Satellites, tanks and artificial intelligence
foreword
Any international law, laws and agreements are for weaklings. The strong didn't give a damn about such trifles, they have their own rules. Krylov's fable about the wolf and the lamb completely and completely conveys the state of affairs in the world. Therefore, there is no need to build vain illusions and even more so to expect prudence, responsibility and integrity.
The North American States with their satellites are very enthusiastic about tying the hands of other countries with supposedly fair and democratic agreements, while keeping their hands completely free and allowing themselves whatever they want.
The international law and agreements imposed on us unilaterally, like democracy, are just a fiction that has no real basis.
Need an example? The ostentatious reprisal of the Hague Tribunal over the leader of the Yugoslav resistance Slobodan Milosevic. Enough to go against and resist. And all the songs about total equality before the law and justice go into oblivion.
There are examples much more terrible, but less known. Bombing of Cambodia from 1965 to 1973, a completely unceremonious invasion of Grenada. The Chinese are well aware of who was behind the mass genocide of the Chinese population in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966.
Therefore, you should not completely pretend to be incomprehensible of yourself and even try to bother with some kind of agreements and agreements. Western civilization is incapable of negotiation. And if they need to, let them keep their own rules and not teach others what to do and how to live.
Satellites
After some successes and a number of failures, we began to talk about the need for a revival fleet ocean class and sacred struggle with a modular approach in shipbuilding. Allegedly, it's time for us to start plowing along and across the Indian, Pacific, Atlantic and sometimes go into the South. Build a bunch of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and other anachronisms, made according to the approaches of sailing monoliths. Huge, unique, with an incredible number of crew and exorbitant cost, with the complexity of maintenance and necessarily unparalleled in the last three points. To take and show the adversary that we are so big, loud and traditional. Just not according to Sun Tzu.
What is the mission of the warship? Why is it generally designed, created, recruited and trained by a team? Find yourself at a certain point on the planet, reaching by water in order to conduct reconnaissance operations or deliver as many joules of TNT to certain targets. It is desirable to remain safe and sound. And there are plenty of people who want to harm. Either the straits will be blocked, or the ships will be sunk, often together with the crew.
Can you look up to the sky? What do we have there at the moment?
There are no state borders, there are no straits and low-navigable shallow waters, no tides are observed, sporadic solar activity is usually once a decade. There are incomprehensible international agreements, which, in fact, are worthless on a market day. At the moment, solid neutral waters, more precisely - a neutral vacuum. But that's for now. The space race has begun again. Now at a new technological level.
The achievements of modern progress make it possible to launch spacecraft (hereinafter referred to as SC) with previously unseen capabilities. Modern technology makes it possible to conduct real-time observation in several ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum at once, remove noise and artifacts with adaptive digital filters, level atmospheric distortions, use machine learning algorithms to perform pre-processing, recognition and classification. All this without leaving orbit. Or distribute the Internet to the ground with minimal delays.
The space race has begun again. At the beginning of 2019, the US Space Development Agency appeared. In other words, the Americans have adopted a resolution to launch a space militarization program, and no international agreements concern the Americans. The fact that Nixon there, having become emotional, signed in 1979 at the UN General Assembly, was long ago and untrue.
Already in all seriousness concocted the "Agreement of Artemis" on the moon, where the satellite was appropriated and divided. Not that they didn't land on the moon, they didn't even take off. The lunar program is still under development. But the satellite with all its contents was completely rewritten by itself.
Why don't our people behave like this in the international arena?
The series of recent events stubbornly says that you can be impudent to the fullest, and even necessary. And we will get nothing for it. Everything they could think of, they did.
Let's get back to our space. What do we have there?
And with space, we currently have a full trampoline. Somehow it turned out to push the long-suffering Nauka module into orbit. They tormented themselves with "Science", and everything was behind them. Our people are thinking of leaving the ISS if they don’t drive them out earlier. There were incomprehensible blueprints for reusable modules, they were tricky with engines, they threatened to switch to another fuel. There were proposals to leave poisonous heptyl for promising fluorine, but the people serving the launch pad did not appreciate this prospect.
