North Korea Claims Missile Test Was To Prove Capability to Attack US Satellites
This would be an interesting to see how the US would respond to a provocation from North Korea if they did in fact ever shoot down or even attempt to shoot down a US satellite:
North Korea’s main propaganda outlet claimed Wednesday that the recent midair explosion of a ballistic missile was intentional, calling it a test attack on enemy satellites.
North Korea’s Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile was detected to have burst into pieces midair after flying some 150 km after its launch on June 22.
North Korea fired off another missile hours later, which soared to an altitude exceeding 1,000 km and flew some 400 km before landing in the East Sea.
The first missile launch seemed to have ended in failure.
Still, North Korea’s main propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, claimed Wednesday that the midair explosion of the first missile was carried out by a control device installed in the missile and was not an accident.
The website also claimed that North Korea could render U.S. spy satellites lumps of scrap metal if Pyongyang detonates an electromagnetic pulse bomb at a high attitude after delivering it via one of its missiles. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but if they ever did detonate an EMP in the air it would render far more than US satellites ineffective and likely cause a global movement for regime change in North Korea as an aftermath. That is why I think if they do an EMP capability that it would only be a weapon of last resort.
Pure garbage. Satellites are up around 30+km and I’d hardly think the DPRK is on the short list of countries with the ability to conduct orbital warfare. It’s one thing to talk reasonable trash but this is like Somali pirates claiming to be able to take on the USN. ❓
“The website also claimed that North Korea could render U.S. spy satellites lumps of scrap metal if Pyongyang detonates an electromagnetic pulse bomb at a high attitude after delivering it via one of its missiles.”
I think that’s about like me saying I alone can buy a Bentley with cash, successfully crash the gate at Benning, and take on a platoon of Rangers in hand-to-hand combat. I don’t think they have an EMP, know how to mount it in a rocket, or have a reliable missile system.
OTOH, the Chinese do.
Several year ago I saw somewhere that if aliens ever attacked the earth, firing nuclear missiles at them in outer space wouldn’t have the effect that they would have on earth. Most of the damage from nukes on earth is from the direct heat (radiated energy) in the immediate area and from the shock wave within a certain radius beyond that. The shock wave is an effect that is transmitted when the blast force compresses the air. Since there is no air in outer space there is no blast shock wave except from whatever debris comes from the casing. The heat energy is almost all x-rays and gamma rays that dissipate quickly by distance according to the Inverse Square law.
Starting there I wanted to find out what is the real threat of nuke burst EMP to a satellite. The answer seems kind of complicated but it may constrain North Korea’s threat.
First of all, the North has not demonstrated this capability. The people who have done serious studies of this have not made public everything they know. The best info I’ve found that is public is this, Collateral Damage to Satellites from an EMP Attack It’s fairly technical but much of what is known is from ground and high altitude atmospheric testing. Even the 3 component effects of an EMP burst; E1, E2 and E3 are the result of the nuke’s interaction with air, kicking out high energy particles and ions.
I won’t go any deeper into that but I see two scenarios for North Korea’s threat. If they want to take out a single satellite with EMP they would have to detonate fairly close to it in outer space within a range that the gamma and x-rays haven’t dissipated. Remember, satellites are already designed to survive that high levels of such energy that exists in outer space. Maybe from that close distance, the shrapnel from the warhead is just as likely to take out the satellite. Since an outer space nuke blast has never been tested, I don’t see how the North would know what an effective range. Lastly, it seems that launching a nuke to take out one satellite is an awful expensive exchange especially when there is so much redundancy for the essential satellites.
The other scenario is to blow the nuke in the high altitude atmosphere. As described in the publication I linked to, it pumps out a whole lot of hi-energy and ionized particles. That expands the Van Allen Radiation Belt and starts affecting any low earth orbit satellites passing through it. No exactly a targeted attack. The satellites don’t die immediately but degrade over time (months maybe) until they fail.
When Jong-un kills Chinese and Russian satellites he signs his own warrant.
Very good info, JoeC. And there’s also the knowledge that satellites are shielded from the high radiation expected in space as well. It will take a bit more than cobbling some bits dropped off Mao’s workbench to disrupt satellites. And the PRC won’t allow DPRK to develop a threat against Beijing.