how do you take down satellites? seems to me that they're quite critical assets for a multitude of reasons, and destroying or disabling them should be considered the priority in a modern war.
>>64497527probably a bomb or somethingyeah
>>64497527
>>64497527You put a laser or microwave on another satellite - or maybe a robot arm - and gently burn off or break the important parts so as not to cause orbital debris.
>>64497527Shutdown the launch
>>64497549>as not to cause orbital debris.If your goal is to destroy satellites...
>>64497527A push from a robotic arm like the one on the Space Shuttle or ISS could be enough to push a satellitle off its orbit, or better still damage it.
>>64498039Not a chance. Anything bigger than a cubesat has station keeping thrusters adn enough fuel to last several years. If they are threatened byt a spacecraft trying to get that close, they can evade it. If one did get pushed by a robotic arm, It wouldn't be enough to change it's orbit significantly, adn it would just re-align to where it needed to be in minutes.Fun fact: The Space Shuttle was not designed to provide cheap and reliable access to space. It was designed to provied the capability to grab a Soviet spy satellite from orbit and bring it back to Earth intact. That capability forced them to use their station keeping propellant to boost their satellites to higher orbits out of reach of the Space Shuttle. It had the effect of degrading their surveillance capability because they were watching from a higher altitude, adn it greatly shortened the life of their satellites by burning up their fuel. Once a satellite's fuel is exhausted it is useless because it can't maintain the orientation that it needs to operate.
>>64497527Paintball guns. No joke. Hit it with paintballs full of black paint and it will absorb more sunlight and overheat.
>>64497527>how do you take down satellites?timeevery single thing in orbit that starlink has will have died in 2-5 years
China did the most recent one>On January 11, 2007, China conducted a significant anti-satellite (ASAT) test by destroying its own weather satellite, Fengyun-1C. This marked the first successful satellite intercept since 1985.Details of the Test> Satellite: Fengyun-1C, a non-operational weather satellite.> Altitude: Approximately 865 kilometers (537 miles).> Method: A kinetic kill vehicle launched from a ballistic missile struck the satellite at a speed of 8 km/s (18,000 mph).> Debris Created: The test resulted in over 3,000 pieces of space debris, which continue to pose risks to other satellites and space operations.The US had done similar things previously but it's frowned upon because it can cause a Kessler syndrome and we lose low earth orbit for like 500 years
>>64497527I think that destroying satellites without setting off Kessler Syndrome would be a challenge. Could you fire a missile which catches a satellite in a large net and drag it down into a decaying orbit, without spreading debris?
>>64498335>The US had done similar things previously but it's frowned upon because it can cause a Kessler syndrome and we lose low earth orbit for like 500 yearsKessler Syndrome is serious but 500 years is overstating it, debris from LEO satellites woul naturally fall back to Earth in a few years.
>>64497527At scale? Nukes & EMP I assume.
>>64498563>The debris cloud created by this anti-satellite test represents the worst contamination of low Earth orbit in history. Morethan half the identified debris were thrown into orbits exceeding a mean altitude of 850 km, meaning that much of the 10 cmand larger debris will be in orbit for decades or centuries.https://web.archive.org/web/20140712073336/http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/library/SatelliteFragHistory/TM-2008-214779.pdfThe whole point of the Kessler syndrome is that they previously thought stuff would deorbit fast on it's own but it won't
>>64497527My dick
>>64497866>If your goal is to destroy satellites...Contextual Goal:*NOT* your own fucking satellites. Also.
>>64498167 (You)(You) win the thread. This has been gamed already, and a paintball-like gun that shoots various "paintballs" (such as paint, but also metal dust such as iron/copper/silver, various other substances such as buckyball/carbon fibers, etc.) would be highly effective. A small satellite can hold several hundred rounds of ammo of various types for specialty purposes, can shoot clouds of concentrated metal/ceramic/paint/dust with extreme accuracy, can orbit in stealth mode for decades and be activated when needed, etc. Elon Musk put a car in orbit for half of forever, a sniper satellite could be 1/5th that size and nobody would even know what it was for or what it was doing ... easily disguised as a harmless cell phone/starlink satellite that nobody would suspect as being an assassin. Think in terms of a 25mm "paintball" can be programmed to detonate in an intersecting orbit and it could launch 5000 rounds against 1000 targets in minutes, nobody would know where they originated, and total target death would approach 100% in under one hour.Black paint is a cute idea, not entirely practical, but is possible for ultra stealth mode that might take a few hours to a few days to be effective. White paint just as effective. Think about it. In general, ANYTHING moving at several thousand km/hours relative will FUCK THE HELL UP anything else in orbit. Sometimes fast & immediately, sometimes bit slower, but well and truly fucked. Just a fraction of a gram of most materials making actual impact will be enough, car-sized satellites maybe a full gram or two. Relativistic velocity sucks hard in space.
