Russia tested anti-satellite weapons and nearly disabled the ISS: the United States is indignant

USA: Russia tested anti-satellite weapons and nearly disabled the ISS, reports BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Russia had tested anti-satellite weapons, after which debris formed in Earth's orbit that posed a threat to the International Space Station.

Russia shot down one of its old satellites with an anti-satellite missile, Price said.

The result, he said, was the creation of 1,5 traceable pieces of space debris and hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces of debris that “currently threaten the interests of all nations.”

“Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior risks long-term instability in space and clearly demonstrates that Russian statements against the militarization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical,” Price said.

On Monday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos reported, citing data from the US Mission Control Center, that the ISS was at risk of colliding with space debris.

Therefore, the station crew had to hide in the Soyuz and Crew Dragon ships in case they had to urgently evacuate.

“Currently, the crew of the International Space Station is routinely performing work according to the flight program,” the message said. — The orbit of the object, because of which the crew was forced today, according to standard procedures, to move into spacecraft, has moved away from the ISS orbit, the station is in the green zone. ".

The ISS is in orbit at approximately 420 km from Earth.

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On November 16, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that a test was carried out on November 15, as a result of which a non-working Russian spacecraft that had been in orbit since the 1980s was destroyed.

The Russian department emphasized that the wreckage of the device did not pose a threat to orbital stations, that earlier similar tests had already been carried out by China, India and the United States itself.

According to the American company Seradata, which tracks the movement of objects in space, as a result of the launch of anti-satellite weapons, the Russians shot down the old Soviet satellite Kosmos-1408, a Tselina-class device designed for electronic reconnaissance.

The satellite was launched in 1982, according to an American company. It hasn't worked for decades.

“After the hit, there was likely an explosion that led to the appearance of a “debris cloud”, which triggered the launch of safety protocols on the ISS,” Seradata claims.

Space trash can

Jonathan Amos, science correspondent, says it's hard not to call the testing of anti-satellite missiles a kind of madness, that it is impossible to control the entire cloud of debris arising from a high-speed impact.

“The situation with space debris is already deteriorating quickly. "64 years of space activity above our heads means there are about a million objects ranging in size from one to 10 centimeters flying out of control," he says. "An impact from any piece of debris could mean the end of the mission of a vital weather or telecommunications satellite."

Not the first time

Price said the test "significantly increased the risk for astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS, as it does for other human spaceflight."

The TASS agency reported, citing sources in the rocket and space industry, that on November 16, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, will hold negotiations with NASA representatives in Moscow, during which, among other things, “it is planned to discuss the rendezvous of space debris with the ISS, which took place on November 15.” .

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also told reporters about the Russian anti-satellite tests and stressed that Moscow did not warn Washington about them in advance.

“We are closely watching the capabilities that Russia may be trying to develop. They can threaten not only our national security interests, but also the security of other space-faring nations,” he said.

According to Kirby, the United States has long proposed developing international standards for the safe use of space.

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In the summer of 2020, the United States and the United Kingdom announced that Russia had tested anti-satellite weapons.

In July 2020, after the Russian inspector satellite Kosmos-2543 entered orbit, a small object separated from it in the direction of another Russian satellite.

US Space Command calls it a “projectile,” but Russia says it was a “small spacecraft” testing the operation of another satellite in orbit.

This case in the United States is associated with another that occurred in 2017. Then the Russian apparatus, according to the Pentagon, made maneuvers near the American satellite.

The US believes that in both cases Russia tested anti-satellite weapons, and that this demonstrates Russia's true intentions to “not place weapons” in space.

Not only Russia

However, such technologies exist not only in Russia. The United States first tested weapons against satellites back in 1959.

In 2019, India shot down its own satellite in low Earth orbit and declared itself a space nation.

China also has similar capabilities: in 2007, the country destroyed its own meteorological satellite, leaving more than two thousand debris that can be tracked; this debris interfered with not only Chinese, but also other space projects.

Meanwhile, Russia has been signing joint statements for several years on the non-placement of weapons in space with countries that do not have large space programs - neither peaceful nor military.

In addition to African, Latin American and Asian countries, such statements have been signed, for example, with Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and others.

These statements are made for a reason, but within the framework of the Russian initiative on the non-deployment of the first weapons in space (NPZK), which has existed since 2004.

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