KEY TARGETS

What will be in the weapons’ sights?

COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES

Blocking communications is an obvious first target during the outbreak of a conflict. But it’s unlikely that the satellites themselves will be immediately destroyed. Instead, jamming them using laser systems on the Earth or disabling ground stations is the likely approach. “It’s also the least escalatory because when you start blowing up other people’s satellites that’s going to get your enemy’s attention very quickly,” says Prof Joan Johnson-Freese, at the US Naval War College, Rhode Island.

GPS

Satellite navigation is inextricably woven into so much of everyday life that it’s now a major dependency. The most well-known is the American Global Positioning System (GPS) but the Russians have the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China has the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and Europe is bringing the Galileo constellation online. Each consists of multiple satellites, usually in medium Earth orbits of between 2,000km and 36,000km in altitude. Targeting the satellites of such a system would be seen as a major act of aggression.

EACH OTHER’S ANTI-SATELLITE SYSTEMS

In 2014, Russia launched a mysterious spacecraft that goes by the catalogue name ‘Object 2014-28E’. It was launched along with three military communication satellites and originally it was thought to be a piece of space junk. Then it started manoeuvring. This sparked fears that it was an attack satellite capable of sidling up to other satellites and somehow killing them. In times of tension, any satellite that manoeuvres close to another would be seen as a major threat and targeted.