Peter Cairns Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Still way behind but another example of Chinese progress and increased capability. BBC News Peter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 If China achieves the capability to knock down our GPS constallation on that side of the globe (and that's a big 'if') much of our long-reach military edge will instantly evaporate. No more GPS-guided bombs, no more GPS-directed flights, no more GPS-navigated fleets. Heck, we might not even be able to rendezvous our bombers with their tanker aircraft! But a GPS satellite isn't a measley 500 miles up. Hitting a satellite waaaay out there in geosynchronous orbit (2,220 miles) is a much tougher proposition. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Cairns Posted January 18, 2007 Author Share Posted January 18, 2007 MikeyD, hitting GPS is a fair bit off, but this does mean that they can almost certainly deploy FOB's at will, and depending on the terminal guidance they have that could really change things. Peter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Only the US is allowed to have satellite killers! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertram Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 The fact that the Chinese did this is more a demonstration of capability then real news. Satelites are by there nature sitting ducks (you can calculate their orbits years in advance, changing course is using fuel, which is always in short supply, and needed to keep them where they are), so if you have orbital launch capability and decent calculating power you have the capability to hit one. As china has launched orbital satelites before, this isnt really news (Japan, Russia and the EU are just as capable of taking satelites out). I think it is more of a warning to the US, that their stand on the space treaty (banning wepons in space) needs some rethinking. (The US refuses a treaty like this, because they need the room to do in space whatever is in national interest (read - test and employ weapons) but at the same time they "strongly encourage" other nations not to do the same. Those other nations generally think that kind of arguing is lacking. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigduke6 Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 I read down in the middle of one of the news reports that apparently last August, the Chinese fired lasers at US spy sattelites over China, temporarily blinding them. I would call that a warning. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertram Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Not coincidently (one presumes) after Bush had approved a program that would test stronger lasers (and a guidance system) to destroy satelites. As the program went ahead anyway, maybe the Chinese thought that message was to subtile for the US governement. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 I've never understood the point of making a big stink out of something like this. It's like when the Soviet Union objected to the Star Wars Defense Program (aka Space Pork). The US answer back was "hey, if you don't like it tough nuggies. We are making it and there's nothing you can do to stop us. So there... NAH!". I mean, sheesh... might as well get all huffy about Chinese tank development. "How dare the Chinese develop a tank that may be able to last 5 minutes against one of ours. This is an outrage!!" sounds pretty childish if you ask me. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Oh yeah, and if the US goes to war with China and China knocks out all of the US' GPS sattelites... would that be considered "gamey"? Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stavka_lite Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Aren't those GPS satellites are more like 23,000 miles up? And, if I am not mistaken, there are dozens of them. Redundancy upon redundancy. China might get a few of them but I doubt they have the lift capability to get enough of them to make a big difference. I can see it now... China starts lobbing GPS killers, the US deploys Airborne Lasers to knock the killers out doing boost phase and the escalation continues and the Space Lobsters dip us in butter and lemon...now that would be gamey :eek: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 I thought I heard during the Iraq invasion they were having bad GPS satellite troubles. Satellites were failing at an alarming rate and we barely got through by the skin of our teeth with the bare minimum number of satellites to do the job. They had to do a big push afterwards to get replacement satellites up there. The problem with recalling things off the top of my head, I'm probably recalling a story from Gulf War I, not II 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imperial Grunt Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Maybe the Space Lobsters are giving technology to the Chinese, in return for loyalty after the invasion of Earth. And, of course, the Chinese will have to promise not to eat shellfish anymore. Since none of us can speak Lobster, I guess its time to start learning Chinese. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Cairns Posted January 19, 2007 Author Share Posted January 19, 2007 To knock out Chinese boosters on the accent phase with airborne lasers they would have to get them within about 250miles, and China has plenty of lauch options more than that distance from any border. They can certainly put things as up to GPS orbit if they want, as they have already tested a prototype GPS of their own. Peter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 The problem with GPS in OIF1 was simply one of bandwidth demands. At least that's all I've heard of. Far too many devices requesting GPS far too frequently for the ability of the sats to handle the requests. My understanding of Stryker Warrior is they've decided that instead of the individual soldier connecting to a sat directly the soldier gets its feed from a wireless LAN coming from his Stryker. This means one Stryker checks in for info instead of a Stryker and 9 individual soldiers. Talk about an exponential reduction of bandwidth demands! If the Stryker is neutralized I think they can connect directly, though. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aacooper Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 How will the Chinese find the GPS satellites if we turn off GPS when they launch a missle? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBR Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 Originally posted by Battlefront.com: The problem with GPS in OIF1 was simply one of bandwidth demands. At least that's all I've heard of. Far too many devices requesting GPS far too frequently for the ability of the sats to handle the requests. Steve A GPS reciever doesnt send anything to the satellites. Every satellite sends a continous telemetry signal that a reciever then use to calculate the position. edit: I do recall something about a communications breakdown. Too little bandwidth and too many units sending info. Maybe that is what you are thinking about? CBR [ January 20, 2007, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: CBR ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBR Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 Originally posted by Aacooper: How will the Chinese find the GPS satellites if we turn off GPS when they launch a missle? It is pretty easy to find the exact location and orbit of a satellite. Turning off the signal would not help anything, unless the sats can change orbit after detecting an enemy missile launch. CBR 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertram Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 GPS works by having the exact position of the sattelites known, and then measuring the time the signal(s) takes to get to the receiver. Turning them off or moving them arond defeats the system. You can not use a moving satelite, and each time you move a sattelite you have to recalibrate the system. And the sattelites have limited fuel, and no fuelling stations up there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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