CIAO DATE: 09/04

When is a Space Weapon Not a Space Weapon?

Theresa Hitchens

Center for Defense Information

January 2004

Ask anyone with experience in the arms control arena, and he or she will tell you that a first–order hurdle for any successful negotiation is agreeing on definitions. Indeed, over the past several decades, efforts to craft restrictions on anti–satellite (ASAT) and other on-orbit weapons have foundered on just that rocky shoal: what is an ASAT or a space weapon?

For example, during the 1978–79 U.S.–Soviet negotiations on a space arms control regime, Moscow was adamant that NASA’s then–developmental space shuttle should be defined as an ASAT weapon. Despite the fact that neither side was yet heavily invested in building space weapons — usually an auspicious situation for reaching arms control agreements — the talks went nowhere.

Indeed, when reviewing the literature on the issue of space weapons, one is tempted to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his 1964 opinion on the definition of obscenity: “I know ‘em when I see ’em.”

Today, however, with the Bush administration inching closer and closer to overthrowing the long–standing U.S. policy against deployment of ASATs and other types of on–orbit weapons, the need for clarity has never been more urgent. Otherwise, it will be impossible for the American body–politic to have a coherent debate about what is undeniably a major strategic decision — one that will have widespread ramifications not only for U.S. national security, but also for all space stakeholders (civilian, commercial and military) around the world.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are doing their best — although perhaps not deliberately — to further muddy the already murky definitional waters. Masked by a combination of confusing Pentagon–ese (always a problem) and official hair–splitting, real–world space weapon programs are being bred and born with almost no public scrutiny. And as anyone knows who has followed weapon system acquisition, killing a program past a certain point in the developmental (read spending) chain is well nigh impossible.

If the current situation continues, it may be that a far–reaching shift in U.S. strategic policy will be made as a fait accompli, rather than as the result of the serious, in–depth public policy discussion it deserves.

Officially, as numerous senior U.S. Air Force officials have publicly insisted over the past year, there are “no space weapons programs on the books.” The real meaning of this statement, however, is highly dependent on how one defines space weapons and on the books.

Starting with the latter, if on the books is defined as in production, the claim is unambiguously true. Nothing most people would consider as remotely resembling a space weapon is anywhere near a production line — at least, as far as anyone outside the Pentagon’s world of “black” programs knows.

On the other hand, looking at Air Force research and development planning and budget books, the picture is blurrier. There are several research and development projects in the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2004–2009 budget defined by the Air Force not as weapons, but as space control systems, that, with varying degrees of rationality, could be called ASATs.

On the scale of somewhat–ASAT–like to definitely–an–ASAT respectively, these include: the Counter Satellite Communication System, a ground–based system for disrupting satellite communications being used by the enemy for military purposes; the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System, a ground–based system designed to use reversible and temporary methods to shut down enemy imaging satellites during a conflict; and the long–troubled, but still surviving, Kinetic Energy Anti–Satellite interceptor, a ground–based system designed to use hit–to–kill technology to destroy enemy satellites in low Earth orbit.

In addition, the “U.S. Air Force Strategic Master Plan for FY 04 and Beyond” forthrightly envisions “space–based counterspace” and “active on–orbit protection” systems in the 2016–2028 timeframe. It is pretty hard to decode those terms as meaning anything other than space weapons that are on the books.

Regarding the term space weapon, things are just as foggy. For example, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency continues to have mid– to long–term plans to develop space–based interceptors to knock down incoming enemy ballistic missiles in their boost phase as they rise into the Earth's atmosphere. Most lay people would agree that these on–orbit interceptors are certainly space weapons. But Department of Defense officials might beg to differ.

Over the past couple of years, some Department of Defense officials have argued that exports of missile defense interceptor technology do not fall under the strict limits of the Missile Technology Control Regime because anti–missile missiles are defensive not offensive. This is a hard argument to make stick, since the Missile Technology Control Regime is based not on a missile–related export’s intended use but on its technical parameters.

Still, there are already those who, using similar logic, argue that because space–based missile defense interceptors are defensive, they are not space weapons. Perhaps the most striking example of when a space weapon is not a space weapon is the Experimental Satellite Series (XSS) program. The first in the series, the 28–kilogram XSS–10, demonstrated capability in January 2003 to maneuver closely around another on–orbit object and take pictures. Its follow–on, the more sophisticated XSS–11, is scheduled for launch in November 2004.

Officially, the XSS–11 will demonstrate automated co–orbiting capabilities and imaging operations designed to help the Air Force learn how to diagnose problems in, and/or undertake servicing/refueling of, on–orbit assets.

Unofficially, however, the XSS–11 admittedly will be an on–orbit ASAT, i.e. a space weapon. Inside the Pentagon in December quoted a defense official close to the program as saying point blank that not only could the XSS–11 be used as a kinetic energy ASAT, but also that this capability already had been demonstrated with the XSS–10 mission.

This would likely come as no surprise to those closely watching Air Force microsatellite development efforts. According to an unclassified summary published in 2000, the “single strongest recommendation” of the Air Force’s 1999 Microsatellite Technology and Requirements Study was “the deployment, as rapidly as possible, of XSS–10–based satellites to intercept, image and, if needed, take action against a target satellite.”

The point here, however, is that the XSS microsatellite program is not, according to the U.S. Air Force, a “space weapons program on the books.”

This use of carefully parsed language may not be intended by anyone in the Pentagon or the Air Force to be disingenuous, but it does make the necessary public debate on the wider issue of the wisdom of space weaponization much harder.

The fact of the matter is that space weapon technologies are being actively researched and planned as a part of a future U.S. arsenal. And while it may be difficult to precisely define or even categorize some of the emerging technologies, it is imperative that Pentagon plans and intentions are made clear and are thoroughly understood by policy–makers and Congress before funding commitments are made. The future security of all space users is at stake.

Theresa Hitchens is vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington–based think tank, and director of the CDI Space Security Project.