Militarisation of space
The militarisation of space involved the placement and development of weaponry and military technology in outer space. The early exploration of space in the mid-20th century had, in part, a military motivation, as the United States and the Soviet Union used it as an opportunity to demonstrate ballistic-missile technology and other technologies having the potential for military application. Outer space has since been used as an operating location for military spacecraft such as imaging and communications satellites, and some ballistic missiles pass through outer space during their flight., known deployments of weapons stationed in space include only the Almaz space-station armament and pistols such as the TP-82 Cosmonaut survival pistol.
History
The Cold War
During the Cold War, the world's two great superpowers—the Soviet Union and the United States of America—spent large proportions of their GDP on developing military technologies. The drive to place objects in orbit stimulated space research and started the Space Race. In 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1.By the end of the 1960s, both countries regularly deployed satellites. Reconnaissance satellites were used by militaries to take accurate pictures of their rivals' military installations. As time passed, the resolution and accuracy of orbital reconnaissance alarmed both sides of the Iron Curtain. Both the United States and the Soviet Union began to develop anti-satellite weapons to blind or destroy each other's satellites. Directed-energy weapons, kamikaze-style satellites, as well as orbital nuclear explosives were researched with varying levels of success. Spy satellites were, and continue to be, used to monitor the dismantling of military assets by arms control treaties signed between the two superpowers. To use spy satellites in such a manner is often referred to in treaties as "national technical means of verification".
The superpowers developed ballistic missiles to enable them to use nuclear weaponry across great distances. As rocket science developed, the range of missiles increased and intercontinental ballistic missiles were created, which could strike virtually any target on Earth in a timeframe measured in minutes rather than hours or days. To cover large distances ballistic missiles are usually launched into sub-orbital spaceflight.
Image:Peacekeeper-missile-testing.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Test of the LG-118A Peacekeeper missile, each one of which could carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads along trajectories outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
As soon as intercontinental missiles were developed, military planners began programmes and strategies to counter their effectiveness.
United States
Early American efforts included the Nike-Zeus Program, Project Defender, the Sentinel Program and the Safeguard Program. The late 1950s Nike-Zeus programme involved firing Nike nuclear missiles against oncoming ICBMs, thus exploding nuclear warheads over the North Pole. This idea was soon scrapped and work began on Project Defender in 1958. Project Defender attempted to destroy Soviet ICBMs at launch with satellite weapon systems, which orbited over Russia. This programme proved infeasible with the technology from that era. Work then began on the Sentinel Program which used anti-ballistic missiles to shoot down incoming ICBMs.In the late 1950s United States Air Force considered detonating an atomic bomb on the Moon to display U.S. superiority to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. In 1959, a feasibility study of a possible military base on the Moon was conducted. In 1958, a plan for a 21-airman underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 was developed.
The Safeguard Program was deployed in the mid-1970s and was based on the Sentinel Program. Since the ABM treaty only allowed for the construction of a single ABM facility to protect either the nation's capital city or an ICBM field, the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex was constructed near Nekoma, North Dakota to protect the Grand Forks ICBM facility. Though it was only operational as an ABM facility for less than a year, the Perimeter Acquisition Radar, one of Safeguard's components, was still operational as of 2005. One major problem with the Safeguard Program, and past ABM systems, was that the interceptor missiles, though state-of-the-art, required nuclear warheads to destroy incoming ICBMs. Future ABMs will likely be more accurate and use hit-to-kill or conventional warheads to knock down incoming warheads. The technology involved in such systems was shaky at best, and deployment was limited by the ABM treaty of 1972.
In 1983, American president Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based system to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear missiles. The plan was ridiculed by some as unrealistic and expensive, and Dr. Carol Rosin nicknamed the policy "Star Wars", after the popular science-fiction movie franchise. Astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out that in order to defeat SDI, the Soviet Union had only to build more missiles, allowing them to overcome the defence by sheer force of numbers. Proponents of SDI said the strategy of technology would hasten the Soviet Union's downfall. According to this doctrine, Communist leaders were forced to either shift large portions of their GDP to counter SDI, or else watch as their expensive nuclear stockpiles were rendered obsolete.
United States Space Command, a unified command of the United States military, was created in 1985 to help institutionalise the use of outer space by the United States Armed Forces. The Commander in Chief of U.S. Space Command, with headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado was also the Commander in Chief of the bi-national U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, and for the majority of time during USSPACECOM's existence also the Commander of the U.S. Air Force major command Air Force Space Command. Military space operations coordinated by USSPACECOM proved to be very valuable for the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The U.S. military has relied on communications, intelligence, navigation, missile warning and weather satellite systems in areas of conflict since the early 1990s, including the Balkans, Southwest Asia and Afghanistan. Space systems are considered indispensable providers of tactical information to U.S. war-fighters.
As part of the ongoing initiative to transform the U.S. military, on 26 June 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that U.S. Space Command would merge with USSTRATCOM. The UCP directed that Unified Combatant Commands be capped at ten, and with the formation of the new United States Northern Command, one would have to be deactivated in order to maintain that level. Thus the USSPACECOM merger into USSTRATCOM.
On December 10, 2019, the United States Space Force was formed as the world's only independent space force, with 8600 military personnel and 77 spacecraft.
Operation Hardtack I
Operation Hardtack I was a series of nuclear tests carried out by the United States Government in 1958. A major facet of these tests was three high-altitude nuclear tests: YUCCA, ORANGE, and TEAK. YUCCA was detonated April 28 at an altitude of 86,000 feet and had a comparatively small yield of 1.7 kilotons. YUCCA is notable as the first nuclear test carried via balloon. Following tests ORANGE and TEAK were carried out July 31 and August 11 at altitudes of 252,000 feet and 141,000 feet, respectively. The bombs were delivered via rocket and their yields were in the megaton range.
Starfish Prime
was a nuclear test carried out in 1962 over Johnston Atoll by the United States as part of Operation Fishbowl. The 1.4 megaton bomb was detonated at an altitude of 400 km, in the ionosphere and was the highest altitude nuclear test ever demonstrated. The test is notable for its Electromagnetic Pulse effect, which was felt as far as 1400 km away in Hawaii.USSR/Russia
The Soviet Union was also researching innovative ways of gaining space supremacy. Two of their most notable efforts were the R-36ORB Fractional Orbital Bombardment System and Polyus orbital weapons system.The R-36ORB was a Soviet ICBM in the 1960s that, once launched, would go into a low Earth orbit whereupon it would de-orbit for an attack. This system would approach North America over the South Pole, thereby striking targets from the opposite direction from that to which NORAD early warning systems are oriented. The missile was phased out in January 1983 in compliance with the SALT II treaty.
The SALT II treaty prohibited the deployment of FOBS systems:
On May 15, 1987, an Energia rocket flew for the first time. The payload was a prototype orbital weapons platform Polyus, the final version of which according to some reports could be armed with nuclear space mines and defensive cannon. The Polyus weapons platform was designed to defend itself against anti-satellite weapons with recoilless cannon. It was also equipped with a sensor blinding laser to confuse approaching weapons and could launch test targets to validate the fire control system. The attempt to place the satellite into orbit failed.
The Russian Space Forces was the first independent space force, formed in 1992, independent from 1992 to 1997 and 2001 to 2011, however it currently now part of the Russian Aerospace Forces.