There are different ideas, there are attempts to implement them, but the most important thing is missing. There is no purpose. Why do all this?
They took a man into space, we don’t want to go to the Moon, conditions are really hellish on Venus, Musk flies to Mars, wired broadband Internet is quite satisfactory, Tricolor catches on many roofs.
For the sake of what to conduct development, testing and launches? Why strive, what to strive for?
I'm throwing out an idea. For the militarization of outer space. For starters, near-Earth, then you can go deeper. It is still unknown what is more important to control - water space or airless. Somebody out there thinks himself the mistress of the seas for old times sake, the possession of space is much higher and incredibly extensive.
As in the case of the sea or ocean fleet, spacecraft mainly serve a certain area of the territory. They can hang over it in geostationary orbit or periodically appear there. The average speed of the spacecraft in an orbit with a height of 1 km is 000 km/s, which is much faster than the existing strategic bombers.
How long does it take for the spacecraft to get over the right part of the planet? Obviously not a few days, as is the case with the navy. There, the clock counts. If the spacecraft has engines, and its presence is very urgently needed, then you can accelerate. Moreover, to move the spacecraft, you don’t have to worry about international maritime law, weather conditions and shallows.
Well, the spacecraft turned out to be over the right part of the planet quickly and naturally. Only this is half the battle. What to do next when you are over the right place?
Sometimes looking even in a wide range of electromagnetic waves is not enough. It is necessary to take some action, to influence the object of observation. Make the inhabitants of the Earth worry.
There is a formula for determining the potential energy of a body raised above the ground:
E = m*g*h. From this formula, familiar from school, the following follows. If a body weighing 10 kg descends from a height of 100 km to the sinful earth, its energy will be approximately 9,8 MJ.
Of course, the descent process will not take place in an airless space, and part of the energy will go into the internal to heat up the environment and the descent body itself. If the smaller half of 4 MJ remains, this is also a lot. And this is only the potential energy of the body raised above the ground.
No international laws prohibit dispersing the working fluid at the start or during the descent and adding kinetic energy to the potential energy. The second cosmic velocity in dense layers is quite achievable. Proved by satellites burned up in the atmosphere.
To achieve such speeds, it is not at all necessary to build a railgun. You can simply drop the working body from orbit. It turns out almost an analogue of BOPS at hypersonic speeds, to make it easier to understand. Only lands vertically. And it doesn't shoot. Shooting in orbit is dangerous and expensive. The recoil can take you nowhere into outer space, maneuver and then look for your orbit.
A logical question arises. Why drop something from space to the ground when there is the Avangard missile system, which is equipped with a hypersonic glide unit, thanks to which the rocket is capable of accelerating to 33 kilometers per hour? This is about 9,1 km/s in the dense layers of the atmosphere.
let's consider possible applications of the hypothetical kinetic weapons space-based and spacecraft in general.
1. For the needs of air defense
The logistics of military operations are constantly accelerating. A large number of military vehicles aviation something brings and takes away. It is the speed of delivery and the ability to deliver to hard-to-reach areas that allows for quick military operations. A couple of such planes were shot down, and someone's plans in the theater of operations could change dramatically. The Americans would be tormented to carry cargo on the ground for operations in Afghanistan.
In addition to transport functions, large-body aircraft can act as reconnaissance aircraft and bombers. Moreover, bombers with very specific weapons.
A distinctive feature of these types of aircraft is their large dimensions, low maneuverability and relatively low speed. Such aircraft do not have optical or radar stealth, and their rather powerful engines burn with fire in the infrared range. Unlike combat aircraft, they do not hide from air defense radars in the folds of the terrain, but often occupy high echelons away from dangerous thunderstorm fronts.
Because of this, they are kept away from the line of contact and enemy air defense. They fly within their multi-layered air defense or accompanied by combat aircraft.
But in space everyone is equal. We all walk under space.
