China's Lasers Versus America's Satellites

China Tried To Blind U.S. Satellites With Laser

By VAGO MURADIAN
defensenews.com

China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft, according to sources.

It remains unclear how many times a ground-based laser was tested against U.S. spacecraft or whether it was successful.

But the combination of China’s efforts and advances in Russian satellite-jamming capabilities that illustrate vulnerabilities to the U.S. space network are driving U.S. Air Force plans to develop new space architectures and highly classified systems, according to sources.

Anyone who thinks China does not mean us harm is mistaken. I think that China is the single biggest threat to the United States in the world. Forget N.Korea,Venezuela or Iran, China is the real threat to the United States. Within ten years from now, I personally don't think we will be a match for them economically or militarily.

[edit on 27-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

mod edit: fixed link

[edit on 28-9-2006 by sanctum]

Good thing we developed the aroura program to always have a unstoppable way of getting good photos when we need em.

Harm?

Excuse me?

I don't see a problem in developing ways for a nation to safeguard it's right to privicy and security. That lazer didn't blow the US spy satilite out of the sky... it temporaraly messed up it's ability to spy on China. Fire a lazer pointer at a web-cam and you get about the same effect. No damage done... you just can't see through the camera.

Meanwhile the US is working on anti-missile technology that, if perfected, would empower American nuclear belligerence under the thin guise of "security and safty". Once the threat of nuclear retaliation is removed, the US is free to threaten anyone they choose with the largest stockpile of WMDs ever compiled.

Is see a big fat double standard here.
Large enough to be considered mis-direction/information.

LMAO are you serious? You're trying to start another "CHINA IS AN EVIL THREAT" thread by posting this?

China is just disabling AMERICAN SPY satellites spying over its territory... wheras the United States has military bases, air bases, and warships SURROUNDING China. The United States of America has enough airbases to bomb ANY CITY in China within an hour.

The United States ALONE, as ONE NATION, accounts for HALF of the worlds military budget.

After invading Iraq (proven to have the second largest oil reserves) for "WMDs" that mysteriously dissapeared, HOW DO YOU THINK THE CHINESE FEEL?

Please, God, can you guys be any more blind and hypocritical?

[edit on 27-9-2006 by k4rupt]

Whats so bad about this?
Fair enough, we are spying on another country.. they found out how to stop us from spying.
alls fair..

If someone was spying on us, id like to think we'd do more to ensure they dont do it any more.

But I agree in the assement of China.
in a decade it will outdo America in terms of economy and military.
They will militarily build them selves up to be bigger than us.. But the USA will deplete there ecnomoy into 2nd position.

Why do people think China will become the largest military giant when most of their things are stolen and reversed engineered from Russia and the US (like the spy plane)?

Originally posted by RetinoidReceptor
Why do people think China will become the largest military giant when most of their things are stolen and reversed engineered from Russia and the US (like the spy plane)?

That just goes to show that they're smart.
Why re-invent the wheel? Most of the money spent on weapons development is in the early phases... why not take existing designs and improve upon them?
It's much more cost-effective and since you are working from a base-line of existing field technology, you know that any and every improvement will give you an edge.

Your comment answers your question.

I really doubt a laser could hit a satellite reliably....it's just at too small target going too fast too far away....it would be look shooting a mosquito with a handgun across a football field.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I really doubt a laser could hit a satellite reliably....it's just at too small target going too fast too far away....it would be look shooting a mosquito with a handgun across a football field.

It's not that hard really.
Satellites paths are fairly easy to predict once you know where they are. Lasers travel at light speed. The go in a really straight line. Hook that up to a computer to do the targeting and it's fairly simple.

It doesn't even have to be a tight or focused beam. All it needs to do is enter the camera's lens and the satellite is rendered blind. In theory, you could make an un-guided non-directional laser umbrella to run 24/7, IF you were willing to spend a fortune on powering them.

We should just tell them outright shining a laser at anything American is an act of war if they persist in it just blow up the fancy dam they just made to make a point. I'm sure they will take the hint and back down peacefully rather than face the might of America and lose embarassingly.

