RUSSIAN satellite-blinding laser

 According to a recent article in The Space Review, Russia is creating a new ground-based laser station for interfering with satellites in orbit. The main concept would be to flood laser light into the optical sensors of other countries' spy satellites.

 

Although there is scant evidence of any government successfully testing such a laser, laser technology has advanced to the point where this form of anti-satellite defence is feasible.

If the Russian government is successful in building the laser, it will be capable of hiding a substantial portion of the nation from the gaze of optical satellites. The technique also paves the way for the more terrifying prospect of laser weapons capable of permanently deactivating satellites.

Russia's laser

Kalina is the name of a well-known new Russian laser plant. Its purpose is to dazzle, and so momentarily blind, the optical sensors of satellites gathering information above. Dazzling, like the LAIRCM in the United States, entails overloading the sensors with enough light to prevent them from operating. To achieve this purpose, a significant quantity of light must be sent properly into the satellite sensor. Given the very long distances involved and the fact that the laser beam must first transit through the Earth's atmosphere, this is no simple task.

 Accurately aiming lasers into space over long distances is not a novel concept. For example, NASA's Apollo 15 mission in 1971 deployed on the Moon meter-sized reflectors that are targeted by lasers on Earth to give positional data. The laser power level and optical equipment have a role in delivering adequate photons across long distances. 

Kalina is said to function in an infrared pulsed mode, producing about 1,000 joules per square centimetre. A pulsed laser used for retinal surgery, on the other hand, is only around 1/10,000th as strong. Kalina sends a significant portion of the photons it creates across vast distances where satellites orbit above. It is able to do so because lasers produce highly collimated beams, which means that photons move in parallel, preventing the beam from spreading out. Kalina's beam is focused using a telescope with a diameter of several metres.

 Spy satellites with optical sensors typically operate in low-Earth orbit at a few hundred kilometres altitude. It usually takes a few minutes for these satellites to pass over a certain spot on the Earth's surface. Kalina must be able to run continuously for that long while keeping a constant track on the optical sensor. The telescope system performs these duties.

 According to the telescope's specifications, Kalina would be able to target an above satellite over hundreds of miles of its course. This would allow a very broad region – on the order of 40,000 square miles (approximately 100,000 square kilometres) – to be shielded from information collection by optical sensors aboard satellites. Kentucky has around forty thousand square miles in size.

 Russia claims to have deployed a less capable truck-mounted laser dazzle device named Peresvet in 2019. However, there is no proof that it was employed effectively.

 Laser power levels are anticipated to rise further, making it conceivable to go beyond the transitory impact of blinding and irreversibly damage sensor imaging technology. While laser technology is progressing in that direction, there are substantial policy implications to employing lasers in this manner. A nation's permanent destruction of a space-based sensor may be regarded an act of aggression, resulting in a quick escalation of hostilities.

 In space, lasers

The possible deployment of laser weapons in space is of far greater concern. Such devices would be very effective since target distances would be considerably lowered and there would be no atmosphere to attenuate the beam. In compared to ground-based systems, the power levels required for space-based lasers to do serious damage to spacecraft would be greatly lowered.

Furthermore, space-based lasers might be used to target any satellite by directing lasers towards fuel tanks and power systems, which, if destroyed, would render the spacecraft utterly inoperable.

The deployment of laser weapons in space is becoming more plausible as technology progresses. The issue then arises, "What are the ramifications?"

Categories: Space Tech