Asian countries are suddenly jostling to
launch satellites, train astronauts, and put military hardware into orbit. What
are the risks up there when no one’s cooperating?
When North Korea tried and failed to
launch a satellite into orbit last month, observers in the West paid attention
mostly to the Unha-3 rocket beneath it. If the launch had worked, North Korea
would likely have had a ballistic missile powerful enough to reach Alaska with
a 1-ton weapon and Seattle and San Francisco with a 500-kilogram bomb (albeit
with questionable accuracy).
But the power of the booster wasn’t
the whole story: The third stage of the rocket mattered, too. Perched on top
was North Korea’s first remote-sensing satellite, and it carried an implicit
message for rival South Korea, which has not yet succeeded in launching a
satellite of its own: “You may think you’re ahead technologically, but we can
beat you into space.”
Amid all the US analysis of the
North Korean launch, one point tended to get lost: It was just the most recent
entry in Asia’s accelerating space race. China conducted 18 successful space
launches last year, passing the United States in annual launches for the first
time. India has increased its space budget by 50 percent this year. And Japan
has abandoned decades of purely peaceful space activity to allow military
missions. Newcomers like Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam are joining in as
well.
Just as the rest of the world is
beginning to cooperate in space, Asian countries are becoming increasingly
competitive. In the West, 19 European countries are sharing technology and
costs within the framework of the European Space Agency; even the United States
and Russia have joined in close cooperation on the International Space Station
and share a number of joint commercial ventures.
In Asia, by contrast, space appears
to be becoming the latest venue for unsettled historical and geopolitical
rivalries. Officials deny they’re in competition, but as Asia’s economies
expand, the record suggests that they are using space to demonstrate military
power, technological might, and political prestige over their neighbors.
Since 2007, Japan, China, and India
have all conducted lunar mapping missions—expensive and redundant efforts that
speak more of a desire for prestige and technological independence than of
science and efficiency.
The transformation of space into an
arena of conflict will have costs if it continues. By ignoring established
norms, Asian countries may create dangerous conditions for others in space;
they could even stumble into war. The prospect of copycat weapons tests among
Asia’s rivals in low-Earth orbit could release large amounts of orbital debris,
threatening the International Space Station and other high-value spacecraft in
this densely populated region of space. Competing programs, even if only for
civil purposes, could also exacerbate political tensions on Earth, making
broader cooperation in the space field more difficult and putting current space
treaties at risk. Space activity has become increasingly transnational since
the end of the Cold War. Asia’s current dynamics threaten to reverse this
progress.
***
IN THE WEST, the term “space race” evokes memories of Sputnik and the
Cold War-era rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. That’s a
useful way to think about what’s happening in Asia—except that the two Cold War
superpowers actually talked about space security regularly, engaged in arms
control, and agreed not to interfere with each other’s military satellites.
These measures provided some stability in space. Asian powers have not even
started talks on their space activities.
Though the Asian space powers
largely claim to be pursuing scientific goals, many recent missions have
involved duplication of effort, suggesting that the deeper purpose of such
missions is political. Since 2007, for instance, Japan, China, and India have
all conducted lunar mapping missions—expensive and redundant efforts that speak
more of a desire for prestige and technological independence than of science
and efficiency.
The main impetus for much of the
regional space tumult over the past decade is China’s rapid emergence as a
military space power. Though China published a 2011 white paper outlining its
space plans that is notably silent on military aims, the country has been
pressing forward toward a range of military space capabilities, including space
weapons. In the most dramatic example (which Chinese officials first denied,
then claimed was a threat to no one), China tested an antisatellite technology
in 2007 by destroying a weather satellite, creating more than 3,000 large
pieces of orbiting debris. It is one-third of the way into deploying a
35-satellite GPS system called Beidou that will help its missile guidance,
although it will offer commercial navigation services as well. In the civil
field, China is only the third country to have launched its own astronauts; in
September 2011, it placed its first space station, Tiangong-1, into orbit. It
has conducted an unmanned docking already, and its Shenzhou 9 mission later
this year will bring the first Chinese astronauts—or taikonauts—to the station.
With its rapidly growing economy,
China can afford a large and increasing investment in all areas of space. While
this is unsettling and even worrisome for the United States, it poses an
existential threat for China’s neighbors. These countries face increased
military risks and the prospect of losing political and economic influence as
Beijing attempts to establish regional space hegemony.
