[A-List] Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/world/asia/19china.html>
January 19, 2007
Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite
weapon last week, signaling its resolve to play a major role in
military space activities and bringing expressions of concern from
Washington and other capitals, the Bush administration said yesterday.

Only two nations — the Soviet Union and the United States — have
previously destroyed spacecraft in antisatellite tests, most recently
the United States in the mid-1980s.

Arms control experts called the test, in which the weapon destroyed an
aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could
foreshadow an antisatellite arms race. Alternatively, however, some
experts speculated that it could precede a diplomatic effort by China
to prod the Bush administration into negotiations on a weapons ban.

"This is the first real escalation in the weaponization of space that
we've seen in 20 years," said Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer
who tracks rocket launchings and space activity. "It ends a long
period of restraint."

White House officials said the United States and other nations, which
they did not identify, had "expressed our concern regarding this
action to the Chinese." Despite its protest, the Bush administration
has long resisted a global treaty banning such tests because it says
it needs freedom of action in space.

Jianhua Li, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said
that he had heard about the antisatellite story but that he had no
statement or information.

At a time when China is modernizing its nuclear weapons, expanding the
reach of its navy and sending astronauts into orbit for the first
time, the test appears to mark a new sphere of technical and military
competition. American officials complained yesterday that China had
made no public or private announcements about its test, despite
repeated requests by American officials for more openness about its
actions.

The weather satellite hit by the weapon had circled the globe at an
altitude of roughly 500 miles. In theory, the test means that China
can now hit American spy satellites, which orbit closer to Earth. The
satellites presumably in range of the Chinese missile include most of
the imagery satellites used for basic military reconnaissance, which
are essentially the eyes of the American intelligence community for
military movements, potential nuclear tests and even some
counterterrorism, and commercial satellites.

Experts said the weather satellite's speeding remnants could pose a
threat to other satellites for years or even decades.

In late August, President Bush authorized a new national space policy
that ignored calls for a global prohibition on such tests. The policy
said the United States would "preserve its rights, capabilities, and
freedom of action in space" and "dissuade or deter others from either
impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so."
It declared the United States would "deny, if necessary, adversaries
the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."

The Chinese test "could be a shot across the bow," said Theresa
Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, a private
group in Washington that tracks military programs. "For several years,
the Russians and Chinese have been trying to push a treaty to ban
space weapons. The concept of exhibiting a hard-power capability to
bring somebody to the negotiating table is a classic cold war
technique."

Gary Samore, the director of studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations, said in an interview: "I think it makes perfect sense for
the Chinese to do this both for deterrence and to hedge their bets. It
puts pressure on the U.S. to negotiate agreements not to weaponize
space."

Ms. Hitchens and other critics have accused the administration of
conducting secret research on advanced antisatellite weapons using
lasers, which are considered a far speedier and more powerful way of
destroying satellites than the weapons of two decades ago.

The White House statement, issued by the National Security Council,
said China's "development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent
with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the
civil space area."

An administration official who had reviewed the intelligence about
China's test said the launching was detected by the United States in
the early evening of Jan. 11, which would have been early morning on
Jan. 12 in China. American satellites tracked the launching of the
medium-range ballistic missile, and later space radars saw the debris.

The antisatellite test was first reported late Wednesday on the Web
site of Aviation Week and Space Technology, an industry magazine. It
said intelligence agencies had yet to "complete confirmation of the
test."

The test, the magazine said, appeared to employ a ground-based
interceptor that used the sheer force of impact rather than an
exploding warhead to shatter the satellite.

Dr. McDowell of Harvard said the satellite was known as Feng Yun, or
"wind and cloud." Launched in 1999, it was the third in a series. He
said that it was a cube measuring 4.6 feet on each side, and that its
solar panels extended about 28 feet. He added that it was due for
retirement but that it still appeared to be electronically alive,
making it an ideal target.

"If it stops working," he said, "you know you have a successful hit."

David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., said he calculated
that the Chinese satellite had shattered into 800 fragments four
inches wide or larger, and millions of smaller pieces.

The Soviet Union conducted roughly a dozen antisatellite tests from
1968 to 1982, Dr. McDowell said, adding that the Reagan administration
carried out its experiments in 1985 and 1986.

The Bush administration has conducted research that critics say could
produce a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would be used
against enemy satellites.

The largely secret project, parts of which were made public through
Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress last year, appears to
be part of a wide-ranging administration effort to develop space
weapons, both defensive and offensive.

The administration's laser research is far more ambitious than a
previous effort by the Clinton administration to develop an
antisatellite laser, though the administration denies that it is an
attempt to build a laser weapon.

The current research takes advantage of an optical technique that uses
sensors, computers and flexible mirrors to counteract the atmospheric
turbulence that seems to make stars twinkle. The weapon would
essentially reverse that process, shooting focused beams of light
upward with great clarity and force.

Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a group
that studies national security, called the Chinese test very
un-Chinese.

"There's nothing subtle about this," he said. "They've created a huge
debris cloud that will last a quarter century or more. It's at a
higher elevation than the test we did in 1985, and for that one the
last trackable debris took 17 years to clear out."

Mr. Krepon added that the administration had long argued that the
world needed no space-weapons treaty because no such arms existed and
because the last tests were two decades ago. "It seems," he said,
"that argument is no longer operative."

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.

--
Yoshie
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