China test new anti-satellite missile

China’s military on Monday conducted the first test of a new ground-launched anti-satellite missile that was fired into space and disguised as a space-exploration rocket, according to U.S. officials.

The test was carried out early Monday from the Xichang Space Launch center and was identified by officials as the new Dong Ning-2 ASAT missile.

The ASAT test comes a week after China protested the release of the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military buildup that mentioned Beijing’s development of anti-satellite weapons.

Source

It's about time someone caught up with us here in the US and China (Not Russia nor any other country) is rapidly approaching that mark. Gets me a little excited, what with everything else that will be developed to counter, preempt, and evade such a system.

A little disheartening we are doing it to "space" but it was inevitable. I personally don't think this is for satellites specifically, but rather just a lower orbit strike. Say a "space plane" or "space station".

Its interesting to watch how China is expanding its military capability and what direction they are taking it in. It shows their mindset for defense as opposed to other nations.

They are developing a lot of technology to protect but not project. They have almost zero airlift capability and their naval forces are not built for massive deployments but limited incursions to their surrounding region with an emphasis on holding any area they may feel the need to.

China has built a military that cannot really challenge the US in the Pacific but they could conceivably grab land out to the Philippeans or Indonesia and get enough defense on it to hold it from a counter-attack. I don't see them able to go much further out then that into the Pacific.

They could also roll into Siberia and give the Russians one heck of a time trying to push them out. Westward they could do a land trek into Iran if they wanted to with nobody to really stop them unless India and Pakistan want to try and make a roadblock but a westward push by China would be the easiest for them since they can simply march there and not expect much resistance.

I'd say China is securing southeastern Asia and its pretty impenetrable to the US or anyone else if fighting were to break out. I don't believe they have any plans to expand however.

reply to post by Hopechest


I believe that China bought our RQ-170 from Iran. Ta da! Dark sword a year later.

A new aircraft rivaling the the f-22. A new aircraft carrier that puts our older ones to shame, but not our newer ones. Their cat-line submarine.

I don't know if they are looking to expand or not but yes they have been "playing" with the islands and that recent incursion into India. Update on India and China border dispute

Imagine what havok it would wreak in the western world if they knocked those 80s GPS satellites out the sky?

reply to post by Hopechest


China is actually rapidly expanding their logistics capability. They know they don't hold a candle to the U.S. and regional allies in air and sea capabilities. They are fixing that.

And anybody that thinks China is a peaceful nation have their heads buried in the sand. They're human just like the rest of the world. Not only that, they are fairly powerful as well. At some point, they will flex their muscles. History tells so...

reply to post by thesungod


China really has no need to expand and doing so would more than likely lead to UN sanctions that would extremely hurt their economy so a massive invasion by China somewhere is highly improbable. They still haven't taken Taiwan back so I doubt they are going to push anything.

We can also look at their military build up which started heavily in the early 90s as a response to the Gulf War and China's need to secure its access to oil, particularly in Iran.

We can see a switch in doctrine from the Mao Doctrine of sending waves of humans, or as Mao put it, "Send more bodies than they have bullets", to one of a reduced force but more technologically advanced to match up with what the US does.

I would venture to guess that China's military policy is based around protecting their access to oil since without that, their economy would collapse and they would be forced to either take it from the ME or from the North in Siberia and neither one of those options are good no matter how you look at it.

reply to post by Hopechest


Why would China build anything to project war fighting power? Biden and Obama have spent the last year and a half, at least, babbling about how the greatest focus of U.S. Naval Power and force projection to come is in the West Pacific with an eye to China. I know it's easy for many to forget, given the 100% non-stop crisis mode they work hard to keep everyone in....but China sure has been watching.

So, the fight is coming to them..if it ever comes in a real way at all. All they have to do is the easiest part of any war. Play defense to action from a standing, organized military force. Think the US can pull off the 3-4:1 the books say should be there before playing invader?

I doubt it....and after China knocks things like GPS into a far off, past memory? Those ratios will be right back where we're at for REAL fighting, in real warfare like morons in Washington have told themselves our trillions in spending insure our side will never ever have to dirty itself again with. Oh....what a mess it becomes when it is nothing but morons leading a nation.

reply to post by thesungod


Makes sense to me. Take out any satellites that may be used for surveillance/communications by your enemy.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Not sure you wrote anything I disagree with actually.

China appears to have no interest in projection, you are correct. I believe that was my main point also. Yes they would play defense and it looks like that is how they are shaping their military and at this point I find it highly unlikely anyone could successfully invade China again.

reply to post by Hopechest


Not everything has to disagree..indeed.

