China’s Secret Satellite Rendezvous ‘Suggestive of a Military Program’
By Katie Drummond
August 31, 2010 12:50 pm
Earlier this month, two Chinese satellites met up in orbit. Depending on who you believe, it’s either a sign of China’s increasingly-sophisticated space program — or a sign of its increasingly-sophisticated space warfare program.本月較早前，兩顆中國衛星在軌道會面。視乎你相信誰，它不是一個中國日益複雜的航天計劃跡象 - 就是它的日趨複雜的太空作戰計劃跡象。
A well-regarded Russian space watcher was the first to note that the two satellites, newly-launched SJ-12 and two-year-old SJ-06F, had performed maneuvers indicating a cutting edge procedure called non-cooperative robotic rendezvous. A loose network of amateur space spectators and astronomers soon congregated online, and confirmed that the sats had, indeed, converged.
一個良好的俄羅斯太空觀察者，是第一個注意到兩顆衛星 - 新近發射的SJ - 12和2歲大的SJ - 06F - 已進行軍事演習，顯示一先進的過程被稱為非合作性的機器人式會合。一個鬆散的業餘空間觀眾和天文學家的網絡很快聚集在線，並證實衛星們事實上已融合。
This kind of rendezvous can have extremely useful, and benign, applications: removing space debris, refueling satellites or repairing craft in orbit. But the military apps are massive, and include up-close inspection of foreign satellites, espionage — and the infliction of some serious damage to adversarial space infrastructure. In other words, orbital warfare that, given just how reliant we are on satellite technology, would have widespread consequences on the ground.
這種交會可以是非常有用和良性的應用：消除空間碎片、衛星加油或修理軌道中的船。但軍事的應用是大規模的，及包括近距離外國衛星的檢查、間諜 - 和施加一些嚴重的損害至敵手的空間基礎設施。換言之，軌道戰爭，倘若祇是我們是多麼依賴衛星技術，將在地面上具有廣泛的後果。
“These kinds of rendezvous have been done plenty of times with ground control, but robotically controlled satellites, rendezvousing at higher altitudes, is really quite new,” says Brian Weeden, who offers an in-depth rundown of the incident at The Space Review. “The perception of how this technology is being developed, and what it is being used for, is extremely important.”
“這些種類的交會與地面控制已被進行很多次，但機械式的控制衛星，會合在高緯度，實在是很新，”布賴恩威登說，他在太空檢討提供一有深度的事件表。 “這種技術如何在開發的觀點，以及它是被用來作什麼，是非常重要的。”
The United States is the only other country known to have performed a similar feat. In 2005, NASA researchers launched DART (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) in an effort to rendezvous with a Navy satellite. Navigational errors led to the two satellites bumping, but the initiative did offer proof-of-concept that American scientists were making major headway towards satellites that can autonomously meet up in space. Since then, the Darpa-funded Orbital Express program has demonstrated the capacity for satellites to rendezvous for refueling and module swapping.
美國是唯一其它國家知道已進行類似的壯舉。
So, in a sense, it was really only a matter of time before China followed suit. In recent years, they’ve fast-tracked a handful of space exploration and development projects, culminating in a satellite-killing weapons program and 90-pound mini-sat that some speculated was designed with nefarious intent.
“The Chinese would be absolutely incompetent to not be trying to reduce U.S advantage in space,” James Oberg, a former NASA space engineer specializing in orbital rendezvous, tells Danger Room. “No potential adversary in their right mind would give us permanent advantage in space operations.”
Weeden notes that neither the United States or Chinese governments have been especially forthcoming about their progress on satellite rendezvous capacities, not to mention respective satellite arsenals and specific locations. The dilemma is even more salient because, as this incident illustrates, knowledgeable amateurs with the right equipment can do their own detective work — and then meet online to share the results.
“There’s a continued assumption among governments that if they don’t publish satellite details and locations, nobody is going to figure it out,” Weeden says. “That’s wrong.”
In this instance, China’s government has yet to acknowledge the incident, and their apparent choice of location for the actual rendezvous adds to the troubling puzzle. According to Oberg, the satellite meet-up occurred in an orbit almost exclusively devoted to earth observation — spy and weather satellites, for example — where “a potential adversary would be most interested in rendezvousing.”
“On the other hand, it’s also where a satellite might need refueling,” he adds. “It’s like you could be changing a screwdriver for a hammer, or you could be turning a peaceful ‘bot into a killer one.”
But China’s been eager to boast about their prior space exploration projects, and have already publicized plans for a major satellite rendezvous trial next year, so silence in this instance seems telling.
“There’s still a vague possibility that this was a matter of computational bias and coincidence,” Oberg says. “But the silence here is suggestive of a military program.”
For now, web-based space watchers will keep working. They’re hoping to figure out whether or not the Chinese satellites touched, which would indicate either an error like that of the DART attempt or some kind of military trial run. Regardless, the rendezvous is a stark reminder that the safety of American deep-space systems is by no means guaranteed.
“For all we know, these could just be mind games. They don’t have to attack U.S space capacities — they just have to make us think they could,” Oberg says. “We’re not playing chess in space, we’re playing Go. This makes chess look like a kindergartner’s pastime.”
Photo: Darpa
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/chinas-secret-satellite-rendezvous-suggestive-of-a-military-program/
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