They shouldn't use a spacecraft that is healthy and has several years of life ahead of it. Dubyn said MSTI-3's ability to image the Earth with an innovative color camera that sees in 256 distinct bands is attracting potential commercial users who want such images for environmental monitoring, crop forecasting and mineral exploration from space. The camera can see objects on the ground as small as 30 feet across, rivaling some of the best commercial systems. Experts say that the Russians may have powerful ground lasers that could damage or destroy satellites but that there is no evidence they have ever done so, in tests or war. The U.S. Army, in addition to developing lasers for anti-satellite warfare, is working on a rocket that would blast into space and fire a small projectile to destroy a spacecraft by force of impact.
Experts agree that the anti-satellite job is technically easier.
In late 1988, during its final days, the Reagan administration decided to improve Miracl so the laser could fire at satellites. That work was mainly done in 1989 and 1990. Congress subsequently banned any such test of the improved laser. The new push, headed by the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, based in Arlington, Va., has been reported in trade newsletters like Inside the Army, which is produced by Inside Washington Publishers, also in Arlington. The work included an experiment in March in which the New Mexico laser center tracked MSTI-3 as the spacecraft orbited hundreds of miles overhead, the document says.