WASHINGTON
\nWhat would it mean if Russia used nuclear warheads to destroy US satellites? Your home\u2019s electrical and water systems could fail. Aviation, rail and car traffic could come to a halt. Your cellphone could stop working.
\nThese are among the reasons why there was alarm this week over reports that Russia may be pursuing nuclear weapons in space.
\nThe White House has said the danger isn\u2019t imminent. But reports of the new anti-satellite weapon build on longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China. So much of the country\u2019s infrastructure is now dependent on US satellite communications \u2014 and those satellites have become increasingly vulnerable.
\nIt would also not be the first time a nuclear warhead has been detonated in space, or the only capability China and Russia are pursuing to disable or destroy a US satellite.
\nHere\u2019s a look at what\u2019s happened in the past, why Russia may be pursuing a nuclear weapon for space now, and what the US is doing about all the space threats it faces.
\nTHE PAST: STARFISH PRIME AND PROJECT K
\nBoth Russia and the US have detonated nuclear warheads in space. In the 1960s, little was known about how the relatively new weapons of mass destruction would act in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Both countries experimented to find out. The Soviet tests were called Project K and took place from 1961 to 1962. The US conducted 11 tests of its own, and the largest, and first successful, test was known as Starfish Prime, said Stephen Schwartz, a non-resident senior fellow at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
\nStarfish Prime launched in July 1962, when the US sent up a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear warhead on a Thor missile and detonated it about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth.
\nThe missile was launched about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from Hawaii but the effects from the tests were seen around the equator.
\n\u201cThe large amount of enerqy released at such a high altitude by the detonation caused widespread auroras throughout the Pacific,\u201d according to a 1982 Department of Defense report on the tests.
\nThe blast disabled several satellites, including a British one named Ariel, as radioactive particles from the burst came in contact with them. Radio systems and the electrical grid on Hawaii were temporarily knocked out, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. The debris left satellites in its path malfunctioning \u201calong the lines of the old Saturday matinee one-reeler,\u201d the 1982 report said.
\nWhen the former Soviet Union conducted its own test as part of Project K, it did so at a slightly lower orbit and \u201cfried systems on the ground, including underground cables and a power plant,\u201d Kristensen said.
\nThe US and the Soviet Union signed a nuclear test ban treaty a year later, in 1963, which prohibited further testing of nuclear weapons in space.
\nWhite House national security spokesman John Kirby declined to say Thursday whether the emerging Russian weapon is nuclear capable, noting only that it would violate an international treaty that prohibits the deployment of \u201cnuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction\u201d in orbit.
\nSATELLITE ATTACKS TODAY
\nIt\u2019s the ability to do that kind of damage that makes it logical that the Russians would want to put a warhead in space, especially if they see their military and economy weakened after fighting a US-backed Ukraine for the past two years, said John Ferrari, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
\nA space-based weapon that could cripple US communications and the US economy could be an intimidating equalizer, and would just be the latest development from both Russia\u2019s and China\u2019s efforts to weaponize space, he said.
\nIn the past few years China has tested a satellite with a robotic arm that can maneuver to a system, grab it, and move it out of orbit.
\nRussia has developed a \u201cnesting doll\u201d satellite that opens up to reveal a smaller satellite, and then that one opens to reveal a projectile capable of destroying nearby satellites. In 2019, the Russians maneuvered a nesting doll near a US satellite.
\nWhen one of those nesting doll systems \u201cparks next to one of our high-value NRO capabilities, they are now holding that asset at risk,\u201d the deputy chief of space operations of the US Space Force, Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, said at a 2022 space conference. NRO is the National Reconnaissance Office.
\nRussia also generated headlines around the world when it conducted a more traditional anti-satellite test in 2021, where it shot down one of its own systems. As with the Starfish test, the impact created a large cloud of orbiting debris that even put the International Space Station at risk for awhile.
\nTHE NEW SPACE FORCE
\nThe quickly evolving threat in space was one of the main drivers behind establishing the US Space Force, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a briefing Thursday. In the years since its 2019 creation, the service has focused on developing a curriculum to train its service members, called Guardians, on detecting threats from space and wargaming scenarios on what conflict in space would look like.
\nThe creation of the Space Force elevated spending on satellite systems and defenses. Previously, when space needs were spread among the military services, spending on a new satellite would have to compete for funding with ships or fighter jets \u2014 and the services had a more immediate need for the aircraft and vessels, Ferrari said.
\nBut there\u2019s more work to be done, and the revelation that Russia may be pursuing a nuclear weapon for space raises critical questions for Congress and the Defense Department, Ferrari said. If Russia uses a nuclear weapon to take out satellites and that cripples the US economy, does that justify the US bombing Russian cities in return?
\n\u201cHow do you respond to that? You have no good option,\u201d Ferrari said. \u201cSo now it\u2019s a question of, \u2018What is the deterrence theory for this?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON What would it mean if Russia used nuclear warheads to destroy US satellites? Your home\u2019s electrical and water systems could fail. Aviation, rail and car traffic could come to a halt. Your cellphone could stop working. These are among the reasons why there was alarm this week over reports that Russia may be pursuing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-387556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n