One of the features of aviation is the compromise sometimes quite hard between the mass and dimensions of the aircraft. Therefore, the cases are made of light aluminum alloys, and not of fairly strong steel. The shape and dimensions of an aircraft are limited by the laws of aerodynamics. Many things familiar on earth in the air are unacceptable.
In flight, just like that, you can’t open a window to ventilate the cabin, you won’t stop to see what’s going on with the engine or elevator. And if the flap jams in flight, the crew starts to get out, worse than an official with a declaration of income. No wonder the planes are so carefully checked and prepared for flight on the ground.
Therefore, in case of damage to the fuselage or wing, the aircraft is threatened with all sorts of troubles. It may break up in flight or stall on landing. Especially for a transporter loaded to the eyeballs, it is enough to leave a small hole in the hull. And for a body accelerated even to the first cosmic one, this will not be a big deal. Any military aircraft with a through hole in the wing or fuselage, if it is possible to continue the flight, is no longer very combat-ready.
Many kilograms are not needed for such a striking body. One kilogram of blanks at a speed of 5 km / s will not meet active resistance from the aluminum body of the fuselage or wing.
The main difficulty lies in the guidance and control system for such a space body. But, as I wrote earlier, such aircraft are clearly visible in the IR range, in addition to the optical one, they are often present in the upper echelons, where they can be illuminated with lasers along with the pilots for accuracy.
And ballistic missile warhead control systems work quite well at hypersonic speeds. Only in this case they will not be required to force the projectile to fly to the target along the most random trajectory.
2. For the needs of anti-ship defense
What does a ship fight usually look like?
Planes are guarding from the air, missile systems are waiting on the shore, mines are on the water and, for some time now, Drones, underwater submarines and mermaids, admirals are waiting at the docks. For these reasons, all means of detecting the enemy near the ship look towards the horizon or under water, they don’t think much about vertical arrivals.
Therefore, no one looks strongly at the zenith, and the HEADLIGHTS scan the horizontal plane to a greater extent. What can fall from the sky? A meteorite from space only or blue ice from an airplane toilet. Moreover, a cobblestone at speeds of several tens of kilometers per second will not stop anything, and bricks from the sky are a very rare thing to think about.
It's much easier with ships than with huge planes. The ship has fewer degrees of freedom, the speed is many times lower, the dimensions are larger, sometimes many times. The main armor of the hull is designed for arrivals from the side projection. Stealth technologies are also calculated for illumination in the horizontal plane. No matter how sophisticated the ship is in terms of stealth, its hull heats up in the sun, the power plant heats the air just as well, along with fancy electronics.
Powerful radar and communication systems radiate well in many ranges and directions. In other words, even in bad weather, a ship can be detectable in one or another range of the electromagnetic spectrum. On a modern ship, all electronic equipment is not turned off even in radio silence mode, and the crew does not sit on the oars in an attempt to replace the engine.
A little b is required from the working body from orbit.оGreater mass and strength for better passage through compartments and bulkheads than in the case of defeating aircraft. But at the same time, there is less requirement for the accuracy of the guidance system. The speed of the ship is incomparably less than the speed of the aircraft, the dimensions are larger, and the maneuverability is much lower. If, as in the case of aircraft, hunting for large ships is taken as the basis, the requirements for the guidance system become less stringent than in the case of fighting aircraft.
Now it's worth giving an example of a similar thing that comes from space and lands on a watercraft. Until a certain time, these were the upper stages of the Falcons from SpaceX. Until the landing system on the cosmodrome sites was fully developed, they were put on a sea platform, which in essence was barge. In the case of an anti-ship blank, it is absolutely not necessary to reduce the speed when landing on the deck. Let the hull of the ship deal with this task.
3. Anti-satellite defense
Sooner or later, no one will wait for mercy from the earth, but will begin to shoot down the spacecraft right in space. There at times it is very cold and dark in the middle of endless expanses. And who actually shot down whom, one can only speculate. But it was necessary to start preparing for this yesterday. Now the balance rests on a kind word from useless international agreements and our cowardice.