India has reacted by establishing a
new agency called the Integrated Space Cell, bringing a group of military and
civilian officials together to oversee defense programs for space. The
government in New Delhi has ordered military satellites for each branch of its
armed services and pledged to match China’s capability by deploying a
ground-launched antisatellite weapon. Where India had previously concentrated
on space applications in the service of its population (communications,
telemedicine, and agricultural information), it has recently expanded its
program in order to compete with China in high-prestige space science. Projects
currently underway include its Chandrayaan-2 lunar lander and rover, a Mars
mission, and an expensive, independent human space flight program.
Meanwhile, on China’s eastern side,
Japan has felt the pressure to step up its game, or risk losing its current
place as Asia’s space technology leader. In the past decade, the Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency has pushed ahead in launching the first mission to
return particles from an asteroid, carried out a lunar mapping mission with
high-definition imagery, built the Kibo research module for the International
Space Station, and developed one of only three spacecraft systems now certified
to supply the station.
Most notably, Japan shocked many
observers by moving quickly in 2008 following China’s antisatellite test to end
its 30-year ban on military space activities. While the military’s main focus
is on reconnaissance and early warning, senior Japanese leaders have not ruled
out possible development of “defensive” space weapons in the future.
Meanwhile, South Korea has both
regionwide and peninsula-focused reasons for enhancing its space activities. It
paid Russia to train and fly its first astronaut—the female biotechnologist Yi
So-yeon—to the International Space Station in 2008. It has devoted national
funding to development of a satellite production industry, a sophisticated
space control and data interpretation center, and a space-launch facility at
Naro. While it is clearly ahead of North Korea, it has thus far failed in two
attempts to launch its own satellites.
In addition, a growing number of
other countries are anxious not to fall further behind the region’s leaders.
Australia is rapidly expanding its civil space efforts and joining with the
United States in supporting new military communications and space situational
awareness systems. Vietnam, which has border and maritime disputes with China,
is now receiving over $1 billion in Japanese assistance to build a national
space complex and to purchase two radar satellites, which may help keep an eye
on China.
The wealthy city-state of Singapore
has recently begun sending large numbers of scientists, engineers, and military
officers abroad for space training and promising big salaries to attract
aerospace faculty to its own universities. In 2011, it paid India to put the
first domestically produced Singaporean satellite into orbit. The tiny nation
seems well poised to develop a niche capability in maritime operations and
reconnaissance. And nearby Indonesia has plans to use its favorable equatorial
location—the most efficient for reaching geostationary orbital slots—to develop
a future commercial launch industry. It is currently investing in building its
own space booster.
***
AS THE UNITED STATES
struggles with a declining NASA budget and waning sense of direction for its
own space activities, the space race in Asia poses new challenges. Asian
countries are currently committed to increased space budgets; while US space
leadership is not currently in jeopardy, extended budget cuts could change this
assessment. On the military side, the United States is further ahead, but space
weapons development among Asia’s rising technology powers adds a new element of
risk—not least because debris generated by tests like China’s could hurt other
spacecraft.
Cold War space security treaties and
conventions, unfortunately, haven’t kept up with the times. New actors and new
technologies are beginning to stress general agreements like the 1967 Outer
Space Treaty and the 1975 Convention on the Registration of Space Objects. To
address these concerns, Europe and the United States recently joined forces to
promote an international space code of conduct to encourage responsible
behavior, debris mitigation, and increased transparency. Asian governments have
been invited to join, but few have yet embraced this effort.
Fortunately, Asia’s competitive
future is not set in stone. The Chinese-led Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation
Organization and the Japanese-led Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum each
provide training, ground stations, and satellite technology to a select group
of Asian nations. But there is no current cooperation between these two bodies.
As with any conflict, the outlines
of a possible a solution can sometimes be found in other, similar arenas. In
the wake of recent earthquakes and tsunamis across Asia, various nations have
begun to explore possible cooperation in disaster prediction and monitoring.
Similarly, growing international knowledge about the shared risks posed by
orbital debris could bring new self-restraint to the region’s militaries.
Finally, future economic setbacks may cause Asian nations to cooperate as a
means of sharing costs.
Indeed, if North Korea’s failed
launch has any positive outcome, it might be to help Asia’s political leaders
begin to realize that an unbridled space competition will cause problems for
all of them, as well other countries. The best hope for the United States and
Europe—and for the citizens of Asia as well—is that Beijing, New Delhi, Seoul,
Tokyo, and Asia’s political leaders will begin to discuss their common
interests in space. Only in this way will we begin to develop 21st-century
“rules of the road” to prevent the rising mistrust and conflict in orbit from
ruining space for future generations.
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