India and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi are feeling very smug about its recent "successful" shooting down of an orbiting Indian satellite by a ground-to-space missile. Modi claims it was an "unprecedented achievement" (it's not), and that it establishes India as a bona fide "space power" (well, maybe).
Unfortunately, though, the action has made a huge contribution to the already acute problem of space junk. India's missile test has created over 400 pieces of orbital debris, including at least 60 pieces over 10cm in diameter (i.e. large enough to track). But the smaller pieces, which cannot be tracked, are perhaps even more of a problem, as collisions with even tiny objects can be catastrophic in space, given that are travelling at more than 7.8 km per second.
Although the satellite that was destroyed was in relatively low object (around 300 km above the earth), some of the debris has been tracked well above the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits over 400 km above the earth. A NASA spokesman has called India's actions "a terrible terrible thing", adding, "That kind of activity is compatible with the future of human spaceflight".
Kind of puts Modi's claims into perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment