An MIT physics professor’s little-known finding that could help a new US administration refresh relations with Russia…

Theodore A. Postol is a professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at MIT. He is widely known as an expert on nuclear weapons and missile technology. Prior to MIT he worked at Argonne National Laboratory, the Pentagon, and Stanford University.

November 3, 2024

Russia’s nuclear early-warning system is nothing like its American equivalent. Today, the US government knows when a ballistic missile has been launched anywhere in the world, at any given time, within seconds. The majority of America’s political leaders and advisors do not know – and it’s important that they do know – that Russia does not have this capability. Russia lacks a space-based infrared satellite system that sees the entire world – that we now take for granted.

The Russian early-warning system is considerably less capable than ours and relies heavily on ground-based radars, providing Russian leadership with only a third to a quarter of the early-warning time against a surprise nuclear attack that American leadership is afforded. Until now, there has been virtually no concern in the US about Russia’s severe limitation here.

I have, over the past 27 years, on several occasions, been involved in briefing White House figures at the highest levels. Former Secretaries of Defense I’ve spoken with (themselves having technical backgrounds) did not know about this. And with each new administration, I find myself re-explaining the problem due to a serious shortfall in DC understanding and intelligence support.

Now age 78, my entire career has centered, in one way or another, on the issue of accidental nuclear war. In 1964, when I was an undergraduate at MIT, I knew a number of faculty members in the physics department (colleagues of John G. Trump, Donald J. Trump’s uncle – who was a well-regarded physicist there) who had been involved in the Manhattan Project. There I gained an introduction to nuclear weapons issues, and sat in intimate seminars with figures who had been humbled by the effects of the first atomic weapons they had had a hand in creating.

In the 1980s, as a scientific and policy advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon, I worked on issues related to nuclear war planning. And since the mid-1990s, one of the core areas of my research has been the Russian early-warning system.

What the American political class doesn’t know

I came to learn of the shortfalls in Russia’s early-warning system due to a false alert that happened in January 1995, during a time of extreme peacefulness between the US and Russia. A three-minute explainer of what happened:

The trajectory of a sounding rocket in the middle of Russian radar looked like a Trident ballistic missile

We know that Russian military officers involved made a judgment that there was nothing untoward going on. But the alarm caused Russia’s then President, Boris Yeltsin, to be called and kept closely informed by Russian military leadership while the rocket was tracked to pass its maximum altitude of 1,400 kilometers.

It was nowhere close to resulting in a misjudged “retaliatory” launch of Russian missiles. (This often gets overstated, and we should be aware that it drives the Russians crazy that people in the West say this.) But had a false alert of this kind occurred during a period of high antagonism, as we find ourselves in today – Ukraine having attacked Russia’s ground-based radars (which Russia relies on far more than US administration figures realize) – it is not inconceivable to think it could provoke a genuine crisis. Russian leadership could be led to think that America is blinding its early-warning systems to conceal a much larger flight of warheads, to destroy vulnerable land-based missiles before they can be launched. Due to serious limitations of Russia’s satellite system, the Kremlin would have no way of knowing if it is actually under attack.

The false alert of 1995 illustrates the serious dangers to the US in Russia’s limited satellite capability. Yeltsin’s advisors behaved in an extremely professional and calm way. Nevertheless, for ten long minutes, they did not know if an attack had been launched at them, and had no way of cross-checking with the types of satellites we in the US have in space. Many find this implausible to believe, but Russia still lacks adequate sensor technology in its satellites today.

How I discovered Russia’s shortfall

The US has a satellite system that is well understood. Our sensor technology is sufficiently advanced that we can “look down” at the entire earth, covering almost the entire planet with just three satellites, and instantaneously see any ballistic missile launch between all of Earth’s brightness, cloud reflections and visual noise. This is a capability that has been built with enormous US technical investment. It is not easy to do. And the system is the apex of infrared sensing and computational capability.

Looking down at Earth to detect a missile launch from space is like trying to see a match held up to the sun. You have to separate a rocket in powered flight from an incredibly bright background – requiring exceedingly sophisticated infrared sensor technology, and constructing “two-dimensional focal planes”.

