Here's a key word here. Debris. Toss debris in front of a satellite. You kill the satellite. You also now have bits of debris and former satellite flying off in different directions. Debris that can now kill off an important satellite of ours. We can confuse and blind an enemy without having to make the problem of space debris worse for us.
People have thought of that of course. The debris can be inconsequential, the risk of collateral damage mitigated. The item the target flies into can be as simple as a "net" which entangles and unbalances/destabilizes the target with minimal debris. And technology has advanced to other concepts besides the almost 30 year old approach of placing debris in a targets path.
Yeah, and for the most part they're still concepts. The ASM-135 is the current weapon system and chucks debris in front of an approaching satellite. The British Royal Airforce's T-2 Titan ASM uses ball bearings enshrouding the explosives charge. We're still using Kinetic Kill. The YAL-1 program which was a megawatt laser system mounted on a 747 was designed to possibly be anti-satellite as an additional possibility, but the project was canceled and the aircraft that it was mounted on was broken apart in 2014. It needed a 747 because the system was that darn big. Very large and very obvious if they made it a satellite. The Current LaWS system the Navy just put in on the USS Ponce needs a generator dedicated to its needs. Again...very large to put into space. Very large and very expensive.
ASM-135 is 30 year old technology. YAL-1 is to operate from an aircraft to shoot ballistic missiles. That's very different from operating in space against another in-space vehicle, particularly when the target does not have to be destroyed just disabled or made inoperable for a limited time. And right now there are very small laser based counter measures units designed to disable/confuse anti-air missiles, installed on operational aircraft and helicopters and optional on commercial airliners - and that's a much harder task than satellite-to-satellite. Technology has not stagnated for 30 years.
Well, a space based weapon also doesn't have to really shoot anything. It just has to have the capabilities to mess with our satellites apparently. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/29/spa...-emerge-as-rapidly-growing-threats-to-us.html U.S. satellites may be vulnerable to attacks that could make our whole way of fighting war riskier, according to experts. "Every major space-faring nation that can track a satellite and launch into outer space has the means to mess up a satellite," said Michael Krepon, a space security expert and co-founder of the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, D.C. A space arms race of sorts is underway with weapons under development or in the arsenals of China, Russia and the U.S. Space weapons include satellite jammers, lasers and high-power microwave gun systems. "My guess is that our capabilities to carry out a war in space are a lot better than the Chinese and Russians," said Krepon. According to analysts, space weapons could be used to compromise navigation, surveillance, communications and other functions in a wartime scenario or national emergency. "Our military space systems are critical to the way we fight war today," said Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank. The U.S. uses satellite technology in advanced weapons systems aboard aircraft and warships to carry out precision-strike capabilities. At the same time, infrared satellites provide key intelligence systems used as part of the early warning system to track and detect nuclear warheads and other threats to the homeland. "Not surprisingly, nations are now actively testing methods to deny us continued use of space services during conflict," said retired Air Force Gen. William Shelton, the former commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, in testimony Wednesday to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. The subcommittee heard about the role space-based capabilities play in emergencies and the threats to U.S. space systems. Experts say the biggest threats seen today are non-kinetic threats such as jamming of satellite-based capabilities such as GPS and communications. And the threat isn't limited to space-faring countries since the satellite jamming technology is relatively inexpensive. North Korea has previously used ground jammers, impacting both military and civilian aircraft and ships. Harrison said there's evidence that insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq also have used jamming. As for lasers, they can blind imagery satellites and high-power microwave guns could knock out circuitry on targeted satellites. Some have speculated the U.S. Air Force might be using the Boeing-built X-37B unmanned military space plane to test space weapons. The military has always denied the small robotic craft is a kind of space weapon. Boeing declined comment for this story and referred questions to the Air Force. "The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space, and operating experiments, which can be returned to, and examined on Earth," said an Air Force spokesperson. Last week, Navy Vice Admiral Charles Richard, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, warned in a speech at a CSIS space security conference about offensive space capabilities and weapons being developed by China and Russia. "While we're not at war in space, I don't think we can say we are exactly at peace either," the admiral said. "With rapidly growing threats to our space systems, as well as the threat of a degraded space environment, we must prepare for a conflict that extends into space."
