I read recently, that the Chinese were able to “blind” a US spy satellite (passing over China), by firing a high-power laser beam at it. The laser destroyed the optical sensors, rendering a $100 million satellite useless. My question: does international law allow countries to destroy satellites? Suppose I don’t want the (French owned) SPOT satellite taking pictures of my house-can a shoot a laser beam at it? The Chinese have made it clear that they don’t want to be spied on-so are they within their rights to destroy a survellence satellite over their land?
Probably not with impunity, but governments can typically do a whole lot of things that individuals can’t.
Who’s going to stop you?
This is the only question that matters in international law. (Or any law, for that matter.)
A couple of links: Is China Disrupting U.S. Satellites? and (scroll to last para, entire article gives hints at context) Bush Sets Defense As Space Priority
U.S. Says Shift Is Not A Step Toward Arms; Experts Say It Could Be
Beijing secretly fires lasers to disable US satellites (9/26/06)
Chinese laser tag (10/18/06)
Bush Sets Defense As Space Priority
I’m not sure what international law says about space vehicles, but the rule of thumb for air vehicles is: if you’re incapable of shooting it down, it’s not in your airspace.
Cecil Speaks on this subject.
Shooting at spy satellites is a Very Bad Thing. Spy satellites are a ‘stabilizing’ force in military affairs. As long as everyone knows what everyone else is doing, everyone can relax a little bit. When a nation shoots at spy satellites, other nations have to make assumptions, and most often they assume the worst.
You can see a scenario where nerves are already frayed. It is the National Means of Intelligence that keeps things cool. When they go down, we are not sure what is happening, and may not want to take a chance. Wars happen from this sort of thing.
It is all very well and good until someone looses an eye. Or something like that.
Can you really “blind” a satellite? The imaging sensor (a CCD device?) is probably protected in the event opf too much incident light. How much time does a ground-based laser have (to fire a beam of light powerful enough) before the satellite moves out of range?
Judging by the linked articles, the claimed Chinese technology doesn’t permanently blind the satellites, just overloads its sensors while its in range of the laser. So they aren’t “destroying” anything, just preventing the sattelites from taking useful pictures while over Chinese territory.
I’m a little skeptical of the story in any case though. Why would the Chinese test such a device on US satellites, don’t they have satellites of thier own they could use? Not only does firing it at US satellites let the US know about their technology, but the Chinese won’t know if it worked or not unless the United States tells them how effective it was.
The blinding is apparently only temporary, and likely designed to be long enough such that the satellite can’t get a good look at a particular installation. If the laser was powerful enough to cause permanent damage, it’d be a very serious deal and not something the Chinese would try unless they wanted to really, really piss us off.
The satellite(s) in question probably had ultra-sensitive sensors. Of course there would be some protective protocols, but laser intensity can jump from nothing to BLINDING extremely quickly. Too fast for the protective measures to fully activate.
Actually, I’m somewhat surprised that the Chinese could have developed a ground-to-space laser powerful enough and focused enough to have a significant power density at orbital altitudes. The atomsphere does not lend itself to long-range lasering. Considering the trouble the US has had developing long-range laser weapons, I don’t really think the Chinese could have anything particularly dangerous. Although blinding is much simpler than blasting. And maybe the US satellites were (stupidly) not designed with much laser defense.
On preview, in reply to fiddlesticks, I could see some pixels of a CCD array being permanently disabled. The sensor as a whole would be operable, but in a degraded capacity (black spots, etc, in the images).
It doesn’t take much laser power to blind a CCD camera. Here is a scene on my desk with a laser pointer aimed towards the camera, but not directly into the lens. Here is the exact same scene a moment later, after realigning the camera so that the beam hits the lens. You only need to get enough light in there so that the multiple reflections and interference patterns completely overwhelm the image.
Hate to hijack, but is that a pet rock or a coconut on your desk?
And happy birthday?
That’s an owl carved from marble that I’ve had since I was I was a boy. My birthday was some months ago, but thanks. 
Okay, back to the original thread…
But, to answer the question: No. I don’t believe that counties are allowed to screw with spy satellites. Sorry, I don’t have a cite.
Boy, I sure hope not. The Cook County Board in Illinois has enough power already. I’d hate to give the County President anti-satellite capabilities!
The next generation of spy satellites needs to have mirrors on them 