ASAT 중궤도 핵폭발로 저궤도 위성군을 무력화시키는 러시아의 ASAT 위성?

[위종민]

2022년 2월 5일 발사된 러시아의 코스모스 2553은 다른 위성들이 거의 없는 2,000km 상공, 지구저궤도상 가장 높은 궤도에 올라가 있는데, 정찰용으로는 거의 쓰이지 않는 궤도이기 때문에 유사시 핵폭발로 그 아래에 있는 스타링크 등의 저궤도 위성을 무력화하는 ASAT 위성이거나, 그런 용도를 시험하는 용도의 위성일 수 있다는 기사가 있네요. 

러시아 코스모스-2553호 핵탄두 인공위성 [.. : 네이버블로그

러시아 코스모스-2553호 핵탄두 인공위성 [제1734호]

미국 콜로라도 스프링스에 위치한 미 우주사령부(US Space Command)는 “코스모스 2553호 인공위성이 지구를 2시간마다 1바퀴씩 돌면서 지금까지 세계 각국이 올린 인공위성들이 집중되어 있는 저궤도 밖에서 활동하는 기이한 모습을 보이고 있다”면서, 미 우주군은 러시아 코스모스 2553호의 동향을 다음과 같이 평가했다.
​
첫째, 러시아 우주군은 이번 코스모스 2553호가 감시 및 정찰을 위한 인공위성이라고 주장하나, 현재 운영되는 궤도로는 지구에 대한 감시 및 정찰 활동이 불가능하다.
​
둘째, 러시아는 그동안 우크라이나 전쟁을 통해 재래식 전력들을 무력화시키는 각종 무인전력 효율성과 우크라이나군의 소부대 전술이 우주 공간을 활용하는 인공위성을 통한 소셜 네트워크에 따라 운영된다는 교훈을 얻었고, 이에 따라 우주 저궤도에 있는 민간용과 군사용 인공위성을 러시아 인공위성에 핵무기를 탑재해 이를 저궤도 밖 궤도에서 폭발시켜 일시에 무력화시키기 위한 핵탄두 인공위성을 개발할 것이라고 선언했는바, 군사 전문가들은 이번 코스모스 2553호가 이러한 새로운 ASAT용 무기일 것으로 전망했다.

[출처] 러시아 코스모스-2553호 핵탄두 인공위성 [제1734호]|작성자 한국군사문제연구원

Is Russia's Cosmos 2553 satellite a test for a future orbital nuclear weapon? - Breaking Defense ( 2024년 5월 기사 )

• Space

Is Russia’s Cosmos 2553 satellite a test for a future orbital nuclear weapon?

Breaking Defense was given exclusive space tracking information showing the unique path of the Russian system, one experts say is the reason for US government warnings about space-based nuclear weapons.

By   Theresa Hitchenson May 22, 2024 at 2:05 PM

An artist’s concept visualizing orbits around the earth. (Breaking Defense graphic, original Earth graphic via NASA)

Updated: 05/22/2024 at 11:00 am EST to add SSC comment on the status of Victus Nox. WASHINGTON — A Russian satellite that the US suspects is a test-bed for future a nuclear anti-satellite weapon is operating in a rare orbit, one analysts tell Breaking Defense would be consistent with hosting a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for observing the Earth — but possibly also for testing how best to deploy a future orbital nuclear weapon.

Cosmos 2553, according to independent experts, is in a circular orbit of about 2,000 kilometers at the farthest edge of the low Earth orbit (LEO) belt. The system, launched in February 2022, is operating in an area largely devoid of other systems — its only known companions are one dead Russian and 10 dead American commercial birds dating from the late 1990s.

That orbit, said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, could have been chosen to both allow experimentation that wouldn’t affect other satellites, and because it makes it harder to keep tabs on. Further, he suggested, such an orbit might be safer for long-duration stationing of a satellite carrying a dangerous nuclear payload, in that it would be less like to be struck by debris or another satellite.

Image of Cosmos 2553’s orbital plan (in red) provided to Breaking Defense by COMSPOC.

