Space warfare

Space warfare is combat that takes place in outer space, i.e. outside an atmosphere. Space warfare therefore includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth, as well as space-to-space warfare, such as satellites attacking satellites.

It does not include the use of satellites for espionage, surveillance, or military communications. It does not technically include space-to-ground warfare, where orbital objects attack ground, sea or air targets directly, but the public and media frequently use the term to include any conflict which includes space as a theater of operations, regardless of the intended target. For example, one might describe a rapid-delivery system in which troops are deployed from orbit as "space warfare", even though the US military uses the term as described above.

In the early 1960s the U.S. military produced a film called Space and National Security which depicted space warfare. From 1985 to 2002 there was a United States Space Command, which in 2002 merged with the United States Strategic Command. The Russian Space Force, established on August 10, 1992, which became an independent section of the Russian military on June 1, 2001, was ultimately replaced by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces starting December 1, 2011.

Only a few incidents of space warfare have occurred in world history, and all involved training missions, as opposed to actions against real opposing forces. In the mid-1980s a USAF pilot in an F-15 successfully shot down the P78-1, a communications satellite in a 345-mile (555 km) orbit.

In 2007 China used a missile system to destroy one of its obsolete satellites (see 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test), and in 2008 the United States similarly destroyed its malfunctioning satellite USA-193. As of 2016^[update] there have been no human casualties resulting from conflict in space.

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