The U.S., Russia, and China Prepare for Satellite Warfare
This started a long long time ago.<p>Positioning satellites are likely targets of a satellite war. There was a strong emphasis to have the European satellite positioning system (Galileo) to use different frequencies than GPS (e.g: so they could be jammed without side effects on each other). GPS jammers have been a thing for a while too.<p>Then, spy satellites get occasionally targeted by light beams so they cannot take pictures.<p>Then, both China and the US have destroyed decommissioned satellites with missiles. When China did it, they were denounced publicly for increasing the amount of space debris.<p>So naturally satellite-on-satellite fun was naturally going to be a thing.<p>A predicted satellite weapon system are rods of tungsten (or whatever) dropped from space as a mean of very powerful kinetic bombardment... something that has received the name of &quot;rod of god&quot;. Can cause large damage without side effects (e.g: radiation, public outcry).<p>Rods of god however have a prohibitive cost due to the cost of lifting objects to orbit. Eventually the first superpower to get their hands in a space elevator will fill space with rods of god. Space elevators however would need some shielding to pass through the nasty Van Allen belt radiation, since space elevators are slower than rockets exposing the payload to radiation for longer periods of time.