Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that “U. S. intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 mi. altitude Jan. 11 destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile.” Jeffrey Lewis, executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center, reports on his blog, Arms Control Wonk, that the test is now “an open secret inside the US defense community.” He even takes a shot at identifying which satellite the Chinese shot down:
Lewis goes on:
Read the whole thing here. UPDATE: AFP confirms earlier reports of a Chinese ASAT test. In addition AFP reports that the United States, Canada, and Australia have all “expressed concern” over the test to the Chinese authorities. What’s really interesting is that critics of the president’s new, more assertive space policy, or at least the media’s interpretation of it, have pointed to this resolution, which the Chinese introduced to the UN Conference on Disarmament, as evidence of a Chinese desire to make illegal “attacks on spacecraft by land-, sea-, and air-based systems,” and that the Chinese would have done so already if not for “US disinterest.” That seems to be wishful thinking now that it’s clear the Chinese have been working extensively on ASAT weapons systems. Lewis, who has been anything but hawkish on the threat from China’s space program, points out that no matter what the Chinese say, they “will simply not be credible partners in efforts to keep space peaceful.”
