Can a bomb be dropped from a satellite?

Can a bomb be dropped from a satellite?

Bombs could also be delivered from manned satellites; for such a case, the guidance operation could include direct line-of-sight steering of the bomb-carrying missile to the target – even a moving target.

Are there weaponized satellites?

As of September 2017, there are no known operative orbital weapons systems, but several nations have deployed orbital surveillance networks to observe other nations or armed forces. Several orbital weaponry systems were designed by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Is it possible to shoot down a satellite?

Although no ASAT system has yet been utilised in warfare, a few countries (India, Russia, China, and the United States) have successfully shot down their own satellites to demonstrate their ASAT capabilities in a show of force. Use of ASATs generates space debris, which can threaten other satellites.

Can you shoot something into orbit?

Space guns could thus potentially provide a method of non-rocket spacelaunch. However, a space gun has never been successfully used to launch an object into orbit or out of Earth’s gravitational pull.

Do kinetic weapons exist?

Orion’s Arm features them as a major weapon type in the galaxy of 10,000 years in the future, where they can be used on planets at speeds up to 99.9\% that of light, typically sterilizing a large portion of the target world. They are referred to as Relativistic Kinetic Kill Systems, or RKKS (pronounced “rocks”).

Can a bullet escape Earth’s gravity?

A bullet cannot travel at high speeds long enough to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull.

Can satellites be used as weapons?

A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods–up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter–that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes’ notice.

Could we target satellites with magnetic rods?

Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods’ speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the “absentee ratio”–the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired target–would be prohibitive.

How do satellites shoot darts into the atmosphere?

When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second–comparable to the speed of a meteor.

Are hypervelocity rod bundles the future of space weapons?

The “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” published by the Air Force in November 2003, references “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, “Space Weapons, Earth Wars,” dedicated entire sections to the technology’s usefulness.