lackadaisical attitude
toward developing an ASAT that he directed that the US seek to develop
an ASAT capability as recommended by the NSC. This resulted in National
Security Decision Memorandum 345, signed on January 18, 1977. NSDM
committed the nation to developing a new ASAT.
But two days later Ford was out and Carter was in and it was up to the
new president to decide what to do. Carter pursued a two-track policy:
negotiations with the Soviet Union over an ASAT ban, and development of
a new ASAT. Eventually, ASAT arms control failed, and the research
program transitioned to a weapons system and was tested during the
subsequent Reagan administration. The system involved a “miniature
homing vehicle” mounted atop a missile fired from an F-15 aircraft.
After several tests, a contentious fight in Congress, and a massive
increase in costs, the Reagan Administration shelved the system.
Although these newly declassified documents do not fundamentally change
our understanding of this period, they do appear to change the
interpretation of the debate that occurred during the Ford
administration. Although the vulnerability of American satellites to
Soviet attack was important, and punctuated each time the Soviet Union
blasted one of their orbiting satellites with their new weapon, the NSC
study was emphatic that the reason the United States needed an ASAT was
not to trade it away in an arms control agreement, but to attack Soviet
ocean surveillance satellites.(Source)
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