Originally posted by Shamanator
We should just tell them outright shining a laser at anything American is an act of war if they persist in it just blow up the fancy dam they just made to make a point. I'm sure they will take the hint and back down peacefully rather than face the might of America and lose embarassingly.

You really have no idea do you?

China isn't just another little tin-pot dictatorship that can be pushed over with a couple of well placed 100 million dollar bombs.

The Chinese millitary is well trained, well equiped, and massive.
They are a NUCLEAR POWER and fully able to launch against the US.

"Just blow up their fancy damn"?
What a truely remarkable display of arogance and ignorance.

I can actually speak with a tad bit of authority on this subject, as I attended an IEEE conference where one of the tracks was a whole lecture on the use of HEW weapons, and I can say with 99% certainty that High Energy Weapons of any sort, including "laser beams" are impractical across that distance. Here's why:

HEWs heat, not cut or bore. - Lasers, as weapons, are not intended to cut through objects, bore through them, or anything of the sort. Their purpose is to heat up the target to the point where its operation thermal threshold is exceeded and the device is thusly disabled.

Cannot track well through atmospheric particles - Despite how clear or stable the air appears to be, it is, in fact, exponentially detrimental to tracking with a laser. As we are all well aware, a laser is composed of highly concentrated photons. Over short distances, the sheer volume of photons are able to mostly burn through the dust and vapor floating in the air. However, it is important to note that some photons are deflected when this happens, their trajectory might change as subly as a fraction of a degree, or as much as 180 degrees, depending on the angle of incidence (the angle the photon strikes relative to the surface of the particle it hits) and the ablation (reflectiveness) of the particle. The important thing to remember is that particles floating in the air are MUCH more massive than photons.

The effect would be akin to throwing a rock at the side of a building. Now, if you had billions of little rocks, equal to the volume of, say, a stadium, and were able to forcefully project them at a building the size of a house, you would still end up destroying the house and sending a LOT of rocks out the other side, in roughly the same direction, but a portion of the rocks would be lost during impact, or deflected, leaving fewer rocks most likely travelling at a different angle.

This is one of the reasons when you shine a beam of light (like a flashlight), the light spreads out further and weaker the longer the distance. A laser is little more than a very very powerful concentrated flashlight, and is thus susceptible to the same trajectory-altering physics.

The end result is that prolongued laser exposure to surface will "dance" at the impact point in a random fashion. The more atmosphere it is beamed through, the larger the dance will be on the target. As of about two years ago, the best they managed was a two-foot radius dance at a littler under 40,000 feet with two stationary targets, over the course of 30 seconds. It was not a solid dot that slid around the radius, but rather a jumping dot that sometimes disappeared altogether. For a satellite to remain in orbit, the distance to Earth's surface must be at least 35,768 km, most are around 45,000 km.

That means over 117,349,081 feet of atmosphere must be passed through. Using only simple math, that equates to a "dance" of 5867 foot radius. Since the effect is actually exponential, it is unlikely to be that small in reality.

With only a two-foot dance, there is still not enough continuous contact to generate enough heat to disable craft at only 40k feet, within Earth's comparatively thick atmosphere and hotter temperature, much less the much colder depths of space where there is no air insulation to trap heat.

So effectively to disable a satellite with a HEW, you would have to overcome the random particulates and airflow through the atmosphere, and to do that, you've either got to be in space, or somehow create a vacuum between your laser and the target for the length of the heating.

Originally posted by BitRaiser

Originally posted by Shamanator
We should just tell them outright shining a laser at anything American is an act of war if they persist in it just blow up the fancy dam they just made to make a point. I'm sure they will take the hint and back down peacefully rather than face the might of America and lose embarassingly.

You really have no idea do you?

China isn't just another little tin-pot dictatorship that can be pushed over with a couple of well placed 100 million dollar bombs.

The Chinese millitary is well trained, well equiped, and massive.
They are a NUCLEAR POWER and fully able to launch against the US.

I couldn't have said it better. Anyone who thinks that America's military "supremacy" is that much better than China's military capabilities is only fooling themselves. I used to think that America was all powerful, but the recent fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq has severely damaged my opinion of American military might.