To be clear, no US official has claimed, nor does any private sector sleuthing suggest, that Cosmos 2553 is carrying a nuclear weapon. But there has been a breadcrumb trail between the allegations from the US about Russia’s intent to put nuclear weapons in space, first made in February, and Cosmos 2553.

On May 3, Mallory Stewart, a senior State Department arms control official, made semi-cryptic remarks about an unnamed satellite in an “unusual” orbit as part of the alleged Russian program. She further noted that the satellite’s orbit was “not high enough of a radiation environment to allow accelerated testing of electronics, as Russia has described the purpose to be.”

Breaking Defense has since confirmed a May 16 Wall Street Journal report that said the Cosmos 2553 satellite is the system to which Stewart was referring. As of yet, however, no official has publicly named Cosmos 2553 as the satellite in question, despite the fact that the Pentagon has access to higher fidelity space monitoring data than open-source investigators — who have been busy studying the Russian system.

A number of independent experts have tagged Cosmos 2553 as, most likely, primarily designed as a SAR satellite to spy on ground targets. But several speculate the satellite could be undertaking experiments with a second payload — potentially one focused on testing how to protect subsystems of any future nuclear-armed ASAT from long-term exposure to ambient radiation and charged particles in the space environment, which could cause it to malfunction. At nearly 2,000 kilometers, Cosmos 2553 would be exposed to higher levels of radiation than lower down in LEO.

LeoLabs radar tracking visualization of Cosmos-2553.

“The big issue with nuclear weapons deployed in space is that they have to sit there a long time, unattended. So, I imagine that one possible explanation is gathering data on the long-term effects of sitting in orbit would be,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterrey, Calif.

Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva and a long-time watcher of Russia’s nuclear and space forces, agreed.

RecommendedNew Biden MTCR policy will free long-range missile tech, space launcher sales to key allies, partners

The new guidance “strengthens the U.S. ability to deter our adversaries, expands U.S. exports …. and broadens the scope of future space partnerships with U.S. allies and partners,” one recent Biden official told Breaking Defense.

By Theresa Hitchens

“My best guess right now is that there is an experiment that studies shielding of various electronic equipment. The US IC [Intelligence Community] seems to believe that this equipment has something to do with a nuclear weapon. But it’s nearly impossible to prove or disprove,” he told Breaking Defense.

Podvig was one of the first experts to identity Cosmos 2553, in a May 3 thread on the X platform (formerly Twitter) as a suspected SAR-sat likely at the center of Biden administration officials fears that Russia is developing an nuclear ASAT aimed at wiping out satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

In a May 13 essay in The Space Review, a fellow Russian satellite watcher, Bart Hendrickx, likewise did a deep dive on Cosmos 2553, also noting its likely SAR mission, as well as detailing possible linkages to recent studies on the effects of radiation underway within various Russian scientific institutes.

Eyes On LEO

As noted above, one oddity of Cosmos 2553’s orbit is the decision to place it in the upper reaches of LEO — well above most other satellites in that orbital region as noted by the American Enterprise Institute’s Todd Harrison in a May 16 post on X.

LEO is home to most of the world’s remote sensing satellites — but is also increasingly an orbital range of interest to the Defense Department, as it seeks to create a more resilient space force posture by using constellations of many small satellites for missions in the past done by only a few large satellites. In addition, SpaceX’s Starlink mega-constellation of thousands of high-speed, high-volume communications satellites, currently being used by Ukrainian forces in that country’s war with Russia, is stationed in LEO. 

Further, both the United States and Russia have become increasingly interested in putting neighborhood watch satellites in LEO to, at a minimum, keep tabs on each other’s activities there. While the US space-monitoring birds so far have been, or are planned to be, launched into a lower orbit than Cosmos 2553, it is not so far away as to avoid their scrutiny — as several sources suggested to Breaking Defense.

The Space Force has been launching space domain awareness (SDA) birds to LEO as part of the service’s experimental campaign to speed up its launch cycle, both to respond rapidly to on-orbit threats and to allow rapid reconstitution of any space systems lost in a battle.

