[atonse]

I believe the US and China (and Russia according to the Wendover video [1]) already have anti-satellite weapons to be used in a conflict, but they aren't like "blow this up" because of space debris. I'm not exactly sure how they work, but they aren't what we expect with terrestrial weapons.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DmliiUFHk

[krisbolton]

This article is a short history of anti-satellite weapons, discussing who has demonstrated their capability: https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-p...

I'm sure I read a more recent account of a satellite moving another satellite around in order to degrade its orbit, but I can only find this 2022 instance: https://www.twz.com/44054/a-chinese-satellite-just-grappled-...

[dylan604]

What happens if you have a satellite that takes images of earth and it gets hit with a power beam of light that destroys the sensor so you get no more images of earth? Is that satellite just as dead to you as if it were rapidly disassembled? What happens if your satellite was heated for extended time beyond what it was designed to do? Is that satellite just as dead to you?

[mgoetzke]

Didnt russia cause a lot of debris due to one of their tests and endanger the ISS crew ?

[atonse]

Yeah I just watched my own video and was surprised to see exactly that. Because I remember reading somewhere else years ago that an ideal anti-satellite weapon would either de-orbit a satellite (like bumping it off orbit so it burns up) or use some kind of net/capture to push it off orbit, rather than blow it up.

Now this is going to have to be a rabbit hole for me (and some AI) this weekend.

[Rebelgecko]

Their test was in a low-ish orbit so most of the debris is gone now.

I haven't looked at stats lately but I'd guess the #1 source of debris in space right now is still the Chinese ASAT test which threw a bunch of crap into Medium Earth Orbit. Before that, the main source of debris was leaking coolant from some nuclear reactors the Soviet sent up