[dragontamer]

Because in a Taiwan scenario, China almost certainly would attack US Satellites.

And vice versa: USA would want to stop Chinese Satellites, so that they are blind to the movement of our carriers.

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Frankly, I'd expect that the Space Force is already conducting testing-level operations against our opponent's satellites.

From temporary blindness (this laser-thing they're talking about), to permanent disablement (missile, like Russia's test). Maybe the US isn't so gaudy to publicly create space debris like Russia, but I'm sure we have weapons in development that can do the same thing.

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> Edit: The "space force" needs to justify its existence, and this is a way for them to do it. Why haven't we heard about this before?

"Space Force" always existed. Or do you think that the US Army doesn't use GPS or Spy Satellites?

The issue with before, is that we used to have a Space-component for US Army. Then a 2nd space-component in the US Navy. Then a 3rd space-component in the US Marines. Finally, we have a 4th space-component in the US Air Force.

This was stupid. We removed the space-elements in our 4 branches and combined them into a singular 5th branch. Instead of redundantly creating 4 different space branches subservient to 4 different organizations, we can have one branch focus on the space stuff, and the other 4 branches asking the 5th guy for support as needed.

If anything, Space Force is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than the stupid organization we had before.

[Terr_]

There's also the Space Force versus the National Reconnaissance Office versus the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

[User23]

Anti-satellite weapons have been around for some time[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT

[nine_k]

I can imagine lightweight semi-permanent disablement by spraying paint on lenses and wrapping the entire craft in aluminum foil. Zero space debris, and not even destruction of property.

This takes more fuel and an advanced robot craft, but should be preferable for a time when a fast all-out war is not being fought. And I hope both sides would like to avoid an all-out war.

[FredPret]

Space rendezvous is really hard. Easier to get line-of-sight and then beam attack it

[nine_k]

Hitting is easier of course!

The idea is to disable a satellite in a nicest possible way, in order to look good in the eyes of everyone but the adversary.

[dragontamer]

A laser-beam attack is when you shine a laser into the satellite's lenses, meaning its blind for the duration of the laser-beam.

As such, you can disable an opponent's satellite without destroying it. It just doesn't work for the duration of the laser-beam attack.

[nine_k]

This works against optical surveillance.

My idea was also targeting e.g. navigation and communication satellites. Maybe coming close and drowning their transmission in white noise could work. It would take imitating their antennas' direction pretty well.

[FredPret]

You’d probably have to hack it then. Getting there and wrapping it in foil / sabotaging it would be unbelievably hard and clearly visible to the whole world’s radar systems

[nine_k]

I don't think that a rocket attack would stay invisible.

If the target satellite would start maneuvering to avoid capture, it's OK because now it's useless as a navigation satellite, and is harder if even still possible to use for communication and surveillance.