In June 2021, Space Systems Command’s Space Safari office launched its first small SDA satellite called Odyssey under its Tactically Responsive Launch-2 (TacRL-2) — a mission that started life under the Air Force in May 2019 under the name Rapid Space Launch Initiative (RSLI). (Robert Christy, a UK-based sat watcher, said in a blog post that Odyssey has deorbited, reentering the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up on Dec. 18, 2022.)

Space Safari’s second mission in the series was called Tactically Responsive Space-3 (TacRS-3), known more commonly by the code name of the satellite being launched, Victus Nox. In September 2022, Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems was chosen to build Victus Nox and Firefly Aerospace to provide the launch vehicle. The mission successfully met its 24-hour launch turnaround goal, lofting on Sept. 14, 2023.

Victus Nox was dubbed an “operational” experiment, designed to provide capability to SPACECOM. According to a Space Safari announcement on Feb. 19, the satellite “completed multiple maneuvers to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations and SDA.”

Further, the satellite currently remains in its orbit of around 435 kilometers in altitude, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’s Chandra X-ray Center, told Breaking Defense.

Victus Nox (Millennium Space Systems)

Space Systems Command on May 22 told Breaking Defense that Victus Nox is not “conducting a mission or broadcasting.” The satellite “has been placed in a final disposal orbit and passivated, following the standard practices for orbital debris mitigation.”

But it is clear that both Victus Nox, and Odyssey before it, had the opportunity while operational to assess Cosmos 2553.

The truth is it is inconceivable that any US LEO-based sensors would ignore any operational Russian satellite nearby. This not only includes Cosmos 2553, but also the satellite Russia launched on May 16 that US Ambassador Robert Wood told the UN Security Council is a likely counterspace weapon now shadowing a US government satellite.

As first reported by Space News on Tuesday, the new Russian bird, Cosmos 2576, has maneuvered into a co-orbital LEO plane at around 440 kilometers in altitude with the National Reconnaissance Office’s USA 314 (i.e. a spy sat).

Cosmos 2576 appears to be yet another of what Russia has dubbed “inspector” satellites for monitoring LEO, notes Secure World Foundation’s Victoria Samson in a thread on X. Space tracker Marco Langbroek in a May 20 blog post concurred, and provided a history of Cosmos 2576’s launch and orbital position. While the US has alleged the Russian inspector satellites are actually co-orbital ASATs, they have not suggested any of them are carrying nukes.

Finally, Space Safari already has plans for a next iteration next iteration of TacRS-3, dubbed Victus Haze. In April, Space Systems Command announced contracts under the new effort to Rocket Lab National Security and True Anomaly. The satellites to be developed by the two firms are to be optimized for close approaches to other satellites as well as SDA operations.

Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, who heads Space Systems Command, told the Mitchell Institute today that the Victus Haze birds will be launched “sometime in 2025.”

COSMOS 2553 - In-The-Sky.org

COSMOS 2553

Launch Details

Launched	5 February 2022
Flight ended	–
Status	Operational
Category	Active satellites
Launch site	Plesetsk Missile and Space Complex, Russia
Owner	Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR)
NORAD ID	51511
COSPAR ID	2022-011A
Observing

Current orbital elements

Inclination	67.093°
Eccentricity	0.00035
RA ascending node	4.755 hr
Argument perigee	265.756°
Mean anomaly	94.298°
Orbital period	127.113 min
Epoch of osculation	08 Jan 2025, 21:47

See historical orbital elements »

Derived Quantities

Min Altitude	2000.4 km
Mean Altitude	2003.4 km
Peak Altitude	2006.3 km

Orbital History

Drag the graphs below left or right to change the time range, or use your scroll wheel to zoom in or out.

Share

[백선호]

자기들의 위성도 못쓰게 될 것인데 사실이라면 그것을 각오하고 하겠다는 것이네요.

[위종민]

Space X 등장 이후로 미국-러시아 간 위성발사능력 격차가 많이 벌어진 것 같아서 러시아가 이런 ASAT 무기를 쓸 가능성이 좀 더 높아진 것 같습니다. 저런 게 한 번 터지고 나면 다시 위성을 쓸 수 있게 될 때까지 시간이 얼마나 필요할 지 모르겠네요.