Analyzing the false alert of 1995, members of my group and I at MIT tried to reverse-engineer the workings of the Russian system. Why had a sounding rocket caused all this trouble? We made a surprise discovery. The Russians had many more satellites than one would need if you had US-level sensor technology. And their satellites were on a very eccentric “Molniya” orbit. This made no sense to us (until that point believing Russia had these sensors).

The Russians had registered satellites for eight locations. We couldn’t understand why. Why would you need eight? But one day the thought occurred to me: maybe they’re looking at the edge of the Earth (and are not capable of looking straight down)? With a computer aided design program, I took each Russian satellite’s location and calculated if this were the case, where each would be looking. Lo and behold, the eight locations were sensitive areas the Russians would consider important. This was a revolutionary insight.

Satellites only able to look at a “glancing angle” of the Earth

The implication of this is that Russia is only able to view a small strip of North America with its early-warning satellites:

Russia at present has no early-warning satellite coverage for the rest of the world. (Otherwise, being entirely reliant on ground radar, and thus extremely fearful of “radar blackout”.)

Further, looking at the scientific literature in Russia, it is clear they have very small infrared-array sensors. A typical advanced sensor that the Russians are now building has around 10,000 elements in it. Sensors in US satellites have 16 million.

Verifying this in Moscow

Throughout the 1990s, I had been working on a co-operative project with many Russian scientists, including Anatoly Savin – Director of the Kometa Central Research Institute (status equivalent to a deity in Russian physics circles). I felt that I owed the Russians my analysis. I didn’t want them to feel as though I had used my communication with them to spy on them (which I had not). I wanted to be an international citizen with this finding. Without revealing anything about the American system, I felt obliged to let Russia know what I had learned, and so I arranged to go to Moscow to brief my international colleagues there.

Following my presentation to a small group, Savin – who had to know what he was saying was breaching every rule of national intelligence – said, “The shape of the observation areas is not what you think.” In other words: You’ve got everything right, but it’s a circular plane (not curved as I had initially thought).

I can only guess that Savin sensed my intentions were good, that I was trying to use the information in a responsible and co-operative way, and that the US understanding Russia’s shortfall in capability here would be in everyone’s best interest (to avoid mishaps from a false alert). The Russians had a hard time fathoming that anyone could have figured this out. But my small team and I had.

Our findings were later corroborated by comments to me from another Russian engineer talking about their satellite data-rate speeds (far higher than would be needed if Russia had precision sensors and advanced onboard processing), as well as a former Commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces commenting (in Russian) before an American (though Russian-speaking) colleague of mine at Stanford, “The Americans will never help us remedy this”.

A great disparity in early-warning capability

An ICBM attack would provide one system’s (America’s) leadership approximately 30–40 minutes to weigh a response. The other (Russian), with missiles from anywhere other than the strip of North America that satellites are directly looking at, just five–12 minutes. This allows close to no chance to verify whether a launch detected is authentic. And as we have seen, accidental detections do happen.

The Russians do not have global situational awareness. Their satellites are not able to detect ballistic missile launches from submarines – until such missiles enter Russian radar space. (Because of the curvature of the Earth, they cannot see below the horizon if something is coming at them from the North Atlantic.) They would eventually see that they’re under attack and know where it came from. But it’s a terrible vulnerability.

Putin’s predicament

I listen to President Putin very carefully. There is no question in my mind that he is on top of every detail of his National Security systems, and that he is aware, in detail, that he lacks this capability. But from my interactions with many Russians, I am also sure that President Putin would not wish to confirm or deny anything. (There exists the potential for an American sneak-attack, for which Russia would have only very minimal warning. President Putin would in no way wish for America to have a full and confident understanding of this.)

The Russians have been launching satellites since the 1970s. They clearly care deeply about it. (It is expensive to launch satellites.) They just lack the sensors and data-processing know-how.

A radical suggestion

The US should give some earlier-generation sensor technology to Russia. This, of course, sounds mad to many in the Pentagon, and I have been laughed at many times by people in the defense community for suggesting it. But it is in US national security interests (in view of avoiding a false alert) for Russia to have improved satellite early-warning capability. America and Europe have this sensor technology and could supply it, helping correct a dangerous shortfall, and evening the early-warning playing field. President Putin has in the past (2007) welcomed the idea of such joint infrastructure.