It seems to me that North Korea, in a similar situation, did not pretend to be a co-dependent passive touchy, but quickly added a couple of new radiation belts in near-Earth orbit to clear space over its territory.
Military operations in space have their own characteristics, different from those on earth.
You can arrange a classic firing from a modified cannon from the Salyut-3 station. Only this is fraught with high fuel consumption to balance the impact. It also requires high accuracy, since objects are at enormous distances by earthly standards, while they move at tremendous speeds. After hitting, all sorts of fragments are formed, from which it can become nauseating.
The option of towing an enemy spacecraft into a "graveyard" orbit implies precise maneuvers and high fuel consumption. On the other hand, laser radiation is practically not distorted and is not absorbed in orbit. It is not at all necessary to make holes in the satellite; by defiling the solar panels, you can drastically reduce the combat capabilities of an enemy spacecraft. Not everyone is powered by RITEG.
Here you can throw a bunch of ideas of varying degrees of isolation from reality, while the main thing remains. Anti-satellite defense in space should already be tested.
4. Communication system
I will not say anything about Starlink and other OneWeb. Something is already working well, something will work soon.
Our "Skif" has not yet reached its infancy, and it is not known what will happen in the end. Wangyu, there will be another "tank", as Churchill said about it. Something huge, heavy, regal, guzzling resources like crazy, and at the same time slow and clumsy.
While in the offices they are trying to start the conception of the "Scythian", we still have TAP-57s flashing in the trenches. The device is at least the simplest, most oaky and trouble-free, however, the batteries die quickly. Just tell me how modern and convenient it is for the current pace of hostilities?
Has anyone reading these lines had to hold a satellite phone in their hands or even use it? Not to say that the device is huge and requires a couple of suitcases with batteries. A few years ago I thought about buying such a device for personal needs. There is a free sale, however, at a significant price. If you wish, you can buy and connect without any problems. Although the tariff plans for them are horseish in price.
With satellite communications and the need for it, we have a situation similar to drones. The territories are colossal, despite good cellular coverage, there are plenty of places where nothing catches at all. And this is not always the native impassable wilds far beyond the Moscow Ring Road. It is enough to turn off the M4 into the fields, and the cellular communication sticks disappear instantly. At the same time, the existing civil satellite communications are represented by foreign satellites.
Ours, as always, decided that satellite television would be enough for the population in such a vast territory, and they calmed down on this. Therefore, people walking through the expanses of the vast Motherland stock up on satellite phones in order to get through to rescuers or relatives and friends in case of emergency.
Another mystery is why our military did not develop satellite communications? After all, they do not need to strain with the equipment of the COMPANY and comply with the Yarovaya law, take permission from the FSTEC and the FSB to use encryption equipment. There are also solid idiomatic expressions on the air, which not every native speaker will understand. They don't even have to bother with frequency resolution. Everyone else needs to adapt to them.
Only things are still there. Our elders hope that the fighters with signal smoke will completely cope with the task of communication between units, and everything above this is from the evil one? I won’t be surprised if our Doomsday plane has analog communication equipment, and what was more modern was stolen in the parking lot in Taganrog.
But communication in the troops is needed. Stable, affordable, reliable and secure, and not those ancient misunderstandings called KShM based on GAZ-66 or ZIL-131. Satellite communications for combat missions were needed yesterday. And not one device based on a KamAZ truck, but simple and compact portable devices. What even not the most modern satellite phones look like, designed for adverse operating conditions, anyone can look on the Internet.
It’s bad that you can’t buy a simple satellite phone, connect it to the Iridium and send it to the front lines. I'm sure the device would come in handy.
5. System of observation and warning from space
Everything here is simple and familiar. These are multi-profile surface observation systems in a wide range of the electromagnetic wave spectrum and in the optical, infrared, ultraviolet, and radio ranges. We can see something in the optical range we are used to, some things are available in others. Rocket launches are usually accompanied by a good flash in a wide range from IR to UV.