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth

Originally posted by BitRaiser

Originally posted by Shamanator
We should just tell them outright shining a laser at anything American is an act of war if they persist in it just blow up the fancy dam they just made to make a point. I'm sure they will take the hint and back down peacefully rather than face the might of America and lose embarassingly.

You really have no idea do you?

China isn't just another little tin-pot dictatorship that can be pushed over with a couple of well placed 100 million dollar bombs.

The Chinese millitary is well trained, well equiped, and massive.
They are a NUCLEAR POWER and fully able to launch against the US.

I couldn't have said it better.

Anyone who thinks that America's military "supremacy" is that much better than China's military capabilities is only fooling themselves. I used to think that America was all powerful, but the recent fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq has severely damaged my opinion of American military might.

So we're going to just let them potentially damage our satilites? Why are we so damn supportive of that country anyway? Oh, yeah, the all mighty dollar. It's not their military we're afraid of it's the loss of their business. And I agree with Shamanator, this should be considered an act of war (or at least aggression) and will not be tolerated.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by mecheng]

[edit on 28-9-2006 by mecheng]

Originally posted by mecheng

So we're going to just let them potentially damage our satilites? Why are we so damn supportive of that country anyway? Oh, yeah, the all mighty dollar. It's not their military we're afraid of it's the loss of their business.

While I am not going to disagree, I think China is much more worried about losing America's business than we are in losing theirs. America is a consumer nation; if Amercans were to boycott products made in China it would take a big,big chunk out of its economy.

So we're going to just let them potentially damage our satilites? Why are we so damn supportive of that country anyway?

I'm sure they will take the hint and back down peacefully rather than face the might of America and lose embarassingly.

heh didnt we say that about iraq?

well bringing up SUPPORTING...we support Saudia Arabia who is home to a group of terrorists who attacked us. In fact they own 3% of our country! They might be up to something..but thats what we get for attacking countrys that DONT deserve it. Shows us right for gettin in Irans bussiness. It would be stupid not to be friendly with China expecially since their population is MASSIVE as well as their military. Were having trouble with iraq and afganistan as it is. And iraq barely has a freggin government let alone military?

[edit on 28-9-2006 by SAGEX89]

I went to some chinese forums, and some people there had the allowing response to this news:

"The American government is once again making up 'scary stories' to frighten its people, so that they can increase their military spending without being further questioned."



[edit on 9/28/2006 by warset]

We actually have 2 threads about this subject, could a mod merge them or something, or am i missing something about the topic at hand?


Chinese Fires Missile at American Spy Satelite!

Originally posted by Tetragrammaton
We actually have 2 threads about this subject, could a mod merge them or something, or am i missing something about the topic at hand?


Chinese Fires Missile at American Spy Satelite!

the news articles are different, but the news is the same

There's a big misconseption going on here that needs to be dispelled before we can have any sort of rational discussion on this topic:

Originally posted by thelibra
So effectively to disable a satellite with a HEW, you would have to overcome the random particulates and airflow through the atmosphere, and to do that, you've either got to be in space, or somehow create a vacuum between your laser and the target for the length of the heating.

Originally posted by mecheng
So we're going to just let them potentially damage our satilites?
[edit on 28-9-2006 by mecheng]

This laser defence is NOT about disabling satellites.
It do NOT damage anything.

The idea is that the ground fired laser emites enough light to overwhelm the camera's optics, effectivly blinding it while the laser is engaged. As soon as the laser is off, the camera can function normally again.

If you happen to have a webcam and a laser pointer, you can try this yourself. Turn on the webcam and shine your laser into it's lens. Watch what happens on the screen. You will get a big flare that will disrupt the entire picture. Move the laser away (or turn it off) and the camera will return to normal opperation. It will NOT be damaged.

This is what makes it effective despite the fact that thelibra pointed out. Scatter doesn't matter nearly as much because it's not the heat energy that is important... simply the light energy. Infact, the scattering of the laser while it passes through the atmosphear makes tracking the satellite easier since you are firing a cone instead of a beam (meaning you have a larger field of effect at target altitudes).

Let's NOT buy into the ignorance of hype here and look at this issue for what it is.
The Chinese have developed a way to stop invasive spying by US satellites without damaging them.