“Wouldn’t providing Russia infrared sensors improve their conventional capabilities? For instance, SBIRS (the present US satellite system) was crucial in enabling US servicemen and women to get out of the line of fire from a January 2020 missile attack on the US Al-Asad airbase in Iraq.”

SBIRS (the US satellite system today) is like a television looking down at the earth. We can see artillery rockets being fired. It’s science-fiction relative to what we were doing before it; the culmination of 60 years and billions of dollars a year on scientific development. To provide adequate early-warning, Russia would not need a Space-Based Infrared System like we have.

Sensors from our older satellite system (1970–2007), the Defense Support Program, would allow Russia to patch their vulnerability. This is a level of capability the US has had for over 50 years.

The Europeans are capable of building a satellite equivalent to (or even better than) the Defense Support Program themselves, on their own. Sensors could be made available from Europe, but they are presently technology-controlled. The US prohibits them from being sold to other countries.

This level of sensor sophistication would limit any capability the Russians would gain in conventional warfare (which would be vastly less than the capabilities of SBIRS), while giving Russia much greater assurance over nuclear early-warning (which right now is a danger unto the US itself). And the US is on track to bolster SBIRS with a next generation system called OPIR (Next-Generation “Overhead Persistent Infrared”) by 2029. Our technological lead here is enormous.

“You’re trying to aid the enemy?”

This is not conventional war. In conventional war, the current imbalance would make strategic sense. One would want to watch an enemy and hide their own actions. Attacking an enemy division by blinding its command and control, then striking, would be a terrific way to bring force to defeat an opponent. But this is not the case with nuclear weapons. The consequences of a mistake would be the destruction of a large part of human civilization. Having an “advantage” has no meaning within the context of nuclear war.

We know, from past experience, that extremely improbable things do happen – accidents and false alarms one would never dream of.

If the Russians attack the US because they think they are being attacked when they are not, this is of course not in the interest of the US. It is thus not in the interest of the US to allow Russia’s shortfall to remain as it is, greatly increasing the likelihood of this happening.

We should help Russia avoid error and the risk of them thinking they are under attack when they are not. Our leadership’s desire should be to make Russia’s early-warning timelines longer. Making an offer of sensor technology to Russia would say: “We understand your concerns. We are turning over a new leaf.”

Q&A with the professor

Your initial finding was in 1997. How sure are you that Russia still doesn’t have sensors that enable a look-down capability, resulting in only about a third of the warning time of the US?

Postol: Nothing in the world is 100%, but I am as sure as I can be. I do not think Russia has a look-down capability, and thus their warning time would be as short as six or seven minutes.

How could what you’re saying be verified?

Postol: The US Space Force (or indeed a private company like SpaceX) should be able to look at what I’m saying and nod in confirmation of the details of Russia’s satellites and Molniya orbit.

How and why has Russia never developed this capability if early-warning is so important?

Postol: For historical reasons, Russia has never developed an advanced solid-state electronics industry, despite exceptional scientific capability. Their ability to fabricate the necessary sensors and their data-processing capability is minimal. Thus, they can’t “look down” directly at Earth and see evidence of rockets in powered flight. They can only look at the edge of the Earth (against the black background of space) – which means they can see only a very limited area in North America.

The fabrication of infrared sensors capable of “looking down” is a fantastically complicated art. We only got this technology down after enormous amounts of effort and having known about the right material to do it with for decades. (This is a very carefully controlled material by the US.) The Russians are surely (equivalently) perplexed by our inability to produce 155mm ammunition at scale. We all have our technical strengths and weaknesses.

Does anyone disagree with and challenge your technical analysis here?

Postol: A former student of mine, Pavel Podvig, who hails from Russia and is now an independent analyst based in Geneva (where he runs a research project, Russian Nuclear Forces), considers that Russia’s newer Tundra satellites appear to have look-down capability. But the data does not support this.

Russia launched four Tundra-class satellites into Molniya orbits between September 2019 and November 2022. These satellites are a new design relative to Russia’s earlier Oko-1 and Oko-2 satellites. The Tundra satellites are clearly more sophisticated and have a wider field of view than Russia’s past generation. Only four are needed to produce 24-hour coverage. But careful analysis of the orbits indicates that each of the satellites are observing US ICBM fields – each for six to eight hours when they are on station.

