Part 1 of 2 Parts
During the Cold War, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction via nuclear holocaust was practiced to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. Now there is a new possibility of mutually assured destruction with respect to the cloud of satellites around the Earth. Brad Townsend is a space strategy and policy adviser to the leadership of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. He warned them about anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) at a virtual symposium sponsored by the University of Washington’s Space Policy and Research Center.
Townsend said that China and Russia are already working on ways to disable the satellites of other nations in the event of a future war. One of the big problems with such ASATs is that they may unintentionally trigger a catastrophic chain reaction of out-of-control orbital debris. This type of event is called the Kessler syndrome. It has been exploited in the scripts of movies such as “Gravity” and novels such as “SevenEves.” Unfortunately, the Kessler syndrome is not just science fiction.
Townsend said, “If nations start arming with ASATs as a way to deter other nations from attacking their orbital assets, they risk creating a new form of mutually assured destruction.” He had hoped that the danger of setting off the Kessler syndrome would have caused the nations with space programs to back away from the development of ASATs. “But as India’s 2019 test demonstrated, it hasn’t.”
Townsend speculated on what could be done about the situation. One possible solution would be to create an international system for sharing information about satellites in Earth orbit which could serve an important role in preventing satellite collisions. Another possible solution would be to encourage the creation of systems that would be able to move satellites to orbital graveyards once they are no longer operational. Northrop Grumman’s MEV-1 satellite tug is an example of such a system.
In order to prevent an intentional attack on satellites, Townsend suggested that the nations of the world would have to agree to ban the use of ASAT weapons just like the use of biological weapons has been banned. He said, “The time is right for de-escalation efforts before we have that future event.”
In past international discussions about the development of space weapons, the U.S. has favored an approach know as transparency and confidence-building measures, or TCBM. On the other hand, China and Russia have proposed their own treaty on the prevention of putting weapons in outer space, PPWT. Each side has rejected the proposals of the other side.
Matthew Stubbs is an expert in space law at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He said that there is “considerable pessimism about the prospects of multilateral rulemaking for space at the moment.” He went on to said that the most probably scenario for dealing with the issue would involve a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements. NASA is working on such an approach with the Artemis Accords which are a set of agreements that are expected to govern future lunar exploration.
Please read Part 2 next