Russia launched Cosmos 2542 in November last year. This satellite then launched a sub-satellite called Cosmos 2543, which is capable of maneuver and moved close to a US satellite. The sub-satellite then released an “object”, enchantingly called Object E, which moved at high speed into its own orbit.
This series of events didn’t go down well with the US military. The US has described Object E as a “bullet”, insofar as a projectile can be used to attack other satellites. Russia denies that Object E is anything of the sort but points out that the US has the same capacity.
Playing games with satellites in space – Definitely not a good idea
The problem here is a bit more complex than who said what. If you assume that a projectile can hit another satellite, what happens to that satellite? It will be knocked off its orbit, and possibly hit other satellites, or crash back to Earth.
There are no safe scenarios if satellites are suddenly sent crashing off into any possible trajectory. Earth orbits are full of space junk. An out of control satellite could send that junk like shell fragmentation into any number of different configurations, like the infamous 1950s “ping pong balls on mousetraps” reactive process.
Excuse the expression, but playing Russian roulette with this huge, messy tonnage of garbage is unlikely to do anyone much good. The results could be truly catastrophic. The space junk is already a colossal liability to space operations, and adding problems like this doesn’t help with the issues at all.
The military issues
It’s no great secret that all military forces use satellites. These are high value assets, and the owners are naturally wary of any risks to them. “Self-defence” is one of the more common historical reasons for escalating a situation into a serious problem.
This means that any military satellite owning country could well see this development as a real threat, (which it could be, regardless of who has the ability to fire projectiles from satellites) and react. The reactions may include, at the absolute minimum:
• More evasive satellites. Emergency maneuvers in space could be pretty drastic, and could impact other satellite systems, intentionally or otherwise.
• More satellites able to fire projectiles. This would be like putting machine guns in space. There are plenty of options, from rail guns to basic “cannon” capabilities. The result would be carnage among satellites and more rogue displaced space junk.
• Electronic jamming and other systems on satellites. These measures could and probably would also adversely affect other satellites.
If you’re somehow getting the idea that these things alone could play havoc with satellites, you’re right. This situation can’t be a spectator sport. Everyone would try to have as many ways as possible of keeping their satellites safe.
It’s quite possible that Russia is testing a system of this kind. That said, one satellite and a couple of sub-satellites is hardly a huge arsenal of possible threats.
The risk at the moment is overreaction. China, NATO, the EU, and other nations might consider this a problem and start building countermeasures. That, in turn, could cause Russia to start building new satellites with this capability.
Note a historical bugbear – Interpretation of the actions of another country is typically a cause for escalation of hostilities, regardless of clear facts. In this case, the facts aren’t clear at all, which is more of a problem than these satellites could ever be.
It’s also fair to assume that Russia would be well aware of the possible issues related to some sort of major arms race in space. Russia does pretty good business in space on multiple levels. It would be expensive to compromise that business.
As for creating a whole new military environment to manage, it’d be a possible added weight to Russia for no clear benefits. Trying to manage combat satellites is highly complex, time-consuming, and extremely costly, with a gigantic logistics tail which could be horrendously hard to do.
This may not be much more than a general test of capabilities which might be seen as necessary in future. It would be nice if Russia could release something a bit more definitive about these satellites to clear the air, quite literally.
Let’s just hope we don’t have bits of satellites and space junk crashing all over the planet.
