RUSSIA CARRIES OUT ANTI-SATELLITE TEST
Russia destroyed one of its own satellites in a test Nov. 15, creating a cloud of debris that prompted astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) to briefly shelter in docked return capsules.
In the test, a missile was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and struck Cosmos 1408, a defunct intelligence satellite orbiting between 289 miles (465 kilometers) and 304 miles (490 km) high. U.S. Space Command reported the anti-satellite (ASAT) test generated over 1,500 pieces of detectable orbital debris and likely created hundreds of thousands of smaller, undetectable pieces.
Such tests have always drawn scrutiny: As the amount of orbital debris grows, so does the risk of catastrophic collisions with other satellites or crewed spacecraft. According to an analysis by the space tracking company LeoLabs, the Russian test may have increased the density of debris at 250 miles (400 km) — a typical altitude of the ISS and China’s Tiangong space station — by more than three times.
LeoLabs noted that the choice of satellite made this ASAT test particularly risky. Cosmos 1408 was in a highinclination orbit, passing close to Earth’s poles on a path that intersects with almost every other orbit at the same altitude. That altitude is also crowded orbital space — less than 62 miles
(100 km) above the ISS and Tiangong and less than 62 miles (100 km) below many commercial satellites, including SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.
In an ASAT test, the impact kicks debris into higher and lower orbits. In this case, most of the debris pushed into lower orbits will reenter the atmosphere within five years, LeoLabs said. But debris boosted into higher orbits may take decades to reenter.
The test drew swift reproach from U.S. and European officials. U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called the test “recklessly conducted” and “dangerous and irresponsible.” The European Union’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, condemned the test, adding the event was “a reminder that space is increasingly contested.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he was “outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action. With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts.”
Russian officials called U.S. criticism hypocritical, pointing out the U.S. has also conducted ASAT tests. The most recent U.S. ASAT demonstration was in 2008. It targeted a satellite in a lower orbit than the Russian test — as did an Indian test in 2019 — resulting in shorter-lived debris.
China performed an ASAT test in 2007 against a satellite roughly 530 miles (850 km) high. That created a long-lived debris cloud: The week before Russia’s test, the ISS was forced to maneuver to avoid a piece of it.