A nuclear-armed satellite that orbits the Earth and is intended to shoot other satellites out of space. Western countries fear this. According to a US government official, a test model of the space weapon is even already flying around the globe.
LOOK. This is what the US deputy minister said about the Russian satellite:
On February 14, all the alarm bells went off. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives announced that he had shared information with all members about ‘a serious threat to national security’. The nature of the threat did not follow much later: Russia was said to be working on a nuclear weapon in space, with which it could attack enemy satellites. The US is taking the risk seriously, and is immediately informing allies of what it knows.
Russian veto
Fast forward to April 24: an American and Japanese resolution is being voted on at the UN Security Council, calling on UN member states not to develop nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction that will be placed in orbit around the earth. 13 countries voted in favor of the resolution, China abstained, and Russia vetoed it. Exactly what the Americans feared: before the vote they already suggested that Russia may have something to hide if it did not agree to the resolution.
According to the US, the threat is real. Mallory Stewart, Deputy Minister of State for Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability, revealed in a conversation with the Center for Strategic Studies (CSIS) think tank that something is already flying around the Earth that is part of the development of that weapon. “Russia claims their satellite is for scientific purposes. But the orbit is in an area where no other spacecraft flies. That’s already a bit strange,” Stewart suggests. The satellite flies in a low orbit around the Earth, known as LEO (or Low Earth Orbit). That is the area up to 2,000 kilometers altitude, where virtually all space activity is located today. Only the space missions in the Apollo program (which resulted in the moon landings) took place outside the LEO.
“The orbit in which the satellite is located also has higher radiation than is normal in lower circles around the Earth, but the radiation is not high enough to test whether electronics are resistant to radiation. (…) We are not talking about a weapon used to attack people or cause structural damage on Earth. According to our analysts, a detonation of a nuclear weapon in that orbit could render the lower circles around the Earth unusable for a time,” she continues.
WATCH ALSO. US sharply for Russia after veto of UN resolution
Economic damage immense
John Plumb, Deputy Minister of Defense responsible for Space Policy, made the same analysis a few days earlier. Before the House Intelligence Committee, he stated that ignition of such a nuclear weapon in space would have major consequences for other satellites. “Satellites that are not resistant to nuclear radiation, i.e. most satellites, can be damaged. Some will not survive a direct impact of the explosion, others will be damaged over a longer period of time.” This of course has a direct impact on Earth, since satellites are used for, for example, internet, telephony, navigation or weather forecasts.
Virtually every satellite in space today could be threatened by that Russian space weapon. In that scenario, the economic damage on earth is immense. And not just in the short term: in that case the LEO will be littered with space junk, making it impossible to put new satellites into orbit around the Earth. Due to the immense speeds in space, a splash of paint can make a hole in an astronaut’s suit; thousands of metal fragments from shattered satellites therefore pose a real problem.
No further details about the weapon’s development are given by Stewart or Plumb. The latter acknowledged that there is “no immediate threat that we should fear now”, but is still concerned about the developments. Russia is also one of the countries that signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which stipulates that countries may not put nuclear weapons into orbit around the Earth or place them on celestial bodies.
Experiments with nuclear weapons in space were carried out as early as the 1960s. Starfish Prime, a nuclear test by the Americans at an altitude of 400 km, caused a large electromagnetic pulse, causing electrical devices in the area to no longer work properly. 300 traffic lights in Hawaii failed, burglar alarms went off and telephone calls between the islands were no longer possible. In the months after the ignition, at least 6 satellites malfunctioned due to nuclear radiation that remained floating in space. A year later, the US and Russia signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban, which applied to all above-ground nuclear weapons testing.
New York Times: US informs allies about Russian space nuclear weapon
After rumors Russian nuclear missile against satellites: Moscow blocks UN resolution against arms race in space
WATCH ALSO. Putin emphasizes that he does not want to attack other countries: “It goes against common sense to get involved in a world war”
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Tags: Test model Russian nuclear weapon flying orbit Earth warns Deputy Minister News
