Nuclear weapon in orbit

Originally posted by menace71
I think we have ASAT(anti satellite) missiles(that could knock it down) and interceptor missile for Ballistic missiles. I think the one they launched recently was said to be tumbling around up there randomly not in a stable orbit so if it were a nuclear device there not in control of the thing it's just floating around up there.


Manny

Given that it was the first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, I doubt they would put anything nuclear on the rocket for fear of another malfunction. They need to do more tests to insure the reliability of the rocket.

We do have anti-satellite weapons, as I posted earlier in this thread. So does Russia and China.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
If a nation has the proven capability to build and detonate nuclear bombs how hard is it to make them small enough to put on a rocket?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9738806/North-Korea-rocket-launch-satellite-successfully-sent-into-orbit.html

Once a nuclear bomb is put into orbit how hard is it to drop it from orbit to the mainland USA to detonate?

Is that a threat?

Originally posted by Metal Brain
If a nation has the proven capability to build and detonate nuclear bombs how hard is it to make them small enough to put on a rocket?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9738806/North-Korea-rocket-launch-satellite-successfully-sent-into-orbit.html

Once a nuclear bomb is put into orbit how hard is it to drop it from orbit to the mainland USA to detonate?

If you are in a true orbit, that is, like the ISS, it just stays around its altitude, with some adjustments needed every so often because it is not a total vacuum up 200 miles high so it slows down a bit, because of the huge wings of solar power and stuff, not exactly aerodynamic🙂 But if you have some kind of regular sized satellite which happens to have a nuke onboard, If you say, just release it, all you have now is TWO satellites in a co-orbit position, maybe slowly drifting apart and such but that would be about it, both pieces would be up there for years. If you want to get the bomb down to earth you need retro rockets that slow you down and then you have to have some kind of navigation system to get you at EXACTLY the right de-orbit times and the exact angle and the exact amount of reverse thrust needed to get your bomb down to a predetermined location. Besides all that, you would also need a heat shield because friction with the lower atmosphere, say below 200,000 feet will heat up the craft to about 3000 degrees F which will burn out ANYTHING unless it has an ablative heat shield. So if you have all that you can then talk about bombing someplace around the planet. The problem with all that is a regular ICBM will get to its target faster because if you have some kind of random time of attack, say as a response to war, the satellite position will not be where you want it for proper launch timing, so you might have to wait an hour and a half before it gets to the right place to launch. An ICBM can get anywhere on the planet in 20 minutes. So the entire idea of a satellite launch is pretty much bullocks.