Military equipment, in addition to the track, leaves behind a thermal trace on the surface of the earth, and traces of movement can be seen in the IR. In the late eighties, spy satellites could easily intercept wired telephone conversations. By combining data, you can significantly expand the picture and draw more accurate conclusions.
Directly in orbit, you can receive radio signals from terrestrial communication systems. It is not necessary to successfully decrypt them on the spot. Sometimes it is enough to know their intensity and duration in order to make assumptions. It is also good to receive signals from other satellite positioning systems in order to have an idea where this or that signal source is located.
And a lot of other really complex and interesting things. The field for activity is vast, and there are more than enough places where you can turn around.
6. Ground launch suppression system
What does a satellite hit look like from the ground now?
A rocket is launched directly from the surface of the planet or from a carrier aircraft into space. It must reach the first cosmic velocity in order to leave the atmosphere and go into space. For the price, such a rocket is not far from a launch vehicle for launching satellites.
Only a booster can launch more than one satellite at a time. In the case of microsatellites, there may be hundreds of them. You can't stockpile anti-satellite missiles for each such satellite. And there are already nanosatellites.
Launches of carrier rockets from spacecraft are usually carried out from stationary spaceports. The locations are well known and the locations themselves are few. And even if a rocket with a load of satellites takes off, a hit from above with a blank on the second or third stage will negate all efforts to restore the satellite constellation. A blank of the purest tungsten, cast on a full moon at the solstice by green-eyed albino virgins, judging by the price lists of the Moscow Region, this is exactly the case, usually cheaper than a launch vehicle and the cost of all preparations on earth for launch.
And you can hit the starting table. The design is huge and piece production. Need to see what is easier to restore? The span of the famous blown-up bridge or launch pad mast at Cape Canaveral.
7. Satellite navigation systems
We all know perfectly well about GLONASS, at least we heard it on TV. How was he developed? Under the Soviet Union, they began to throw it on drawing boards, then they stopped. The union has sunk into oblivion, and with it the drawing boards with sketches. Then he was resurrected and the resulting zombie was optimized, and then blinded from what was. Over the years, many have forgotten how these satellites did not reach their orbit, there were cases of successful launches into orbit, only the satellites themselves did not moo, did not calve and did not answer, something due to strange circumstances descended from orbit into the dense layers of the atmosphere. True, these are all mere trifles compared to time.
Due to the inhomogeneity of the Earth's rotation, astronomical clocks are slightly behind the reference ones, and in order to synchronize the exact time, starting from 1972, atomic clocks were stopped every few years for one second, as soon as the difference between the reference and astronomical time reached 0,9 seconds. From 2035 synchronization will cease and the difference between UTC and astronomical time will accumulate.
The decision to suspend per-second synchronization was due to numerous failures in software systems related to the fact that during synchronization, 61 seconds appeared in one of the minutes. Problems arise in financial and industrial systems that require accurate timing of work processes. It would seem, where does GLONASS?
The GLONASS system was originally designed to include leap seconds, while GPS, BeiDou and Galileo simply ignore them. Therefore, representatives of Russia voted against the suspension of synchronization in 2035, who proposed moving the suspension to 2040, since the change requires a significant overhaul of the infrastructure of the satellite navigation system.
In general, the deviations of the Earth's rotation parameters are random in nature, and their change, observed over the past few years, may lead to the need not to add, but to subtract an extra second.
8. You never know what satellites we have and what they fly on
Sanctions have been imposed on us, and now the problem is with solar panels for spacecraft. Therefore, we switched to RITEG, we had no other choice. We were forced. Yes, plutonium RTGs. From time immemorial, they have been plutonium in Rus'. It can be said that it is a traditional element for these purposes. Yep, for the purposes. And because polonium is terribly poisonous, you can clarify this with Litvinenko if you ask a lot of questions and climb where they are not asked.
