India's Anti-Satellite Test Could Damage Or Destroy ISS

This is the first time I heard about this incident. According to an article published yesterday in Popular Mechanics, India may have acted recklessly, when they tested a new anti-satellite weapon last week. The destroyed satellite's debris field are at the same attitude as ISS and may "impact the station creating a Gravity-esque scenario."

Last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country’s space agency had tested a new anti-satellite weapon by destroying a satellite already in orbit. Now, an announcement by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine claims that India's test could endanger other satellites and objects in orbit—including the International Space Station.

India launched a missile at a satellite believed to be the Indian spy satellite Microsat-r, launched a few months ago. The blowup created a field of satellite debris at that altitude. That debris is a problem because it sits at the same altitude as the ISS. In a worst-case scenario, some of that debris could impact the station creating a Gravity-esque scenario. Some of those pieces are too small for NASA to track, meaning we’ll have no way of predicting an impact beforehand.

“What we are tracking right now, objects big enough to track — we're talking about 10 cm (4 inches) or bigger —about 60 pieces have been tracked,” Bridenstine said in an announcement on Monday.

www.popularmechanics.com...

a reply to: shawmanfromny

This reminds me of that Hopi prophecy.

This has the potential to drastically change the space game. You can’t have other countries ignorantly trying to play 1st world games with 3rd world intelligence. But without force, how do you stop them? Imagine if Pakistan and India get into their own spastic satellite shoot down war and the implications it would have on the rest of the worlds sattelites floating through their debris field.

India is a massively growing country however there is also a huge amount of Indians wanting to leave India.

The majority of the country is without basic sanitation, they harvest drinking water from the drains they defecate in, they dont have sewers or sewerage treatment. Almost 70% of Indian human waste in India, including deceased family members, are put into the Ganges. A holy river full of scat.

Indian University qualifications are generally not worth the paper they are printed, India has the highest number of non-accredited universities in the world, this enables them to claim that the owner of a donkey does in fact have a Bachelor Degree in farm science.

The ability to put a rocket in space is not actually a measure of your country, a private organization in America did this in 1990, if you can put it there, then its no problem to remove it with the same technology, ergo, india is 28 years late.

So I put it like this, a country who does not mind dumping # all over the place manages to accumulate a group of unqualified people to launch a projectile into space thus creating a rubbish dump we cannot contain that may prevent us from leaving the Earth in the future and yet they are somehow claiming a win?

The mind boggles.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Everyone loves blowing expensive stuff up! It's amazing the human race has lasted this long!

a reply to: shawmanfromny

If it came down (ISS) i wonder what would come of that? Would there be military involvement our just proving the reason for spaceforce funding which i fully support.... Not for the military side but all the tech that comes with it.

In the other thread, I read about just how fast the debris is going. thousands of times faster than a bullet. But then I looked up how fast the ISS is going.. Thousands of times faster than a bullet..

Doesn't mean anything, but I don't really think much will occur. As long as they don't meet head on

a reply to: gallop

The ISS orbit inclination is 51.6 deg. That satellite orbit had an inclination of 96.6 deg. So I'd guess ~2 km/s speed difference between debris and ISS if they cross their paths, and assuming the debris inclination does not deviate too much from the 96 deg.

originally posted by: gallop
In the other thread, I read about just how fast the debris is going. thousands of times faster than a bullet. But then I looked up how fast the ISS is going.. Thousands of times faster than a bullet..

Doesn't mean anything, but I don't really think much will occur. As long as they don't meet head on

Many bullets travel 2,000- 4,000 feet per second....ISS travels at 17,000mph or about 26,000 feet per second, so ISS is traveling 10-20 times faster than a bullet......not thousands of times faster......just sayin'

What puzzles me is how scientists running a space program could allow something that puts astronauts at risk, past the planning stage. What happens when things explode in space is Debris goes flying... It's very unlikely to hit the ISS but blowing it apart isn't a good solution, what is going to happen when we put the James webb telescope up there?

I'm pretty sure launching 100's of rockets annually isn't good for the planet either... But every country is just going to run their own space program and do it anyway. Another 50 years from the planet will just be a sphere of human waste and trash because politicians just don't bother to tackle the populatin problem.

So the US wants exclusive rights to space? No one else is allowed to do any thing? Quite cheeky in my opinion as the US has put more crap in orbits that they tell no one about. Or do you all think they tell other governments where all their spy satellites are?

a reply to: StrangeQuark96

A lot like the oceans...

Maybe a bit longer than 50 years but your point holds up.

originally posted by: crayzeed
So the US wants exclusive rights to space? No one else is allowed to do any thing? Quite cheeky in my opinion as the US has put more crap in orbits that they tell no one about. Or do you all think they tell other governments where all their spy satellites are?

Come on now. India are allies with the US.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

impact the station creating a Gravity-esque scenario.

Even before that movie this was one of the few nightmare scenarios that I believed could actually happen.

originally posted by: Artemis12
a reply to: shawmanfromny

This reminds me of that Hopi prophecy.

Which one?

a reply to: gallop

What direction is the debris traveling?

What direction is the iss traveling?

a reply to: moebius

Is the iss the ONLY thing in the path of this debris?

a reply to: crayzeed

ISS is the International Space Station.

Not the US Space Station.

I'm pretty sure the Russians don't want to fly through a debris field either.