PLA’s anti-satellite capabilities to be revealed in report

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PLA’s anti-satellite capabilities to be revealed in report

 

A report to be published by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission next month gives details of China’s anti-satellite capabilities, senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon Bill Gertz wrote in the Washington Times on Oct. 14.

Two types of direct-ascent missiles known as the SC-19 and DN-2 are under development in China designed with the capability to destroy American satellites in both lower and higher orbits. While the DN-2 is designed to hit high-orbit targets such as global positioning satellites, Gertz said its primary purpose is more likely to destroy military satellites that are used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The DN-2 is estimated to be deployed in the next five to 10 years.

The report also says the People’s Liberation Army is pursuing counterspace capabilities including direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital anti-satellite systems, computer network operations, ground-based satellite jammers and directed energy weapons.
It also says China’s nuclear arsenal also provides an inherent anti-satellite capability. Gertz said the electromagnetic pulse created by a nuclear detonation in low Earth orbit would severely damage unshielded satellites. China is able to paralyze US satellites with electronic ground-based jammers as well, the report indicates. One American satellite was temporarily disrupted by a high-powered laser fired by the PLA in 2006.

Gertz said Chinese hackers were probably behind several incidents involving US space assets, such as a satellite used by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that was hacked in September 2014. The report said the PLA plans to threaten US information superiority through taking over US satellites in a future conflict…..More Here

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