And in general, polonium is a capricious element for RTGs. And we have a lot of plutonium. Tons will be typed, or kilotons. It will be necessary to find megatons in old warehouses. What is this satellite doing with the big and strange plutonium RTG? He goes beep-beep like this. And while he does this, you can sleep peacefully.
I think the main idea is clear? Only the reliability of such spacecraft should be much greater than that of the mysterious Cosmos-2499. And international treaties can be beautifully rolled up and given to LGBT lovers. Let them use it for its intended purpose.
9. Now it’s worth comparing the hypersonic Avangard and the possible implementation of space-based kinetic weapons
Vanguard itself does not exist. Under it, a carrier is needed, which the Avangard will deliver by all means and straits closer to the launch destination. The carrier is usually a modern warship, comparable in price to several domestic satellites. The carrier does not move to the launch site automatically; a crew is required for it. At least to protect against encroachments on the "Vanguard". And the crew is not from those recruited in the nearest taverns, but trained and numerous. This crew must be fed, watered, washed, washed and kept in combat readiness.
Crew maintenance is not cheap, especially on long trips. Therefore, most of the design of the carrier ship is designed for the crew. Remove the need for a crew at the development stage, the end result of the carrier would be much smaller, simpler, more reliable and cheaper. Among other things, the appearance of such a carrier near the coast cannot be a big surprise for opponents, just like the launch of the Avangard.
Our satellites are uninhabited. Maybe they don’t tell us about something, but they seem to be uninhabited. They ply freely in their orbits, receive energy from solar panels or RTGs, and teams from the Earth. The average flight time is 15-20 years without maintenance and inspections. They seem to be being monitored. Entire squadrons of space defense units of the US Space Force closely monitor each launch. In addition to them, amateur astronomers are trying in this field.
Only satellites can fly to higher orbits, where they are practically indistinguishable. Or vice versa, to hang side by side at the LEO, to transfer pictures with cats to everyone for years and not give out their dual or triple purpose in any way. It is problematic to disguise a warship as a dry cargo ship.
The design of the "Avangard" will be much more complex and more science-intensive than a refractory blank with a guidance system and a simple chemical engine. Undoubtedly, at its cruising speed, the Avangard, even without a warhead, is a dangerous weapon due to its enormous kinetic energy. Only what fuel consumption is achieved this speed?
It is clearly not helped by the potential energy caused by the force of attraction for acceleration. Most likely, the price of the Avangard upper stage is simply cosmic.
And most importantly, Avangard itself is a carrier of weapons that are of a tactical nature. Unlike armatures freely falling on aircraft and ships, the Avangard targets are airfields for such aircraft and ports for ships. Well, the very escort of the Avangard carrier is impossible without communication, reconnaissance and navigation satellites. If the functionality of dropping greetings to everyone who wants to get closer to the Anaguard carrier is added to this, it will not get worse.
Of course, you can’t solemnly show satellites at parades, and you can’t talk about them pathetically. The kids will not climb on them for the amusement of their parents. Satellites have a bizarre shape, and they are not particularly admired. Many citizens are sure that global warming is associated with the launch of satellites, and no arguments about decades of increased solar activity can convince them. In extreme cases, they will blame the increased solar activity on satellites launched into space. But at the same time, Tricolor equipment is being bought up, because other equipment does not work at their dachas.
Surprisingly, some military people seriously believe that it is not worth climbing into the firmament and disturbing the celestials. Only the fairy tale about Masha and the bear gives us a good lesson, about the one who sits higher looks far away. Therefore, the satellite constellation must be developed by leaps and bounds, not much advertising launches and not talking about them on all channels. The people will have enough "Armata" on Red Square on Victory Day.
There is only one question left.
How to call the highest officers of the space forces? Generals in the ground forces, admirals in the naval forces. We need to come up with something for space. Who has any suggestions? Astronauts need to come up with something new.
As a result, I will leave a couple of statements that are rhetorical in nature.
The militarization of space is the norm!
Whoever controls the cosmos will control the Earth.
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