If anything, we might disagree in the impression I get from your writing..that China isn't building to be a major world military power. They are. Very hard at work, too. They're just doing it the way I think it proper. Major defense and to a level that makes attacking them almost suicidally dumb. Unlike the US....where it's about attack power and makes simply disagreeing with us, suicidally dumb.

There is something terribly wrong with that last approach, isn't there?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Hopechest

 

Not everything has to disagree..indeed.

If anything, we might disagree in the impression I get from your writing..that China isn't building to be a major world military power. They are. Very hard at work, too. They're just doing it the way I think it proper. Major defense and to a level that makes attacking them almost suicidally dumb. Unlike the US....where it's about attack power and makes simply disagreeing with us, suicidally dumb.

There is something terribly wrong with that last approach, isn't there?

Oh they are certainly building to be a major military power, I was just commenting how they are taking a different path than the US has. America is built on projecting power while China is building, as you said, for a more defensive stance.

It would be interesting to see these two policies collide one day, from a strictly theoretical point of view of course. I don't think the US strategy is necessarily wrong because our goals are very different from China's.

We have more allies that we wish to protect and given our location, it is more important that we have a more mobile military. China does not have this issue to deal with, anyone they care to protect is relatively close by.

We could really go into some detail on this issue but that's probably better left for a separate thread.

reply to post by Hopechest


Oh agree.... On this thread, the Anti-Sat Missile just shows their thinking pretty clearly.

If war ever comes, they intend to make sure we're all fighting on the same level of playing field. No super wonder weapons for the West which depend on space-age 'wowness' to fly through windows and hit enemies right on the crown of their head, while speaking on a cell phone the missile tracked down the signal of.

I gotta hand it to China...I respect their approach. I wish it wasn't, almost by nature, adversarial to some level. That doesn't remove an ounce of the respect though. America plays checkers on a 4 year timer, for the most part. China is playing Chess in a game which, for all we know, they're still play from decades or even centuries ago. It's hard to say just where their long term planning comes from or is meant to go to. They are good about being quiet on that.

great, blow up satellites and create more space debris. Sounds like something humans will eventually do.

pretty interesting, is this the first of its kind? thanks for posting. hopefully during a war that this is used in , it does not take out something it should not.

reply to post by thesungod


You seem to think that a satellite simply spins around out there without protection. While that may be true for most of the mundane, I wager that the really important military ones have shepherds or self-contain systems.

After all, if your job as a satellite is looking down at what is going on, you will have amply time to get your defenses on-line. As the old saying goes, you could see the on-coming a country mile away.

en.wikipedia.org... interesting read on anti satellite weapons history from the 50's ua tests to the early soviet ones

The first launch of the new anti-satellite missile took place in January 1984. The first, and only, successful interception was on September 13, 1985. The F-15 took off from Edwards Air Force Base, climbed to 38,100 feet (11,613 m)[2] and vertically launched the missile at the Solwind P78-1, a U.S. gamma ray spectroscopy satellite orbiting at 555 km (345 mi), which was launched in 1979.[3] Although successful, the program was cancelled in 1988.

this was the USA's first success and the next test being in 2008

soviet tests and early success

Further tests carried out against a special target spacecraft, the DS-P1-M, which recorded hits by the IS warhead's shrapnel. A total of 23 launches have been identified as being part of the IS test series. The system was declared operational in February 1973.

i guess this is actually china's second successful downing of a satellite as they did it in 2007

To buttress my post earlier about satellites being able to protect themselves in some fashion, I just came across a related post:

arstechnica.com...

reply to post by theboarman


Not the first of it's kind. Can't say much more.

reply to post by Aliensun


You are 100% correct. They do have defenses. The same defenses that jet fighters have against missiles. Move or shooting the missile down. ECM such as jamming or rear pulsing EMP hardly work right. Best defense against a missile is kinetic. Hitting a speeding bullet with another speeding bullet is harder than you might think.

still makes me wonder a bit.They really don't need to fight a war with anyone.Just horde food and cash for a while,then close down the ports.Nothing goes out,the rest of the world collapses in days! They have the world by the economic short hairs.

Originally posted by Hopechest
I'd say China is securing southeastern Asia and its pretty impenetrable to the US or anyone else if fighting were to break out. I don't believe they have any plans to expand however.

China's rapid improvements are quite impressive to be true, espionage pays off, but they are 20 to 30 years behind America in technology, and equally as far back in doctine to use that technology. If war was to break out today it would take possibly mere weeks for the US to destroy China's infrastucture to such a degree they would be forced to surrender.

I am not talking about an invasion, I am not talking occupation, I am talking about the complete destruction of their country, with them having little to no recourse outside Nuclear weapons. If nukes were employed we have far more advanced defensive systems, and we would respond in kind. America would take hits, but would survive, China would become the great glass sea.

Who knows what the situation 10 years from now will be, but that is today's reality.