What is the full form of ASAT

ASAT

ASAT stands for Anti-satellite weapons. They are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites. The race among the nations to develop ASAT is the result of the increase in the utilization of space as a medium of war since the time of the Cold War Space Race. It allows a nation to attack and destroy enemy satellites in the event of war in order to sabotage the enemy's military operations.

According to some reports, Beijing conducted an anti-satellite missile test in 2013 by launching its new ASAT (anti-satellite) missile, the Dong Neng-2 or DN-2. It has also conducted an anti-missile test in January 2007 when a KT-1 rocket was launched by the Chinese military to destroy an unnecessary Chinese Feng Yun 1-C weather satellite in Low Earth Orbit.

Such developments by other countries made India rethink its space policy. In 2012, V.K. Saraswat, chief of DRDO, announced that India has all the arrangements to integrate an anti-satellite weapon to neutralize hostile satellites in earth and polar orbits.

Brief History:

1. In the late 1950s, the U.S. Air Force started advanced missile projects called Weapon System WS-199A.
2. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union developed two launch platforms for the Vympel Anti-Satellite weapon system.
3. Russia conducted a successful test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile called PL-19 Nudol on 18 November 2015. It again tested Nudol in May 2016 by launching it from the Plesetsk cosmodrome test launch facility.
4. China entered the competition in 2007 as it used a ballistic missile to destroy a retired meteorological satellite as the technology continued to advance. The US became the first nation to declare a prohibition on the employment of missiles against satellites in April 2022. Continual experiments have caused a dangerous increase in space trash orbiting the Earth.

Filing Space with Junk

Imagine what would happen if satellites were to be destroyed and end up in orbit as garbage. Imagine what happens when that garbage collides with other spacecraft, causing them to crash and become junk as well.

This terrifying scenario, which was shown in the 2013 smash hit "Gravity" essentially sums up the Kessler Syndrome.

The Kessler Syndrome occurs when there is so much space debris in orbit that it keeps producing more and more, which can ruin any space endeavour.

The basic concept was first presented in the 1978 paper "Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt" by retired NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who bears his name. The chance of satellite collisions would rise as more and more spacecraft were launched, according to him and co-author Burton Cour-Palais.

By use of techniques like the robotic salvage of abandoned satellites, initiatives like the European Space Agency's Clean Space initiative are attempting to address the issue.

A new Peace

In ASAT tests, four nations-the USA, China, Russia, and India-have obliterated their own satellites. But there is a rising push to ban ASATs as well, just like the Soviets and Americans previously met to discuss nuclear disarmament.

The United States agreed to ban ballistic missile tests against satellites after the Russian government blew to bits one of their own satellites and created millions of bits of debris orbiting the planet. The astronauts on board the International Space Station were compelled to look for cover due to the shrapnel field.