cyranoRussian spy spacecraft have intercepted Europe’s key satellites, officials believe
Lysergid
talThe problem with kinetic kill anti-satellite weapons is that they create debris clouds. Unless the satellite is at a low altitude and about to de-orbit, that’s generally bad.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_space_debris_producing…
Top debris creation events, August 2024
#1: Fengyun-1C 2007 3,549 fragments Intentional collision (ASAT)
EDIT: And apparently that debris cloud from that anti-satellite weapon test is believed to have taken out a Russian satellite:
en.wikipedia.org/…/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi…
In early 2013, the Russian concept satellite BLITS collided with what is believed to be a piece of debris from Fengyun-1C, was knocked out of its orbit and soon afterwards data retrieval from the satellite ceased.
bufalo1973Then maybe a rocketthat sticks to the target and pushes it out of orbit. Maybe down to the atmosphere if in LEO or away if geosync.
No idea if anyone has done anything to make this more than an idea, but if you want to de-orbit someone else's satellite safely you could use a laser broom. Whe you vaporise stuff with a laser, the material that ablates off of the object imparts a bit of thrust to that object. This means that zapping a satellite with a laser can potentially slow it down just like pushing it with a rocket. It also has the benefit of being useable on any other troublesome debris, and it can be reused between jobs (assuming you solved the engineering challenges of Big Space Laser)