>>64500313>Relativisticnothing in orbit is going at relativistic speeds, anon. If you mean relative velocities when stuff is going in opposite directions then yes, but most satellites are going in the same direction, prograde rotation
>>64497527>how do you take down satellites?Huck rocks at 'em
>>64500333>If you mean relative velocities when stuff is going inI did.>most satellites are going in the same directionWell, sort of. A couple things: 1) "opposite" direction & "same" direction still have stupid levels of relative velocity difference because "oblique" interceptions are still measured in tens to thousands of meters per second and 2) you can insert assassin paintball platforms into optimized orbits to take advantage of the difference, specifically tailored to the major targets of interest.A gram of tungsten or depleted uranium powder occupying a ten meter diameter interception cone at ten meters per second (or one thousand) is going to fuck any target. It can be in nearly direct opposition orbit or be catching up from behind, or any angle in between. There are fucktons of satellites traveling in crazy orbits ... general commercial satellites often utilize orbits similar to what you describe, but the "more interesting" ones that one would want to take out often occupy orbits a good bit more out of the ordinary.Place a dozen or 20 paintball assassins in a variety of orbits and 200,000 rounds each ammo and you can take down anything at will in under an hour, maybe two or three at the most. Not joking. I've seen this gamed out before. And, that was before the current artificial intelligence environment that basically increases the efficiency by at least a factor, if not two or three.
>>64498335I thought the most recent was India?Operation Name: "Mission Shakti"Date: March 27, 2019Method: A ground-based ballistic missile, the Prithvi Defense Vehicle Mark-II, was launched to destroy an Indian satellite in low Earth orbit.Technology: The destruction was achieved through a direct, kinetic impact rather than an explosive warhead.Result: India became the fourth country to successfully test an ASAT weapon.Space Debris: India stated the test was performed at a low altitude to ensure any debris would burn up in the atmosphere within weeks. However, the US military reported tracking more than 250 pieces of debris from the test, which prompted warnings from officials about the risks of ASAT tests.Motivation: While the test was presented as a demonstration of indigenous technology, experts believe factors like national security concerns and a desire to gain a counter-space capability in the face of regional competition also played a significant role.
Easy.IR laser designed to have a 1m sq beam width (focusable within some limit to have adjustable range) and 50 watts of power.You sit it somewhere in range and slowly burn the solar panels or an exposed part with critical infrastructure. Or you could just overload the radiative cooling and force a sustained shut down.
>>64500840Huh, TIL, like they say on reddit
>>64498154We're drifting into star wars scenario here, but could a fast enough spacecraft get close quick enough before a satellite can evade it and have enough force to grab or damage it?
>>64500313>Elon Musk put a car in orbit for half of foreverIt isn't on earth orbit. Its on mars trailing solar orbit. Most of exposed rubber, plastic and leather parts are almost certainly already gone due to sunlight. Carbon fiber parts might last for few centuries, but on long term only metal and glass parts will last long time. They ran bunch of gravity interaction simulations on it, those suggested it has like 5% chance collide with earth within 2 million years and 2% with venus. If recall correctly it was about 20 million years where it has close to 100% chance of collision with planet or substantial asteroid. Assuming it isn't turned into dust by micro meteoroid impacts lot sooner.On time scale of zero to forever, that is lot closer to zero than forever.
>>64497527you don't as a terrestrial, that's why space lasers are a serious issue, easy to abuse.
>>64497527A rocket full of ball bearings
>>64497527Why not just shut down the telecom operations of your enemy on the ground? It does the same thing.
