“New Soviet war satellite”

Press, 3 November 1981, Page 8

“New Soviet war satellite”

NZPA Washington Star Wars are about to break out in space if a report published by the authoritative “Aviation Week and Space Technology" magazine is correct. According to the latest issue of the magazine, the Soviet Union is operating in low Earth orbit an antisatellite battle station equipped with clusters of infra-red homing guided interceptors that could destroy multiple American spacecraft. These attack-vehicles, the magazine states, “provide a new U.S.S.R. capability for sneak attacks on United States satellites.”

This is the sort of report to send shivers down the spines of Americans, who for the

last few months have been bombarded with warnings by members of the Reagan Administration about how the United States was being rapidly overtaken in the arms race by the Soviet Union. The Pentagon has moved swiftly to calm these fears by saying that the Defence Intelligence Agency has found no evidence to show that the report is correct. Despite this, the magazine report sounds convincing. It is known that in the past the Soviet Union has launched killer satellites against target spacecraft. Last March one of these apparently caught up with a target satellite over Eastern Europe and then blew up,

peppering its target with shrapnel. This was believed to be the Russian’s first successful anti-satellite test for more "than three years. Until now, American early-warning satellites and radar were able to determine when an anti-satellite test was being conducted, but, according to the magazine, the United States will now have to rely on its space-to-space capability to spy on Soviet space activities. The United States has reason for concern if the Soviet Union has developed a more effective satellite-kill-ing capability. America has more than 100 operational satellites in space which perform a mul-

titude of functions from strategic communications to weather forecasting These satellites could be endangered by the type of battle station which the Russians are said to have in orbit. The United States does not have an orbiting anti-satel-lite battle station, but there are plans to deploy a twostage miniature anti-satellite rocket, built by Ling-Temco-Vought and Boeing, on Fl 5 fighters in 1984. When President Reagan announced his decisions on the MX intercontinental ballistic missile and the Bl bomber at the beginning of this month, he also said that the United States intended to pursue an operational antisatellite system.