Don Snyder, Angela Putney, Erin N. Leidy, Gavin S. Hartnett & James Bonomo
Introduction
Many modern services are provided in part or in whole by satellites. The number of active satellites has increased considerably in the past few years, and the public’s daily dependence on satellites increased along with it. So, too, has the possibility of the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space. Concurrently, in the past few years, multiple adversarial countries have emphasized the capabilities of nuclear weapons and forces. During the war in Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons. China has been building up its nuclear forces. And North Korea has performed underground nuclear tests and multiple tests of missiles it claims can carry nuclear weapons.
Historically, during high-altitude nuclear tests performed from 1958 to 1962, nuclear tests damaged and destroyed some satellites (Conrad et al., 2010; Gombosi et al., 2017; Wenaas, 1978). During this early period of the space age, the number of satellites in orbit was few, and very few functions on the ground depended on space capabilities. Today, satellite-provided services permeate nearly every aspect of government and civilian life. They provide global communications, weather monitoring, navigation, remote sensing, and many other capabilities underpinning modern life. Even the timing used for the cryptography of bank transactions often uses space-based assets. A loss of a significant fraction of satellites could have significant disruptive effects on the day-to-day life of the public.
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