Vice President Harris told members of the Space Force at Vandenberg Air Force Base that the United States would no longer conduct “direct ascent” testing of anti-satellite weapons.
“These tests are dangerous and we will not conduct them,” Harris said.
By halting the testing of ASAT weapons, the Biden administration hopes they will lead the way to an international ban on such tests and develop “new norms for responsible behavior in space,” she said.
While it’s no doubt a positive step toward making outer space safer, we might question why this was done unilaterally and in the middle of a conflict in Ukraine, where the United States may be drawn into battle at any time.
“The destruction of space objects through direct-ascent ASAT missile testing is reckless and irresponsible,” the statement read. “The long-lived debris created by these tests now threaten satellites and other space objects that are vital to all nations’ security, economic, and scientific interests, and increases risk to astronauts in space. Overall, these tests jeopardize the long-term sustainability of outer space and imperil the exploration and use of space by all nations.”
It should be noted that while there are millions of pieces of space debris and space junk orbiting the earth, the chances of astronauts or the ISS colliding with any of them are still remote.
But unless something is done soon, launching a satellite — or people — into space will become a crapshoot.
The White House’s fact sheet on the ban also references Russia’s November 2021 test and the one that China conducted in 2007.
The Russian military “recklessly conducted” a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test, which successfully hit a Russian satellite that had been in orbit for nearly 40 years, State Department spokesman Ned Price said days later, adding it sent more than “1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten the interests of all nations,” according to Price, who also said the debris posed a threat to the International Space Station.
The Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) currently tracks 27,000 pieces of space junk. That’s a tiny fraction of what’s out there circling the earth. Eventually, most of it will fall to earth. And that presents another problem.
Just yesterday, India announced that they are examining debris that may be part of a Chinese Long March missile.
Space-watcher Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics tweeted April 4 that the ring was consistent with a piece of China’s Long March 3B rocket. In another tweet, McDowell said the crashed objects could be parts of the third stage of Long March 3B serial number Y77, which was launched in February 2021. China remains silent on the reentry incident.
“They [two ISRO scientists] took photographs and videos of the objects and interacted with the Ladbori village people about the objects,” Suresh Chopne, an NGO activist who observed the investigation, told local English newspaper Hindustan Times. “As per their discussions, these objects are believed to be space debris from a Chinese Long March rocket. What type of fuel was there in the cylinders can be said only after it is checked by the laboratory.”
The debris fell smack dab in the middle of a village. But this isn’t unusual for China. Every other nation takes great care in trying to determine where their space junk may fall to earth. The U.S. deliberately targets rocket boosters, other missile stages, and larger parts of a launch vehicle to come to earth in the ocean or far from a population center.
Related: Russian Space Chief Threatens to Crash International Space Station into U.S. or Europe
So it’s a big deal that the United States is stopping the testing of an anti-satellite weapon that could add to the space junk already orbiting the earth. But there is a downside, as House Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, Mike Rogers, reminds us.
“This unilateral decision mistakes activity for achievement,” he said. “It does nothing to deter our adversaries in an escalating warfighting domain. In fact, I’m worried it will have the opposite effect. Both the Russians and the CCP have demonstrated their anti-satellite capabilities — it would be naive to think they don’t intend to use them against our assets.”
Knocking down a surveillance satellite would be a declaration of war and all sides know this. But Rogers is right: both Russia and China already have this capability, and it would have been better to negotiate a ban on the weapons rather than trust that our two enemies will simply follow our example.
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