英媒：中國試射機動式反衛星武器

choi

BBC Chinese, Mar 18, 2014.
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/trad/pres ... ss_china_asat.shtml

Note:
(a) The report is based on

Andrea Shalal, Analysis Points to China's Work on New Anti-Satellite Weapon. Reuters, Mar 18, 2014.
www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... USBREA2G1Q320140317

Quote:

“Brian Weeden, a former US Air Force space analyst, published a 47-page analysis on the website of The Space Review, which he said showed that China appears to be testing a kinetic interceptor launched [in May 2013] by a new rocket [“Kuaizhou”] that could reach geostationary orbit about 36,000 km (22,500 miles) above the earth.

"’No other country has tested a direct ascent ASAT weapon system that has the potential to reach deep space satellites in medium earth orbit, highly elliptical orbit or geostationary orbit,’ he wrote, referring to orbital paths that are above 2,000 km (1,250 miles) over the earth.

“The article includes a previously undisclosed satellite image taken by DigitalGlobe Inc that shows a mobile missile launcher * * * at China's Xichang missile launch site. * * * Given the new imagery and the absence of a different rocket at [the fixed launching pad in] the Xichang site that could have carried out the 2013 launch, Weeden said there was now "substantial evidence" that China was developing a second anti-satellite weapon in addition to the previously known system designated as SC-19 by US agencies. He said the new system may use one of China's new Kuaizhou rockets.

“Weeden also analyzed US comments about debris from China's May 2013 launch reentering the atmosphere above the Indian Ocean, and said they were in line with U.S. claims that the Chinese launch reached a high point or apogee of 30,000 km (18,600 miles), rather than the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) that the Chinese had claimed.

(b) The Reuters report is in turn based on , and supplies a link to, an online research report.


(“The launch vehicle was named Kuaizhou 快舟, or ‘Quick Vessel,’ and further media reports revealed that it was a new solid-rocket SLV [acronym for ‘space launch vehicle’] developed as part of a Chinese Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) program
(i) Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) program is not uniformly translated in China’s online media, but generally as 太空快速响应 (作战系统). It is understandable, in part because that actually is a US agency.

Operationally Responsive Space Office
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationally_Responsive_Space_Office
(is a joint initiative of several agencies within the United States Department of Defense)

Mr Weeden simply imagines an equivalent agency exists in China. Also take notice he said China “tested,” without discussing its outcome--successful or not--in part because he was guessing China’s goal, too.
(ii) In October 2013 China’s media trumpeted and translated news reports about Kuaizhou first raised in the West, which conceptualized Kuaizhou as something similar to hypersonic craft (defined as that with speeds of Mach 5 and above). Mr Weeden’s contribution is that he sees Kuaizhou in a different light: a BOTH mobile and anti-satellite rocket (due to the new height he estimated Kuaizhou actually reached).