U.S. Will Fire Space Weapon at Satellite : Notifies Soviets It Will Test ASAT on Target in Earth Orbit

The Reagan Administration on Tuesday gave the Soviet Union and members of Congress 15 days’ notice that it is ready to test the United States’ controversial anti-satellite weapon against a derelict American satellite in low Earth orbit.

It will be the third test flight of the small missile launched from a high-altitude F-15 fighter and the first time it has been tried against an actual target in space.

Administration officials refused to disclose the precise date or location of the test, nor would they identify the no-longer-functioning satellite that will serve as the target.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes made the announcement here, shortly after word of the planned test was sent to key members of Congress, to the Soviet Union and to allied governments.

Summit Considerations

He and other Administration officials dismissed suggestions that the test could have an impact on the upcoming meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In Washington, California Rep. George Brown (D-Colton) criticized the decision to proceed with the test, saying that the Administration is not seriously trying to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets and that the test is not vital to U.S. security.

Brown, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, said that the system to be tested is already obsolete and that the Air Force “may cancel the whole program in the next few months” in favor of a laser-based system that can destroy enemy satellites.

The notification to Congress is required by the 1985 Defense Authorization Act, which sets a limit of three anti-satellite system tests this year and three next year.

‘Driven by Technology’

White House national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane said in an interview that the schedule for the first satellite intercept “is driven by the technology and not by the legislation.”

Both McFarlane and Speakes used the existence of an operational Soviet anti-satellite system as the prime justification for pressing forward with the controversial U.S. program, now estimated to cost about $4.1 billion. The White House announcement came a day after the Soviet Union called for the United States to negotiate a ban on space weapons and accused Washington of militarizing space.

“In view of these Soviet activities (in space),” Speakes said, “we think it is disingenuous for the Soviet Union to accuse the United States of militarizing space. The purpose of the U.S. system and the reason we’re testing is to help maintain a deterrence in space and to deter threats to U.S. and allied systems.”

“The Soviet coercion potential is very high,” McFarlane said, if Moscow is permitted a monopoly on weapons capable of destroying photographic and communications satellites in orbit.

“The United States must develop its own ASAT capability in order to deter Soviet threats to U.S. and allied space systems,” said a formal statement released by the White House, but it added that the Administration “will continue to study the possibility of ASAT limitations in good faith to see whether such limitations are consistent with the national security interests of the United States.”

More than a year ago, the Soviet Union called for a moratorium on the testing of such weapons, but Administration officials contend that the Soviet action was no more than an effort to head off development of a more sophisticated American system.

“For the past two years, the Soviet Union has advocated a moratorium on ASAT testing which would perpetuate its existing monopoly on these systems,” Speakes said. “In other words, they’ve got the system, they don’t want us to test, they won’t test any more--but it gives them a monopoly if we agree to that.”

Many arms control experts consider the emergence of anti-satellite weapons a dangerously destabilizing new element in the strategic balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, since they could be used to deny either side crucial information on activities of the other in a time of nuclear crisis.

In the two tests of its system, the United States has launched its weapon from an F-15 fighter as it zoomed to the fringes of the atmosphere. The first launch in January, 1984, tested only the propulsion system, while the second, last November, tested the guidance system that homes in and directs the missile to its target--in that case, a star. The latter test was declared partly successful by the Air Force.

The Soviet Union has conducted about 20 flight tests of an orbiting anti-satellite system since 1968, nine of them considered successful, sources familiar with the program said Tuesday.

Launched by an SS-9 intercontinental missile, the Soviet satellite-killer maneuvers within range of its target in orbit and destroys it with a conventional explosion.

So far, the Soviet tests have intercepted targets at altitudes of no more than 1,000 miles, but Speakes said Tuesday that the Soviets are also working on a far more sophisticated approach.

Ground-Based Lasers

“The Soviet Union also maintains a large directed-energy research program that involves ground-based lasers that we assess to be capable of performing some ASAT functions.” That Soviet effort could lead to a prototype of a space-based laser system capable of destroying satellites in the late 1980s or early 1990s, he said.

So far as the orbiting Soviet system is concerned, the CIA told Congress earlier this year that the system’s anti-satellite capability still would be unable to deny the United States the use of satellites during a conflict.

The range of the U.S. system is classified, but it is believed to be in the 600- to 900-mile range, meaning that the system could reach the altitude of many Soviet intelligence satellites but could not reach communications and photographic satellites that are in stationary orbit about 22,000 miles in space.

Technical Difficulties

The United States had been scheduled to launch its satellite-killer against an instrumented target vehicle this summer, but technical difficulties with both the target and the maneuverable missile caused the test to be postponed.

Congress, in an effort to keep its own firm rein on the program, passed a law requiring President Reagan not only to give 15 days’ notice of tests of the miniature vehicle but also to attest that:

--The United States is making good-faith efforts to negotiate verifiable limits on anti-satellite weapons.

--Pending such an agreement, testing against objects in space is necessary to avert clear and irrevocable harm to the national security.

--Testing would not be an irreversible step in impairing prospects for negotiations.

--The tests are consistent with U.S. obligations under the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty with the Soviet Union.

Reagan sent the assurances to leaders of the congressional armed services committees, foreign relations committees and defense appropriations committees Tuesday morning.

Presidential Approval

Speakes said that the final go-ahead for the formal notification to Congress and the diplomatic message to the Soviets and U.S.-allied governments was given by the President late Monday.

Although development of the U.S. anti-satellite program has hit technical snags and has fallen behind its original schedule, sources said that the Pentagon is now looking to deploy the weapon in late 1987 or early 1988.

Plans are to arm two squadrons of F-15s with the miniature missile, basing one of them at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and the other at McChord Air Force Base in Washington.