Operation Burnt Frost:

Schematic rendering of NRO’s USA-193 based on ground imagery (Source: GlobalSecurity.org)

On February 20, 2008, the Bush administration authorized the shoot-down of a malfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite, known as USA-193, or L-21 by its NRO identification.

Given the spacecraft's 1000 pounds of hydrazine propellant still yet intact, the possibility of facilitating the satellite's reentry into Earth's atmosphere was deemed prohibitive due to uncertainty over survivability and potential environmental fallout. NASA's Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at the time, Nicholas L. Johnson, provided a unique insider's testimony into the operation's goals and US Anti-Satellite (ASAT) capabilities at the time:

"Contrary to popular belief, the United States did not possess an anti-satellite (ASAT) capability that could address the USA-193 situation. In fact, the last time that the United States had fired a missile to destroy a satellite in Earth orbit occurred in September 1985, when an F-15 aircraft dropped a custom-designed missile to intercept the Solwind satellite in the first and only complete test of a proposed, but later cancelled, air-launched ASAT system"

Following news of the satellites's uncontrolled re-entry being communicated to foreign governments and space agencies and the USA-193's reentry being projected to take place in March, the timing of the operation was critical. As Johnson testifies:

"Space Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to be launched on February 7 to carry a new European module to the International Space Station (ISS) and then return to Earth on February 18. Gen. Chilton, a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and a former Space Shuttle Commander, preferred to delay any attempt to negate USA-193 until after Atlantis had landed."

"Thus, the window for engagement was very short: from February 18 to early March. Attempting an intercept in the last few days before reentry was problematic because of potential inaccuracies in both targeting and spacecraft signature data."

Ultimately, the Operation was given a "GO" in the early morning of February 20. At 10:26 p.m. EST, an SM-3 missile was launched from the Ticonderoga-class USS Lake Erie's AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system.

Shortly after the USA-103’s insertion in Low Earth Orbit, the spacecraft experienced critical failures that rendered communication with NRO’s ground station impossible. Given the satellite’s top-secret nature and experimental design, plans on organising a controlled re-entry attempt were rejected on the basis that experts needed to field the operation lacked necessary security clearances. 

With an anti-ballistic missile strike constituting the next available means of destroying USA-193 and thus removing risks of an uncontrolled entry, three Ticonderoga-class warships, fitted with the AEGIS ABM system, were deployed. USA-193 was successfully intercepted and the sheer kinetic momentum of the SM-3 missile pulverised the spacecraft, producing little to no discernible debris. 

The operation was effectively a resounding success for US ABM and hard-kill ASAT capabilities which had undergone rigorous testing in the previous years and following the U.S.’s withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty in 2002. While publicly Operation Burnt Frost was at best framed as a necessary response to a space-borne contingency and global threat, which indeed it was, Chinese and Russian perceptions were justifiably suspicious of any American unilateral actions.

In light of Chinese and Russian concerns, however, the following should be stressed as to space’s ongoing militarisation, weaponisation and great powers’ sensitivity over ASAT weapons development: 

1. Space militarization can be traced back to the 1950s and is inextricably linked to the post-1945 thermonuclear revolution and the early Cold War. In other words, space militarization came about as a fait accompli as soon as Sputnik’s launch and its overhead trajectory across Earth orbit effectively established the universal right of orbital overflight. The rest is history, with currently more than 5,000 US-registered satellites in various orbital planes. 

2. Intercontinental and Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ICBM, ABM) make great space launch vehicles and ASAT weapons. The world’s first ICBM, the Nazi V2 rocket was developed by none other than NASA’s own Werner Von Braun, Operation Paperclip’s most prized salvaged scientist from the carcass of Nazi Germany. While the V2 fared poorly in war, its missile technology was incorporated into both US and Soviet Ballistic Missile Development (BMD) efforts, making the modern rocket a “Janus-faced” dual-use creation, “looking toward global nuclear annihilation and the peaceful exploration of space”, in the form of nuclear-armed ICBMs and Space Launch Vehicles (SLVs) respectively. 

3. The Cold War balance of terror, AKA, the balancing principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), operates optimally under the prescription that none of the nuclear-armed superpowers should have the capability and hence incentive, to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike to take out their enemy’s defences and nuclear arsenals in one splendid surprise attack. For M.A.D to work, both superpowers have to largely forgo the development of ABM shields, prohibiting any attempts to circumvent the logic of nuclear terror, ensuring thus that the chances of an unmitigable global nuclear holocaust would function as a terrifying, and yet arguably successful, deterrent. Simply put, the bipolar distribution of unprecedently catastrophic nuclear capability would secure the peace if both Cold War rivals agreed to lower their defences, embrace and expose each other to M.A.D. Nevertheless, the degree to which the US legitimately forwent the pursuit of nuclear supremacy in favour of M.A.D.’s doomsday logic remains even to this date highly contested. 

Against this backdrop, Operation Burnt Frost, in the aftermath of the U.S.’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, was seen by China and Russia as a blatant US testing of both ASAT and ABM capabilities which generally encompass the potential to destroy conventional spacepower capabilities but also to turn off space-based nuclear attack warning systems.

Given, however, the US’s massive dependency on spacepower for civilian, commercial and military usage, from IMINT and SIGINT spy satellites to the GPS constellation which enabled unprecedented precision-guided munition accuracy in the First Gulf War, it makes greater strategic sense for China and Russia to pursue asymmetric ASAT capabilities than for the US.

The US Congress House Intelligence Committee’s press release in February 2024 on a “serious national security threat” concerning the potential development of Russian nuclear-tipped co-orbital ASAT weapons showcases the kind of asymmetric advantages that a declining great power, such as Putin’s Russia, can pursue to offset conventional US military primacy.

In the words of Congressman Mike Turner (OH-10), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and head of the US delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly:

“The Space Age began when Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. The eyes of the world turned to the sky and wondered how space and technology would now change life on Earth. The Space Age will end when Russia launches its nuclear anti-satellite weapon into orbit.”

“General Saltzman, Chief of Staff of the United States Space Force, has referred to the potential launch date of Russia’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon as “Day Zero.” Because, from that day, no one can count on space the next day. From that day forward, the assumption on Earth must be that in order to preserve our economic, social, and military structures, we must have an alternative to space. Right now, there isn’t one.”

In conclusion, Operation Burnt Frost became the first time the US explicitly flaunted its ASAT capabilities since the short-lived F15-launched ASAT programme was quickly canned due in 1988 to budgetary constraints and fears of instigating a new space arms race. Its approval only came after China’s own ASAT test on January 11, 2007, and following years of secret development that allowed for the AEGIS BMD system to be weaponised in that manner. The asymmetric threat posed by a probable environmental fallout with transnational repercussions spawned the US into action to neutralise the contingency and inadvertently signal its capabilities to its great power adversaries. The case study of Operation Burnt Frost continues to perfectly encapsulate the inherent dual-use nature of spacepower capabilities and the pull that the ambiguous character of weapons continues to exert in the post-Cold War era.

Bibliography:

On Operation Burned Frost:

Operation Burnt Frost: A View From Inside

Burning Frost, the view from the ground

On the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM):

The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty at a Glance

The ABM Treaty (text)

On the ABM and Aegis:

Aegis: A Continuum of Excellence