Space Security Index

satellites in LEO. 43 Japan is an important international partner of the U.S. on ballistic missile
defense and has its own Aegis system. In 2007, a Japanese destroyer successfully performed a
sea-based midcourse intercept against an exoatmospheric ballistic missile target. 44
Notably, in 2008, the U.S. recongured an anti-missile system to destroy failing satellite
USA-193 as it deorbited. Modications were made to enable a Raytheon SM-3 missile to
destroy the satellite before it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. While this event demonstrated
the ability to recongure a missile to be used against a satellite, the U.S. has stressed that it
was a “one-time event,” 45 not part of an ASAT development and testing program.
Russia developed an anti-satellite system called the Co-Orbital ASAT system, designed
to launch conventional explosives into orbit near a target satellite via a missile, which
maneuvers toward the satellite, then dives at it and explodes. 46 Russia has continued to
observe a voluntary moratorium on anti-satellite tests since its last test in 1982. e precise
status of its system is not known, but it is most likely no longer operational. 47 Russia has
also developed a long-range (350-km) exoatmospheric missile, the Gorgon, for its A-135
anti-ballistic missile system. 48
China has developed an advanced kinetic anti-satellite capability, demonstrated by its
intentional destruction of a Chinese weather satellite in 2007 using what is believed to be a
vehicle based on a medium-range, two-stage, solid-fuelled ballistic missile, possibly the DF-
21. 49 However, China called the event an experiment, not an anti-satellite test. 50 China is
not believed to currently have enough interceptors for a full ASAT system that could destroy
multiple satellites in LEO, although it could produce more. 51 e U.K., Israel, and India
have also explored techniques for exoatmospheric interceptors. 52
Nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon detonated in space generates an electromagnetic pulse that is highly
destructive to unprotected satellites, as demonstrated by the U.S. 1962 Starsh Prime test. 53
Given the current global dependence on satellites, such an attack could have a devastating
and wide-ranging impact on society. As noted above, both the U.S. and USSR explored
nuclear-tipped missiles as missile defense interceptors and ASAT weapons. e Russian
Galosh ballistic missile defense system surrounding Moscow employed nuclear-tipped
interceptors from the early 1960s through the 1990s. 54
China, the member states of the European Space Agency, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Russia,
and the U.S. possess space launch vehicles capable of placing a nuclear warhead in orbit,
although the placement of weapons of mass destruction in outer space is specically
prohibited by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (see chapter 3). North Korea and Pakistan are
among the 18 states that possess medium-range ballistic missiles that could launch a mass
equivalent to a nuclear warhead into LEO without achieving orbit.
Eight states are known to possess nuclear weapons: China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan,
Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. North Korea has an ongoing nuclear program and attempted
to detonate a nuclear device in 2006. 55 Iran reportedly ended its nuclear weapons program
in 2003, but the International Atomic Energy Agency continues to investigate potentially
illegal uranium enrichment activities. 56
Space Systems Negation
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