‘Star Wars’ Foes in Congress Try to Block Testing

Congressional opponents of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative have revived their campaign to ban tests of anti-satellite weapons following the Defense Department announcement that it would conduct two research tests within the so-called “Star Wars” program under the guise of anti-satellite development.

Without resort to the anti-satellite guise, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty would prevent the Administration from conducting the two experiments in its research effort to develop a space-based shield against enemy missiles. But the ABM treaty exempts anti-satellite weapons from its ban on ABM tests.

California Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), sponsor of the proposed ban on anti-satellite tests, said last week that the Administration’s plan to test the Strategic Defense Initiative is “in blatant disregard of the spirit of the ABM treaty and raises serious questions about the Administration’s intentions in the Geneva arms control talks.”

The drive in Congress for an anti-satellite test ban could severely hamper “Star Wars” research on devices to detect and intercept warheads in mid-course, when they act like satellites in orbit. Mid-course interception, in the view of experts, will provide the greatest obstacle toward development of a full-blown “Star Wars” system able to shoot down enemy missiles in all phases of flight.

Despite earlier indications by President Reagan, U.S. negotiators ignored the anti-satellite test ban issue during the first round of resumed arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, which ended in Geneva last week. President Reagan offered last fall to consider a moratorium once negotiations resumed, but the Soviets did not repeat their call for one, choosing instead to propose a ban on all “space attack weapons,” including anti-satellite devices.

The United States rejected that proposal and is continuing to prepare for the first test, in June or July, of an anti-satellite weapon against a real object in space. Such a test could cast a pall over the arms talks and affect the atmosphere of the summit meeting expected this fall between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Beyond that anti-satellite test, the Pentagon disclosed in a recent report that it plans to conduct 15 major “Star Wars” experiments in the “near term”--presumably the next five to seven years--that it says would comply with the ABM treaty.

The Administration justified only two of the “Star Wars” tests--both involving projectiles launched from space against satellites--as anti-satellite-related and thus not barred by the ABM treaty. The other 13 tests, it said, would circumvent the treaty’s ban on ABM components because they would involve devices that do not technically qualify as components.

And beyond the tests planned now, the Administration appeared to ease restrictions on future “Star Wars” testing. In arms control impact statements of previous years, the Administration had included a phrase saying that the ABM treaty “applies to directed energy technology”--such as the laser beams that could constitute a crucial component of the Strategic Defense Initiative. But, in the most recent such statement issued last week, the Administration deleted that phrase.

In Congress, Brown said he proposed an anti-satellite test moratorium--part of a broader ban on all space weapons--in an effort to prevent the Administration from exploiting the loophole in the ABM treaty to proceed with “Star Wars” tests, as well as to protect satellites of both sides from attack. The measure was co-sponsored by Reps. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) and Joe Moakley (D-Mass.).

Brown castigated “the Administration’s stated intention to conduct tests of ABM components, which is outlawed by the ABM treaty, as ASATs (anti-satellite tests) in order to circumvent ABM treaty restrictions . . . . It also underscores the need for a treaty limiting anti-satellite weapons if we hope to preserve the ABM treaty and prevent an arms race in space.”

Last year the House voted to cut off anti-satellite test funds but ultimately agreed with the Senate to permit three tests this year after March 1 if the President certified that he was negotiating anti-satellite limits “in good faith” with the Soviets and that testing would not “irreversibly” impair the negotiations’ prospects.

This year House advocates of an anti-satellite moratorium hope to do better. The House Armed Services Committee chairman is Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), a supporter of an anti-satellite moratorium. Dicks said that Aspin would be more likely than his predecessor, Rep. Melvin Price (D-Ill.), to resist Senate opposition to a moratorium if another House-Senate compromise were required.

Reagan has not yet submitted the necessary certification to permit anti-satellite tests to resume, and the next test against a physical target in space--a balloon 15 feet in diameter--was postponed beyond its originally scheduled March date. Officials cited technical reasons for the delay but also hinted at political motives, such as not wishing to send a negative signal at a time when the Geneva arms talks were resuming.

Now that the first round of those talks is over, the Administration will decide whether to permit the Air Force to resume testing.

The U.S. anti-satellite weapon, which already has had two flight tests, is carried under an F-15 fighter plane to a high altitude before being fired at satellites in orbit. The weapon, under development since 1977 and due to be operational in about 1988, homes in on infrared heat waves emitted by the target and destroys it on impact.

The Soviets have had an operational but rudimentary anti-satellite system for 15 years, and the 1972 ABM treaty allowed them to keep it. Unlike the U.S. weapon, the Soviet anti-satellite weapon is rocketed into the same orbit as its target satellite. When it catches up, it explodes into a shower of pellets that destroys the target.