(by Andrea Pinto) The American intelligence community has recently drafted the Global Risk Assessment Report where it warns the government about Chinese initiative in developing new military space programs capable of targeting US and allied satellites.
The report, drawn up by the Office of the National Director of Intelligence, highlights that the Chinese Defense is seriously thinking, at a strategic level, of undermining American hegemony in the space environment to pursue military, economic and international prestige advantages. Space operations will therefore be an integral part of the upcoming military campaigns of the Beijing army.
The report also mentions some points that highlight Russia's non-negligible space capabilities, even if on the whole it defines China as the “main threat” for the technological competitiveness of the United States.
Last Wednesday, during the congressional hearing of the Intelligence Committee, clarifications were requested on the recent Chinese initiative to send 138 commercial Earth observation satellites into space. The director of the ODNI Avril haines he stated at that time that those 138 satellites are part, in fact, of China's challenge to American domination in space. But he then refused to publicly discuss the capabilities of the United States: "I think there is no doubt, in general, that China has focused in recent years to achieve leadership in space, to undermine our dominance."
Haines also told lawmakers in attendance that the Biden administration is working hard to get the policy to support the new Space Force to the stars and stripes, to try to maintain the American leadership in space and the benefits deriving from it: economics, communications dominance, and national security intelligence supremacy.
In this context, senior Space Force officials have however complained that the government over-classifies threat intelligence from space. The American and world public opinion, specify the representatives of the Space Force, must be properly informed.
The intelligence community also revealed in the report that China will have an operational space station in low Earth orbit between 2022 and 2024 and will continue to conduct exploratory missions to the Moon aimed at establishing a robotic research station and subsequently an "alternate manned" base.
The report also highlights the growing development and the proliferation of weapons for use in space. Reportedly, in 2019, the Chinese strategic support force began training with direct ascension anti-satellite missiles, or ASATs, capable of targeting satellites in low Earth orbit.
The report said Beijing has already deployed ground-based anti-satellite missiles intended to destroy satellites in low Earth orbit, as well as ground-based anti-satellite lasers, "likely intended to blind or damage sensitive space-based optical sensors."
According to the report, in summary, Russia and China are proceeding without delay to train their military space units, and both are deploying new destructive and non-destructive anti-satellite weapons. Russia's weapons include cyberspace disruption capabilities, direct-energy weapons with in-orbit capabilities, and ground-based ASAT capabilities.
The report predicts that Russia, with its vast network of reconnaissance, communications and navigation satellites, "will always remain a first-rate space competitor."
The problem of space debris
Il Sole24Ore dealt with the subject of the uncontrolled proliferation of satellites in space and the remote but possible collision between them. It is therefore necessary to think seriously about the space debris resulting from malfunctions and sudden collisions between about three thousand satellites scattered above the Earth in the low orbit of 400 and 1000 kilometers. They all took a little while to produce debris: deliberate explosions in orbit, typically for military purposes, or fuel leaks alone provide 63% of the satellite pieces in orbit and the examples are also very recent.
For space junk there are many start-ups that are starting to appear on the market, like the Japanese one astroscale or switzerland Clearspace. While the Italian d-orbit proposes a solution to prevent the worsening of the situation which, with the constant increase of satellites, risks collapsing the system and making it impossible to place new ones, the so-called Kessier effect. It is estimated that they are at least 160 million space debris with dimensions from one centimeter to several meters, for a total of approximately 9 thousand tons. Larger debris is continuously monitored from the ground.
The large debris is therefore kept an eye on, but the small ones, and they are the large part, are beyond control.
But there are also those who suspect evidence of space warfare, given that two apparently functioning satellites, one Chinese and one American, have exploded in the last month.
The Italian Defense with the ISOC, at the forefront of observing the collision between objects in Space
THEItalian SST Operations Center (ISOC), jointly operated by the Poggio Renatico (FE) Aerospace Operations Command - SSA Center (COA-CSSA) and the Experimental Flight Department - Aero-Space Engineering Group (RSV-GIAS) of Pratica di Mare ( RM), in coordination with the Space Operations Command (COS) of the Defense Staff, monitors potential events with a high probability of collision between two space objects of class "large"In low orbit, not maneuverable.
In this context, the ISOC represents the national Operational Center of reference and is able to coordinate the use of the various national sensors (radar, optical and laser) for measuring the orbits of space objects of interest.