You would never put satellites into this orbit if you could “look down” (and thus see the world as a whole). You would put satellites in geosynchronous orbit (each one staying fixed above the third of the world it’s looking at), as the US does – which Russian scientists I’ve spoken with understand full-well and have explained to me. (There is no shortage of public information about this.) Pavel is right on a lot of things, but there is no technical argument why Russia would put its satellites in a Molniya orbit if it had look-down capability.

Why is the present situation dangerous to the US?

Postol: You can put together scenarios, which if I were Russian I would take very seriously, in which a US Trident submarine operates off of Norway in the North Sea, and pops a missile in at Moscow on a slightly depressed trajectory – giving Moscow less than seven minutes of radar warning, and no satellite early-warning (or ability to cross-check) at all.

The US has significant strike-power in its submarine forces in the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Alaska. Russia cannot see ballistic missile launches from these broad ocean areas. They cannot see a short-warning attack from the most potent threat they face.

Without this satellite information, Russia loses 10–20 minutes of warning. The remaining seven or so minutes is not enough time for any political system to be able to make a decision as to what to do. So, the only thing you can do if you’re Russia is to have a system of pre-delegated launch authority. Meaning, you tell people in the field: if you lose communication with me and you detect a nuclear detonation on Moscow, you are free to launch your own forces under your own control. It is extremely likely Russia is doing this, given the inadequate time of their warning system. Their hand is thus closer to the trigger, and there likely exists a procedure for launch orders not having to be issued by the Kremlin. This is a danger to us all.

Does the US intelligence community know about Russia’s satellite shortcomings?

Postol: Around the time of my finding in 1997, I was called into the Secretary of Defense’s office to provide advice on early-warning co-operation with Russia. I was looking at the top-line intelligence we had at that time, and the US intelligence community had no idea at all of how the Russian system was operating. I (as a MIT professor) had to put together the information for the Department of Defense.

There may be a more complete analysis now (I no longer have intelligence access). But I have spoken with several senior figures in subsequent administrations who did not know about Russia’s shortfall.

Russia has nuclear submarines. Could it be argued the US itself would have only 7–10 minutes to act following an attack from one, and thus in practicality it is something of an even playing field (not in sensor sophistication, but worst-case attacks being roughly equivalent)?

Postol: The US could at least see it and verify it (with radar and satellite). US military personnel preach how essential this is:

“We have satellites that are up there, and when it’s absolutely optimized is when we have stereo coverage, in other words there’s overlapping coverage,” said Col. Daniel Walter, senior materiel leader for Space Systems Command’s strategic missile warning acquisition program. “When you get multiple looks at a single launch, it really helps with the accuracy and assuredness of (tracking) that launch.”

To prevent false alerts, would it not be in US interests for the world’s largest nuclear power to have the same?

If sensors were given to Russia, couldn’t they be reverse-engineered?

Postol: Reverse-engineering is not what most people think. If you gave Russia sensors with certain parameters, they could build a satellite system that is impervious to American interference (which is desirable for their own assurance), and it would give them the capability to look down and see ballistic missile launches from Europe (which they are most concerned about). You would be giving them a device that they have no hope of fabricating, any more than one of Nvidia’s rivals are able to emulate their chips simply by getting their hands on one. A sensor does not reveal its fabrication technique, and we would not risk our technological lead.

How much would giving Russia sensors cost the US? The scientific research backing SBIRS (today’s US satellite system) cost $18bn. Is the production of a handful of additional sensors expensive?

Postol: Sensors are not the expensive aspect (rather the satellite system as a whole). Integrating the system is a big activity, but the sensors themselves would be tens of millions of dollars. Pocket-change compared to further military escalation in Ukraine.

How long would it take the US to procure sensors it could give to Russia?

Postol: We could probably take them out of storage. The Defense Support Program satellites (a level of capability the US has had for more than 50 years) were built by (what is now) Northrop Grumman. The sensors in DSP were improved as each satellite was launched from 1970. And the Europeans have sensors that (with US permission) could be given.

