A military satellite is an artificial Earth satellite used for military purposes. The most common missions are intelligence gathering, shipping, and military communications. The first military satellites were engaged in photo reconnaissance. Attempts have been made to develop satellite-based weapons, but these works were discontinued in 1967 after ratification of international treaties banning the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
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Navigation Satellites
The first Transit satellite navigation system used by the US Navy was tested in 1960 [1] . It consisted of five satellites and could provide navigation corrections approximately once per hour.
During the Cold War arms race , a nuclear threat was used to justify the costs of creating a better navigation system. This led to the deployment of a GPS system that initially helped submarines determine their coordinates after surfacing [2] . The first GPS satellite was launched in 1974, the deployment of the Soviet GLONASS system in 1982 gave rise to the US Congress to allocate money to accelerate GPS work, the full operational readiness of which was announced in April 1995 [3] .
Early Detection Systems
A number of countries have developed satellite early warning systems designed to detect ICBMs at different stages of flight. In the United States, these satellites are operated by the Defense Support Program (DSP). The first launch of the DSP satellite took place on November 6, 1970, the 23rd and the last launch on November 10, 2007. This program was subsequently replaced by the SBIRS infrared space-based system. In the Soviet Union, the space component of the missile attack warning system was deployed by 1979 on the basis of four spacecraft of the Oko system.
See also
- Reconnaissance satellite
Notes
- β Howell, Elizabeth Navstar: GPS Satellite Network . SPACE.com
- β Why Did the Department of Defense Develop GPS? . Trimble Navigation Ltd. Archived on October 18, 2007.
- β USNO NAVSTAR Global Positioning System . US Naval Observatory.