Zero Hedge
By Tyler Durden – June 18, 2022
At any given moment, there are thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth for commercial, civil, strategic, and military reasons.
Due to the importance of certain satellites for national security, as Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada details below, countries have developed anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons that can be used to incapacitate or destroy satellites in orbit.
While some ASAT weapons use non-destructive means like cyberattacks or lasers to impair satellites, the destructive types often rely on high-speed physical collision to shatter satellites, creating negative repercussions for the space environment.