Maybe I should have classified this article under war or weapons, because we are definitely in a quiet war right now. Who are the players in this battle? The big guys are China and Russia and us. They are not keen on the idea of American Satellites sailing over their territory and taking pictures of everything, including all their secret bases and such. I wonder why? It is true that they can do the same thing to us and that there are commercial satellites zooming around in orbit that are also looking at everything, but still this doesn't make them very happy. This is a constant thorn in their sides and they can't seem to forget it since there is always something overhead.

We seem to be very dependent on Satellites when you look at the system at first glance. Just look at all the GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites. It seems that there are now millions of devices that are dependant on these satellites. Knowing your exact position on the battlefield is invaluable. Why do I say this? Well anyone that has been in the military knows that knowing exactly where you are makes it much easier to call in supporting fire or set up bombing targets. If you know your exact position you can have missiles programmed to hit enemy targets without fear of getting hit yourself. The satellite system should cut down on much of the deaths from friendly fire if we have another large military engagement. There was a time when you launched a satellite, you knew it was safe. There was nothing that was capable of targeting it and most countries had nothing that could even reach it. Those days are ending fast.

There are many reports today of laser fire that is being aimed at our Satellites and it is coming from China. These reports don't seem to make the mainstream news, but if you look carefully at the different breaking news stories on the internet, you will see this once in a while. According to some sources, the Chinese are trying to blind U.S. Satellites when they get over their territory. This subject is very secret in the U.S. and there is no data available that tells whether they have been successful or not. Is this even a viable method to put Satellites out of commission? Experts state that if you had a laser powerful enough, you could blind an electro-optical satellite. It would take less power to blind a satellite rather than shoot one down, using a laser. If one were to ask 100 experts if China has the ability to blind our Satellites, most would surely say yes. There is another thing though, that has to be taken into consideration and that is a defense against this sort of attack. Can a satellite be equipped with anti blinding defenses?

One of the first things that the U.S. has said that it will do is replace large Satellites with many small ones, which make less of a target. Another thing that can be done is to alter the orbits every so often. The large Satellites we have up there now travel in the same orbit all the time, thus it is easy to know exactly were they will be at any given moment. If we alter the orbits and the Satellites are much smaller, they will be much harder to detect. No one has talked about this, but it seems to me that some sort of shield over the optics could be activated when a laser blast is detected. This will have to happen very fast, but it seems possible.

The Russian Federation also has weapons for dealing with overhead Satellites One of the main weapons at their disposal is a jammer. The Russians have been working on jamming technology for years and seem to be succeeding with it. An anonymous source in the U.S. states that the newest generation of Satellites will be jam proof and make this technology obsolete. It is suspected that the Russians may also have the capability to shoot down Satellites using missiles. The accuracy of this is in question, but what is the U.S. doing as far as building capabilities to destroy foreign Satellites?

First and foremost, it is strongly believed that we have the Aurora plane. The capabilities of such a vehicle might make enemy satellites sitting ducks. One would only have to fly up into orbit and shoot them down using missiles from the plane. According to the military we have also perfected jamming devices of our own that work quite well and are capable of jamming any satellite. So how hard is it to jam a satellite?

In 1996 there was a dispute between Tonga and Indonesia, neither is a technological powerhouse. Tonga had moved its GEO satellite into a slot that was claimed by Indonesia. I bet you didn't realize that these two countries had Satellites? There was retaliation. Indonesia jammed the signal from the Tongan satellite. This illustration was made to show you how easy it was to disrupt a satellite signal. It also shows that many more countries have Satellites up there than most would suspect. Most Satellites are considered harmless by all nations, but there are some that are either suspected of being spy Satellites or are known spy Satellites that aggravate the countries that they fly over. Many of these Satellites are U.S. Satellites

So are our Satellites safe? Right now it looks like most are, but it also looks like this will not last for long. Countries are developing ever increasing capabilities to destroy Satellites. I think that is one of the main reasons for some of the new top secret planes. They may be capable of performing the same mission. This could be the secondary mission of the Aurora which is said to be capable of reaching orbit. There may even be newer planes out there that are really space planes, that we know nothing about. It seems to me that this is the way to maintain superiority in space while maintaining all the functions that Satellites are capable of. It just could be that we now have a fleet of planes that can do anything a satellite can do.