How safe are your satellite from counterspace weapons? It’s a question being asked more often, not just by government defense departments, but also by commercial players as new constellations are launched.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies today released a a new report titled Defense Against the Dark Arts in Space – Protecting Space Systems from Counterspace Weapons. It brings into focus some of the new challenges faced by governments, but also commercial players.
The authors of the report describe the study as follows:
The proliferation of counterspace weapons across the globe often calls into question what can be done to best protect satellites from attack. This analysis from the CSIS Aerospace Security Project addresses different methods and technologies that can be used by the United States government, and others, to deter adversaries from attack. A wide range of active and passive defenses are available to protect space systems and the ground infrastructure they depend upon from different types of threats. This report captures a range of active and passive defenses that are theoretically possible and discusses the advantages and limitations of each.
A group of technical space and national security experts supported the analysis by working through several plausible scenarios that explore a range of defenses that may be needed, concepts for employing different types of defenses, and how defensive actions in space may be perceived by others. These scenarios and the findings that resulted from subsequent conversations with experts are reported in the penultimate chapter of the report. Finally, the CSIS Aerospace Security Project team offers conclusions drawn from the analysis, actionable recommendations for policymakers, and additional research topics to be explored in future work.
The report includes a discussion of The Dark Arts in Space, Space Defenses Defined, Space Defenses Applied, and Scenarios for Defensive Counterspace Operations. The latter has a scenario for Commercial Space System Protection.
The report makes for fascinating reading, though it is alarming at what can be done to satellite systems if an actor wants disable them, be it temporarily or permanently.