For a layperson: if the DSP sensors in 1970 were “1” in sophistication, then the sophistication of US SBIRS sensors today might be 1,000,000. The European sensors would be perhaps 5,000 to 10,000. (European sensors thus might be the sweet-spot of sophistication. The Pentagon will forever keep focal-plane arrays under lock and key.)

The Europeans have the technology; we (the US) don’t share our technology with the Europeans. The French have their own operation (a company called Sofradir makes the sensors). And there are German sensor companies too. But again, the US prohibits them from being sold to other countries.

What would need to be done practically to assist the technology transfer?

Postol: Giving sensors would need to be accompanied with high-speed space-qualified data-processing capabilities. You can’t do one without the other. That is available. And again, the Russians can’t steal it.

Liaising with a Russian team, you would need to provide their engineers with extensive technical information about how to utilize the sensors, provide instruction sets, and signal processing. The Russians would want to know there’s no trap door inside the technology (that the US could utilize they’re not aware of). All this might take a team of hundreds of people communicating with a Russian team of hundreds of experts.

There was an (insincere) attempt to do this under President Clinton in 2000 called JDEC (a “Joint Data Exchange Center”) with US staff and technology in Moscow. But this was doomed to fail from the beginning, as it never provided the Russians real access to data. In order to work, the Russians would need to “own” the sensors and system, and be sure that they are getting real data – not being passed a false stream from American personnel sitting in Moscow.

It would likely be a few-year project. I would guess something like low hundreds of millions in cost as a program. I do not consider it would be a hard thing to do in practical terms if you had a US commitment.

If existing defense primes were averse to working with Russia, you could find companies that are somewhat independent of the military-industrial complex. The science needed to fabricate a sensor is incredible. But once you have the know-how, the implementation is procedural. A company like SpaceX could bring in first-class talent who understand space infrared-array technology and manage it. Or you could try and delegate the whole project to Europe!

Notable replies:

Dr. Pavel Podvig

Dr. Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, and Director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project. He is a physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a researcher with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University.

I believe that Russia today does have look-down capability – though the US certainly has significantly better coverage, and Russia does not (yet) have geosynchronous early-warning satellites. But technical disagreements between Ted and I on look-down capability are less important than our difference in view as to what would happen following a nuclear alert in Russia, in the crucial minutes of Russian military advisors not knowing whether it’s real or false.

For Russia, the space-based aspect of its early-warning system has never been as critical as the US considers its own. The Soviet Union/Russia never being able to rely on “dual phenomenology” (being able to see an incoming attack with two types of sensors) developed a different response protocol: command and control designed to be compatible without having a launch-on-warning option.

Once the Soviet early-warning system detected an attack, its leadership would not rush to make a decision. Instead, it would issue what is called a “preliminary command” that would bring nuclear forces to a higher level of readiness to make launches physically possible (presumably by removing some safety locks). This command would also authorize the military to launch missiles in retaliation if a number of conditions are met. One of these conditions is likely to be a total loss of communication with central command authority. Other conditions include confirmed nuclear detonations on Russian territory. The detection of nuclear explosions (not only missiles on radar) is a necessary condition for a retaliatory launch. This mechanism provides deterrence against a decapitating strike in Moscow, while preventing retaliatory launches that would be based on incomplete information.

Neither the Norwegian Black Brant launch in 1995 nor the Colonel Petrov incident in 1983 were as dangerous as are usually believed. Nobody in Russia would have launched anything based only on an alert generated by their early-warning system.

The arrangement is often referred to as the “Dead Hand”, since it does involve a certain pre-delegation of authority, as well as a mechanism that ensures decapitation does not prevent retaliation. This system is not automatic – that idea was nixed in the 1980s – and it requires humans to be involved in the decision to launch. The Soviets never built an automatic Doomsday Machine (the Perimeter communication system that is often mistaken for it is a component of the command and control system, not something automatic).

Efforts to augment the Russian satellite early-warning system could be counterproductive and potentially increase the possibility of a false alert leading to a “retaliatory” missile strike, by Russian leadership having false or misplaced confidence in its warning system and thereby adopting launch-on-warning. This would be especially dangerous if done as part of a one-time attempt to “upgrade” their system, as case operators would not have the opportunity to adjust their confidence in the system according to their experience – as would be the case during a normal modernization process.

