nuclear-news

Can the testing on anti-satellite weapons be banned?

U.S. looking to encourage more countries to join ASAT testing ban, Space News, by Jeff Foust — August 31, 2022

WASHINGTON — As a second session of a United Nations working group on reducing space threats approaches, U.S. government officials say they’re looking for ways to encourage more countries to back a ban on anti-satellite weapon tests.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced April 18 that the United States would refrain from conducting direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) tests, calling such debris-generating activities “reckless and irresponsible.” She called on other nations to also halt such tests.

Her speech, officials later said, was timed to influence discussions at the first meeting of a U.N. Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on norms of behavior for reducing space threats held in May in Geneva. During that meeting Canada announced that it would join the United States in the ASAT testing ban. In July, the New Zealand government announced that it, too, would commit not to test direct-ascent ASATs. Neither country had developed or were planning to develop such weapons………………………………………………………………………

In 1963, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution that called on countries not to place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in outer space, which eventually became part of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty………  https://spacenews.com/u-s-looking-to-encourage-more-countries-to-join-asat-testing-ban/

August 31, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, space travel, weapons and war