Kessler syndrome and space warfare

[Adam Reynolds]

How likely is it that the Kessler syndrome(the idea that Earth orbit will become uninhabitable due to the frequency of collisions) would be reached in a hypothetical future space conflict involving shooting down enemy satellites?

What other possibles exist other than simply shooting down satellites as a means of defeating them?
One obvious possibility is capturing them using a craft with similar capabilities to the Space Shuttle, although that is clearly not a very practical or affordable alternative. I thought I heard somewhere that this was a suggested function of the Space Shuttle when it was originally developed, but I can't remember the source.

[Lord of the Abyss]

How likely is it that the Kessler syndrome(the idea that Earth orbit will become uninhabitable due to the frequency of collisions) would be reached in a hypothetical future space conflict involving shooting down enemy satellites?

Quite likely, especially since the side less dependent on satellites might well do it on purpose. I recall Arthur C Clarke making that point about "Star Wars"/SDI; that someone else who could reach orbit could neutralize all those extremely expensive orbital antimissile weapons just by exploding some rockets to fill the orbit with shrapnel.

What other possibles exist other than simply shooting down satellites as a means of defeating them?

Blinding or overheating it with a laser comes to mind.

[Sea Skimmer]

As far as cleaning up debris goes, just burn them with lasers until they deorbit. YOu don't have to destroy them, the vaporized gas blowing off should act like a thruster and force them down. Small thrusters equipped satellites have been proposed meanwhile as the means to latch onto and deorbit larger pieces of space junk and are likely to be implemented at some point as they could actually be cheaper then lots of laser time for objects weighting many tons ASAT meanwhile can be accomplished lots of ways that wouldn't create a large debris hazard, such as just sending up a micro satellite to latch on and saw off the enemy's communications antenna, or jam the communications, or do the thruster thing in the first place and force it to deorbit, or cut off its solar panels, or spray paint on its optics (if its a recon satellite) or otherwise sabotage them. As long as you don't generate a high speed collision you shouldn't have a serious debris problem. Think about what you could do to a computer casing given unlimited choice of tools; then consider that satellites are often made of weaker stuff.

Some random people did talk about using the shuttle to capture enemy satellites, or launch anti satellite weapons for that matter, but the capture idea was pretty absurd when Soviet satellites were normally designed for short live spans, meaning they'd rapidly start orbiting models with self destruction charges if they didn't already. The low orbits the shuttle could reach generally would only hold the shortest lived Soviet satellites, so that's an extra big problem. Also since the satellite can move under its own power and the shuttle has very limited in orbit fuel, you'd have to attack the target satellite and disable it somehow first, such as by attaching a jammer or other sabotage.

[Sky Captain]

As far as cleaning up debris goes, just burn them with lasers until they deorbit. YOu don't have to destroy them, the vaporized gas blowing off should act like a thruster and force them down.

What are the minimum sized objects that could be targeted with laser? As I understand most of orbital debris problem is caused by tiny pieces of junk because those are the most numerous and can't be reliably tracked because of small size. At orbital speed even 2 gram nut could take out a functional sattelite and generate many more tiny pieces of garbage in the process. Could a tracking system that guides laser target such tiny pieces?

[Sea Skimmer]

The MIT Haystack radar can track debris below 1cm in width. Course it also has a ~150 foot diameter dish. It can't scan enough sky to ensure satellites are protected from such debris, but for this role you only need to track as many debris targets at that moment as you have anti debris lasers. Some other radars can do nearly as well. Another option is cameras in space, which could work in conjunction with active illumination from IR or UV strobe lights to find small debris.

The reason small debris warning isn't reliable is because basically all the space tracking radars the US uses which can detect large numbers of objects have a low level of precision by design, and most of them are very old. They were meant to keep track of satellites spread over a wide area, debris tracking wasn't an issue at the time. Currently the US is not upgrading its space tracking radars in favor of fielding an orbit based optical tracking system on four classified satellites. I have no idea if they'll track really small debris, but one would think so at least at limited ranges.

[cosmicalstorm]

How likely is it that the Kessler syndrome(the idea that Earth orbit will become uninhabitable due to the frequency of collisions) would be reached in a hypothetical future space conflict involving shooting down enemy satellites?

What other possibles exist other than simply shooting down satellites as a means of defeating them?
One obvious possibility is capturing them using a craft with similar capabilities to the Space Shuttle, although that is clearly not a very practical or affordable alternative. I thought I heard somewhere that this was a suggested function of the Space Shuttle when it was originally developed, but I can't remember the source.

Here is a crazy essay about space warfare in planetary orbit. You may like it, Adam.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/global-space- ... road-ahead

[cadbrowser]

Could a telescope stationed on the moon similar to the MIT Haystack with a laser weapon work? Forgive my ignorance if that is outlandish. Might make for a funny spy movie...oh wait; they already did that.

[Sea Skimmer]

The moon is 300,000 miles away, neither the radar nor laser would work well at that kind of massive range. Almost all debris in earth orbit are within 30,000 miles of the surface, and most of them are much much closer then that. No reason not to put the systems on earths surface, or earth orbit. The moon would have no advantage or purpose, at least not until humanity becomes so advanced we can fill moon orbit with debris.

[cadbrowser]

Ahhh...ok; that makes total sense. Thank you.