In short: no system – no problem.

The first-generation space-based early-warning system built by the Soviet Union was not designed to detect launches of sea-based missiles (the Soviet Union broke up before it had a chance to deploy the second-generation system). But Soviet strategic forces never tried to rely on their early-warning system to provide a complete and accurate assessment of an incoming attack. Their response procedures favored measures that ensured survivability of the command and control structure, over those to launch retaliatory missiles immediately in response to a detected attack.

In the scenario of a submarine-launched ballistic missile from the Atlantic, satellites (though adding a level of verification) would not add much to warning time – and the warning time here could be so constricted as for satellites not to allow a useful check. Either way, under Soviet logic, Russia would not retaliate until it had been hit, and a detonation on territory confirmed.

Ted and I are aligned in the aim of wanting to reduce the risk of an accidental launch. But we differ in our judgment as to how best this is achieved.

Giving Russia DSP (or European)-level sensors could be an important political gesture. With such sensors, perhaps Russia could build a better satellite. But given Russia’s response protocol as a whole, I don’t think this is crucial. Indeed, the underlying sentiment that Russian technology is inferior might well result in the offer being rejected.

The crucial question is: does Russia have a launch-on-warning option today? The short answer is, we don’t know. Although Russian doctrinal documents seem to imply the possibility of launch-on-warning (Russia has the capability to launch its missiles on warning, and there is a certain advantage in stating publicly that it is an option), I see no reason why the basic principles of command and control would be different today from what they were when the system was designed.

To me, the objective of reducing an accidental launch is best achieved by reducing the likelihood of launch-on-warning postures. The US augmenting the Russian early-warning satellite system might actually increase the likelihood of such a posture. It is a known phenomenon in complex systems – elements that are added to increase safety become the source of accidents. Better not to add anything. Wait, and verify a strike.

Ted’s reply:

I agree with Pavel’s point that giving DSP-level sensors could be perceived as a slight. (And thus European-level ones might be best.)

But Pavel and I – though I of course think he’s immensely capable – have always had profoundly different perspectives on the utility of space systems.

If Russia took this approach, why does it invest so much in modernising its radars? President Putin was personally at several inaugurations of these radars. He’s made it an enormous priority, and he cares deeply about defense visibility – I think correctly so.

I know from discussions with Russian colleagues that the perceived survivability of their missile-based forces is very low. They believe this (their own independent conclusion), given US capabilities.

I also know that when I talk to figures who were Officers in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, they often say what a great capability they have, precisely because they can launch so fast. This is something they brag about (which the US does of its own systems, too).

President Putin himself in a 2018 speech: “Only when we know for certain – and this takes a few seconds to understand – that Russia is being attacked, we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a reciprocal counter strike. Why do I say ‘counter’? Because we will counter missiles flying towards us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor.” Why would this be so prominently stated if you have no intention of launching under attack?

And even if the system is presently as Pavel describes, Putin has already (September 2024) said that he is changing Russia’s nuclear doctrine in view of long-range missile threats. What’s to stop him changing to launch-on-warning if tensions yet-further escalate?

Jacob Mezey

Jacob Mezey is a former program assistant at the Atlantic Council, and will be assuming an analysis role with the US Department of Defense in 2025. Views expressed here are those of Jacob alone and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US DoD.

While Dr. Postol’s assessment of the technical capabilities of Russian early-warning satellites was undoubtedly true through the 2010s, there is reason to believe Russia’s new early-warning constellation does have true look-down capabilities, potentially on par with US Defense Support Program satellites.

Russian officials have made claims that their Tundra satellites are capable of detecting ballistic missile launches against the background of the Earth. Russian state news site TASS cited an anonymous source within the Russian defense industry saying that Tundra satellites “are equipped with new-generation infrared observation devices that allow for the high-precision recording of missile launches against the background of the Earth’s surface”. In a 2019 interview, Deputy Defense Minister Aleksei Krivoruchko claimed that the current Russian system, EKS, is capable of detecting intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic, as well as short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. And the CEO of RKK Energiya, the manufacturer of the Tundra satellites, said in a 2020 interview that the new Russian constellation could detect missile launches from both “continental territories and in the waters of the World Ocean”. This analysis draws on work from Bart Hendrickx at The Space Review.

