Space Won’t Save You: ASM-135 ASAT
After the second world war, the world was divided into east and west blocs, relations was tense and in every area they enter a technology race. Undoubtedly, the most developed technologies in this race was military and space ones. America and Soviet Union were putting their resources in crazy armament. In the space area this race was also felt and Soviet Union managed to launch SPUTNIK-1 satellite into space. This satellite, being the first artificial satellite in the world, showed that soviets could maybe get images from space in future which means a big intelligence advantage.
Sputnik-1
To prevent this, Bold Orion and High Virgo rockets was tested but didn’t have much success. From 1960 SPIN (Space Intercept) program was started and rockets like CALEB was developed but it failed. Until 1980 no major success was achieved. From 1978 Soviets started an anti-satellite program and after that Jimmy Carter gave an order to start a new anti-satellite program.
Bold Orion missle on B-47 Stratojet
ASM-135 missile was designed to be launched from F15A. F15’s HUD (Head up display) and mission computer was changed for this mission. Missile was built in three stages. For first stage a modified AGM-69 missile was used. In second stage ALTAIR 3 rocket motor with hydrazine fueled thrusters was used and third stage had various infrared sensors for targeting. These sensors were cooled with liquid helium from a kind of cryogenic storage on second stage and F15.
On December 21 1982 first transport flight was performed and on September 13 1985, “Celestial Eagle” using F-15A 76-0084 pilot Wilbert D. “Doug” Pearson launched an ASM-135 ASAT missile from about 320 km (200 miles) west of Vandenberg Air Force Base and destroyed Solwind P78-1 satellite flying at 555 km (345 miles). Before launch, F-15 flying at Mach 1.22 did a climb maneuver at 65 degree angle with 3.8 g⁰ (37 m/s²) acceleration. ASAT missile was launched when F-15 flying Mach 0.934 (994.2 km/h; 617.7 mph) at 11,600 meters (38,100 feet). 14 kilogram (30 lb) MHV approached 910 kilogram (2,000 lb) Solwind P78-1 satellite at 24,000 km/h (15,000 mph; 6.7 km/s). NASA knew about US Air Force’s Solwind ASAT test plans in July 1985. NASA modeled the effects of the test and found that debris will still be in orbit in 1990s. This forced NASA to develop debris
shield for planned space station.
There is no air-to-air missile that can shoot down a satellite today.
Written by İsmail Mahmud Ayyıldız
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