posted on Jan, 15 2008 @ 05:57 AM
Originally posted by chinawhite
Hitting a satellite in space is MUCH harder than hitting a massive carrier on land. China has already demonstrated this capability. And if you think
hitting that satellite was easy, talk to anyone in the space industry. It takes a lot of effort just to get a rocket into space
I think this is a little presumptuous.
The kill vehicle of the anti-satellite weapon was a proximity device IIRC. The orbital trajectory and telemetry of the target vehicle were known(and
possibly directly fed?) to the kill vehicle.
I think it has much to do with relative velocity as well. If the relative velocity of the kill vehicle approaches that of the target, then the
flexibility in course corrections(again I'm not sure if that is a feature in the anti-satellite/anti ship BMs) becomes much more.
However if the relative velocities are very high then course corrections are very difficult.
Orbital insertions are in fact the basics of any satellite launch. So precision is a routine thing in that case.
Proximity detonation would do much better than kinteic kills in both cases. However in the AShBMs, margin for error is miniscule as one might expect.
milliseconds early or late can result in a detonation too, high or under the water.
Nuclear payloads(or other high yield explosives) would be a better bet.