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posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 24 2020, @10:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the star-wars dept.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53518238

The US State Department described the recent use of "what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry" as concerning.

Russia's defence ministry earlier said it was using new technology to perform checks on Russian space equipment.

The US has previously raised concerns about new Russian satellite activity.

But it is the first time the UK has made accusations about Russian test-firing in space.

[...] The head of the UK's space directorate, Air Vice Marshal Harvey Smyth, said he was also concerned about the latest Russian satellite test, which he said had the "characteristics of a weapon".

"Actions like this threaten the peaceful use of space and risk causing debris that could pose a threat to satellites and the space systems on which the world depends," he said. He urged Russia to be "responsible" and to "avoid any further such testing".

[...] The US said the Russian satellite system was the same one it raised concerns about in 2018 and earlier this year when the US accused it of manoeuvring close to an American satellite.


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday July 25 2020, @01:37AM (8 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday July 25 2020, @01:37AM (#1026049) Journal

    Aka "kinetic weapon".

    Same as a bullet. A big one. Guided.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @01:49AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @01:49AM (#1026052)

    See "Rods from God".

    Launched from orbit.

    Depleted uranium / tungsten alloy javelin the size of telephone poles. Arrive almost white hot from re entry heat.

    Heavy and hard.

    Guided. Useful for precise entry into underground bunkers.

    Quite useful for arranging leaders of threatening factions meet their maker.

    On our schedule.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 25 2020, @03:17AM (5 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday July 25 2020, @03:17AM (#1026066)

      On our schedule.

      A telephone pole of DU/W is pretty heavy, can't have too many of them on orbit without somebody noticing the launches - de-orbiting them to a precise place, at a precise time will require quite a bit of advanced notice.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:05PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:05PM (#1026190)

        Original design was several stashes in fairly low orbits. Given an orbit of an hour or two you could drop one within minutes to hours. Precise place isn't too difficult, time and place would be harder. The telephone pole size of DU is overkill. The original was more the size of a crowbar and was supposed to take out tanks and ships.

        • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:17PM (1 child)

          by looorg (578) on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:17PM (#1026222)

          > ... take out tanks and ships.

          Think one of them hitting say an aircraft carrier. Fairly big target, not moving to fast or at all. Lots of hardware to the bottom of sea if/when you hit it. Probably good value for the buck it cost to drag it up into orbit in the first place. Not to mention it's not that many of them so just knocking a couple, or one, of them out is the basis for a lot of problems (not to mention WAR ... but if you are already there it's a nice, non nuclear, first strike).

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:23AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:23AM (#1027487)

            I doubt a single crowbar sized one would sink an aircraft carrier. But you could have different sizes too, or just hit it multiple times.

            There's a rule of thump for hyperfast impact penetration (KE sufficient to vaporize more than twice the impactor mass). Take the density of the impactor / Density of target * length of impactor = Depth of penetration (P).

            If you then assume all the kinetic energy was liberated as explosive energy in a column as wide as the impactor and as deep as P you will get a pretty good approximation of the crater.

            Beyond a certain speed, for any specific impactor, craters don't get much deeper, they just get wider.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 26 2020, @12:54AM (1 child)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday July 26 2020, @12:54AM (#1026375)

          My wife plays "spot the station" - we can go for weeks between overflights, need significant delta-v to make that "anywhere on Earth within 90 minutes" thing happen in reality.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @03:34AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @03:34AM (#1026440)

            You need to give them a significant velocity change anyway to drop them out of orbit. You build in a bit of excess to allow targeting.
            A platform could target a track a 1000 miles wide half an orbit ahead. Outside that track you might need the crowbar to do an orbit or two before impact. Ballistics is complicated but "take this orbiting 50kg steel bar and drop on this location using only 800m/s delta V" is a solved problem.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:45PM (#1026300)

      > Guided.

      Yes. Accuracy to within +/- 1 continent.