They don't have that many rockets that are capable of orbital flight let alone an ASAT capability.
Imagine trying to hit a specific speeding car by throwing a dart from another moving car, except
Both cars are invisible most of the time.
They’re moving 17,000 mph.
The dart has no steering wheel only tiny nudges.
If you miss by a few feet, you miss by miles.
Countries that can do this reliably aren’t showing off missiles they’re showing off navigation, sensors, computing. The weapon is the least impressive part.
No, it wouldn’t be an act of war, it would be “a military operation”.
Flinging spacejunk pollution into orbit is extremely simple if you have rockets.
Iran has lots of rockets.
Iran also has basically zero of their own satellites in orbit that they care about.
Spacejunk is a highly asymmetric tactic.
They don't have that many rockets that are capable of orbital flight let alone an ASAT capability.
Imagine trying to hit a specific speeding car by throwing a dart from another moving car, except Both cars are invisible most of the time. They’re moving 17,000 mph. The dart has no steering wheel only tiny nudges. If you miss by a few feet, you miss by miles.
Countries that can do this reliably aren’t showing off missiles they’re showing off navigation, sensors, computing. The weapon is the least impressive part.
> Imagine trying to hit a specific speeding car by throwing a dart from another moving car
Um no. Imagine rendering a highway unusable by driving a semitruck full of tire spikes down it and dumping them out the back.
No precision required.
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they do have satellites. I'm less sure about how much they care about them - but they are not cheap
That's my point. They have so few that sacrificing them would be irrelevant.