Russian Direct Ascent Anti-satellite Testing Fact Sheet
Since 2010, Russia has been testing technologies for rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) in both low Earth orbit (LEO) and geostationary earth orbit (GEO) that could lead to or support a co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) capability, and some of those efforts have links to a Cold War-era LEO co-orbital ASAT program. Additional evidence suggests Russia may have started a new co-orbital ASAT program called Burevestnik, potentially supported by a surveillance and tracking program called Nivelir. The technologies developed by these programs could also be used for non-aggressive applications, including surveilling and inspecting foreign satellites, and most of the on-orbit RPO activities done to date match these missions. However, Russia has deployed two “sub-satellites” at high velocity, which suggests at least some of their LEO RPO activities are of a weapons nature.
