According to ten seconds of semi-rigorous Internet research, a Scud missile has a range of 180 km., a Libyan Scud C has a range of approximately 550 km., and the newest generation of Iraqi/Iranian/North Korean intermediate range missiles can reach even farther, with higher accuracy.
My question is whether a rogue nation/terrorist network so equipped and suicidally inclined could actually destroy the international Space Station–or perhaps the US Space Shuttle in orbit. As I am not an expert in orbital mechanics, I am hoping someone more qualified can answer whether hitting an orbiting spacecraft moving at 17,000+ mph is technically feasible–or very impossible.
Admittedly, this scenario is improbable, but it’s something to consider, I suppose.
Isn’t the sophistication of the technology required in such a proposition basically on par with that which the U.S. has been trying to develop for its proposed anti-ballistic missile defense?
Reports I’ve seen re: the latter suggest it’s exceptionally difficult even for the most technologically advanced countries. Thus, actually getting a missile within striking distance of the Space Station/Space Shuttle would require unimaginable “luck.”
The question is, why would anyone want to smash the space station? There would be no TV coverage and no terror and hardly anyone killed. Just an expensive loss. And the newer, better space station wouldn’t make it’s inhabitants deaf from the ventilators.
A bigger worry is that they’d launch a satellite that was purportedly a communications sat or something, but in fact is a ‘hunter killer’ that can take out other satellites (or the space station).
As for how hard it is to hit it - not very. This is nothing like intercepting a ballistic missile. The ISS orbit is predictable and well known. So well known that you can download programs to predict its location precisely at any point in time. So the problem is roughly the same as the problem of docking with it, except that you don’t have to brake. But that requires a missile that can attain orbit, and only a few countries have that capability (ESA, Japan, China, Russia, U.S., U.K.).
If you can hit it by just throwing something in front of it while it goes over, then there are a lot more countries with that capability. Including places like Pakistan and North Korea. Pakistan recently tested a missile with a max altitude of 360 km, which is right in the middle of the Low-Earth-Altitude orbital region.
But if you don’t have a missile that can put your weapon in orbit, it’d be a pretty mean feat to his the ISS, seeing as it’s whipping by at something like 17,000 mph. You’d need some pretty fine timing, and probably some kind of guidance and targeting system on the missile.
The ISS would be a lot easier to hit than a ballistic missile. It’s easy to predict where it will go, and it’s relatively slow - compared to an ICBM at 15,000 mph.
However, none of the missiles (rockets, really) you mentioned are even remotely qualified to go hit something up in space. You can’t just take a missile and figure it has a 500 km range, so it could hit a satellite.
It’s sort of like saying “my car can drive 400 mph on a full tank of gas, so I’m making a trip to the ISS”
Scuds are ballistic missiles that you simply point in a general direction and they hit the land in a rough area. They don’t have any real guidance or terminal seeking - so even if you could get them to function properly in space, you’d have to design a completely new targetting system, which is beyond the capabilities and scope of even state sponsored terrorism.
Everyone’s forgetting one thing. You don’t NEED to hit it.
Just get a -small- rocket, one that could take up a 20 or so pound payload accuratly. Simple guidance-system, etc. The equipment can be bought over-the-counter, though you’d need FAA approval to fire the rocket (Like a terrorist would care?). Then load up the payload full of small (Say, 3mm) steel ball bearings, with an altimiter set to an ejector charge. Fire it up, ejector charge goes off as it gets to the area, and you’ve got about 1000 ball bearings spread in the general area ahead of the space station. Won’t entirely destroy it, but if it’s reasonably accurate, it would be crippled beyond repair. All it has to do is get up infront of it…
Would be rather unsatisfying as a terrorist attack, though. Sure, they hit it, but it wouldn’t seem as devestating as if they had completely destroyed it, some may even be salvageable. Though I don’t know, it depends on how fast they’re traveling, and how accurate the shot is (How much of the spread it catches). With oposite orbits, you’d only need a couple of those to hit. With more than 20 hits, it’d be pretty well gone, but it’d have to be relatively accurate to space them that densly… But that’s pretty much a poor-man’s ASAT missile, there. And unless someone sees the launch from the ground (Think of an extra-large model rocket or a SAM), there’s not going to be any other way to detect the launch…
Israel and India also have satellite launch capability, but that’s about it. To hit the ISS, in addition to the ability to reach orbit you need to be able to do orbital corrections. Still, not too difficult for any nation that can send satellite into orbit.
But you don’t necessarily have to enter orbit. Going up to 400km altitude is a lot easier than going into a 400km orbit, because the really hard part is accelerating to the orbital speed (about 7km/sec). But unless you enter and match the orbit, you need to hit a fast-moving target which would be very tricky.
Since it would be easier to drop a bomb on Washington DC than to hit the ISS, I don’t see why terrorists would bother with the ISS.
There isn’t even a need for a hit a nuclear war head would cause major EMP and hell one of the Russian S-500 SAMs could bring it down, else it would just use shotgun style fragmentation warhead , the shuttle often comes back with cracks in the windows from space debris they put up there from launches since the 60s.
Why? I suppose you need to refresh yourself with the Western-hating nihilism of Islamic extremists. Although I discounted the probability of such attack in my OP, it’s possible that they would consider targeting these space-based platforms precisely because the US attaches such high technological and symbolic value to them and because they represent the pinnacle of Western technological achievement.