While Russian officials may of course exaggerate the capabilities of their systems, there is good reason to believe that here their claims might be true. In 1979, the Soviet Union began development of a satellite with look-down capabilities called US-KMO. However, it did not produce a prototype until 1991, when the breakup of the USSR caused the program to be shelved. The fact that the Soviet Union seemed to have achieved a relatively mature prototype by the early 90s (though reportedly performing below expectations) suggests that the Russian program today could be far more advanced than the original Soviet “Oko” system.

Characteristics of the Tundra satellites’ orbits provide some further evidence. The satellites reach apogee (the high point above the earth’s surface, where the satellites have the widest field of view) twice per day, however, not in the same location each time. One apogee is above Greenland – ideal for observing ICBM silos in the northern United States. But the other is above Russia’s far east, which would suggest possible observation of US submarine-launch positions in the Pacific Ocean. Currently, observation is likely only conducted on the western apogee due to the fact that the ground control station in eastern Russia is still being built, but that station’s construction and the orbital patterns of the satellites are evidence that they might be designed to look down at large swaths of ocean, rather than just the smaller view available to grazing observation.

Hendrickx also writes, “Unlike their Soviet predecessors, the Tundra satellites should have enough computing power to do much of the data processing on-board, allowing operators on the ground to make swift recommendations to the country’s leadership on the need to activate anti-ballistic missile systems or launch a retaliatory strike.”

Dr. Postol argues Russia having placed its satellites in highly elliptical orbits, and that it uses such a high number, is evidence that Russia has not developed look-down capabilities. However, while the US does indeed place the majority of its satellites in geosynchronous orbit, it also maintains several SBIRS satellites in highly elliptical orbits due to the importance of polar observation. Geostationary satellites, which match the Earth’s rotation at the equator, cannot adequately cover the entire pole due to their line of site geometry (and satellites cannot remain stationary above the poles). It’s known the locations Russia is most interested in observing are in the Northern Hemisphere – a (feared) large-scale American attack would be launched over the North Pole. Therefore, it is plausible that rather than rushing to deploy geostationary units, the Kremlin has prioritized deploying additional satellites in elliptical orbits to ensure redundancy for its single most important field of view (something equivalent to a “fortress” strategy in chess). Both the US and Russia deploy more satellites than the minimum required for 24/7 coverage, in order to have resilience in the case of malfunction, delay in replacing an aging unit, or hostile attack.

While the geostationary component of Russia’s EKS system has undoubtedly suffered major delays – and thus the Russian constellation does not at present provide the same global coverage the US has – the primary bottleneck may be due to the inability of Russia to acquire microelectronics due to sanctions, or delays in l aunch vehicle production, rather than purely a matter of sensor technology.

It is also worth noting that in 2019 President Putin pledged to assist China with developing its early-warning system, and the two countries appear only to have deepened co-operation in this area since. Any consideration of technology transfer should take into account the possibility of information about the types of electronics used, and their capabilities, being shared with Chinese counterparts.

Even if Russian officials today are lying through their teeth about the capabilities of their system, they might well turn down US assistance – as it would be immensely difficult to accept without tacit admittance of their technological lack (in this area) and vulnerability. Navigating this would require exceedingly thoughtful diplomacy.

Ted’s reply:

Russia has been talking about launching Tundra satellites into geosynchronous orbit now for about five years; it keeps getting delayed. If and when Russia eventually does this, the thing to look out for is: are the satellites in the same locations as were reserved for their Prognoz system? If yes, we know they still can’t look down.

We won’t know from a first geosynchronous satellite being launched. But on the second satellite, if it’s in a different location, that would be a strong circumstantial indicator they can look down. (If the US hasn’t already broken encryption links and can read the data.) Geosynchronous satellite #2 should reveal it.

The Russians are possibly able to fabricate sensors as good as DSP-class. But I personally question whether the data-processing electronics (essential on-board a satellite) are there.

These data-processing requirements would already be well understood by the Chinese, so I would not consider that any great risk.

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