7 ms·

India’s destruction of satellite threatens ISS, says Nasa

61 points by zhte415 8y ago

shermozle 8y ago
Alternative title: Country that has already done thing decries country that is doing thing. See also the non-proliferation treaty.
- deanCommie 8y ago
  <Deep breath> 1) Whataboutism doesn't help anyone. Two wrongs don't make a right. 2) India has the hindsight of history that the US and earlier Space programs didn't. Humanity did not consider these kinds of things earlier. Space was treated as essentially infinite. We now know better and know that this debree can cause a real threat to future space missions, even in the worst case dooming humanity to Earth as a prison[1]. By the way, the same applies to carbon emissions. Yes, the West got to industrialize by rampantly polluting the world. No, that doesn't mean China and India get a free pass for it. Also, to the exploitation of countries/economies/people below you on the totem pole. Again, no free pass for what China is doing in Africa just because Europe did it for hundreds of years. 3) This is a slightly different point from (2), but back when Russia and US were rampantly launching rockets into space and exploding satellites, there wasn't a permanently occupied space station in orbit, crewed continuously by human beings from an international peaceful cooperating collective. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU
  - reitzensteinm 8y ago
    Who is giving China and India a free pass? It seems to me that the opposite is happening, where they're behind and very far behind the per capita emissions of Western countries respectively yet we're giving them shit instead of getting our own house in order.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    Well, this was a political move, nothing more (or less). I presume you know about recent bombings in Kashmir, sovereign part of Indian territory since its creation of 1947. Done by terrorists most probably trained and equipped in Pakistan. Their secret service is very happy to do these kind of activities, not caring much who is current Pakistani president du jour. Kind of state within the state. Where was/is US? Still supporting Pakistan, it really doesn't matter much what they do. Together with China. In light of these facts it doesn't seem so shocking, they had to do something. It doesn't make it right either obviously for all the reasons stated here, but I blame US and its stupid foreign policies for these kind of senseless escalations.
- kranner 8y ago
  > Alternative title: Country that has already done thing decries country that is doing thing. This is no argument. It is now recognised as an irresponsible thing to do by anyone. The US dropped nuclear bombs on populated areas during WW2. Should it not try to stop countries that may want to drop such bombs in 2019?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >The US dropped nuclear bombs on populated areas during WW2. Should it not try to stop countries that may want to drop such bombs in 2019? It's tone deaf for nations that already have nuclear protection to tell other countries not to develop the capability. It's like Bloomberg or Fienstien, or some other politician who lives somewhere safe and has a security detail telling a town hall meeting in the 48205 (a zipcode in Detroit that would make a lot of people here uncomfortable) that they'd all be safer if they turned in their guns.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    Obviously the US should try to stop other countries that want to drop bombs; it makes sense from every perspective in a moral and realpolitik sense. However, the issue we face in your counter is that the US dropped 2 bombs, the world didn't end, and obviously they were happy enough with the results that they've kept a rather large nuclear arsenal in prime condition, ready to be used. I'm not even sure if the US apologised for dropping those nukes. From a high-functioning-sociopath perspective, which is what large agglomerations of humans do frequently degenerate to, why shouldn't a given country not strive to emulate something that clearly worked? For the US to decry such mimicry is meaningless at best, hypocritical at worst: 1) If they think an act is against some great universal principle they should not have done it in the first place. 2) If individual politicians would almost certainly seek power by any means if roles were reversed, that is just the sort of people who become politicians. It is fine if they want to boss countries around to support their own interests; that is sort of expected. To do more is to invite eye rolls.
    - kranner 8y ago
      Just because countries tend to act like sociopaths doesn’t make that sort of behaviour acceptable. And if we leave behind the bomb analogy, this was an action with global consequences. Not only potentially harming the ISS but risking escalating an arms race that could jeopardise all future satellites and space missions.
- sbzodnsbd 8y ago
  Surely you’ll be accused of whataboutism. And they’re right. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And if India is wrong to do test, she’s right to dismiss hypocrites.
- smohare 8y ago
  Gee, you sure convinced me with that textbook use of tu quoque.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
x7u70y 8y ago
Superpower by 2020.
- pjc50 8y ago
  India arguably became a superpower when they acquired their first nuclear bomb in 1974. However, the recent Kashmir conflict has not made their conventional forces look very good.
  - swarnie_ 8y ago
    Nukes only really work when you flex against someone without them, see Russia and the Ukraine or America and most the world. The dick waving contest between India and Pakistan is probably the scariest situation on earth right now.
    - 687ma4 8y ago
      The reason why nations with a very low average IQ should not be allowed to have nukes. IN/PK having nukes bothers me much more than Russia or China having nukes.
      - justforfunhere 8y ago
        Could you provide some source/citation from where you came to this conclusion that IN/PK have low average IQ.
        rudiv 8y ago
        Already gone. I'm not surprised to see the sentiment expressed though - things like the space program tend to bring out the racists in full force.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - simonh 8y ago
dominicr 8y ago
They really need an international treaty to stop these valueless demonstrations of power. Sure it shows you've got capabilities for shooting down really low satelites, but it also shows you don't have consideration for the effect this will have. If we don't cooperate globally and stop so much space debris being created some orbital ranges could become impractical to use and manned space flight becomes even more dangerous.
- pjc50 8y ago
  There is a treaty against the militarisation of space, but it doesn't cover this. Ironically India was recently arguing for it to be strengthened. https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/india-urges-strengthening-outer-space-treaty/ https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/india-urges-strengthening-ou...
  - glax 8y ago
    You have to look through the geopolitical aspect. Treaties, historically have been favorable for those who ride the high horse, bystanders gut mud slung upon them. In the 60's India was pressurized not to develop Nuclear bombs, but it was secretly known pakistan was developing it with the help of china and stolen tech. If India had signed the NPT back then, it would not have have anykind of deterrence action against Pakistan where they had full scale war and USA coming to pakistans's Aid when India was trying to liberate East Pakistan where there was full scale genocide of ethnic Bangla people going, that we now know as Bangladesh. They developed the bombs but with a no first use policy. Now in 2019 with 2 front war with both Pakistan and china, where both party have actively militarized the border with them and playing the proxy war it was sure coming. China vetoing 2 times action against J-E-M terrorist group based in Pakistan that are active in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir state of India. They are also actively claiming the state of Arunachal Pradesh as the territory like they did with Tibet China has also amassed large number of military installation near the North-Eastern border of India and have actively tried en roaching into Indian territories, several kilometers sometimes into the past few year resulting in border skirmishes sometimes. Last time India declined the UNSC seat and gave it to china & they are still regretting the the decision. They are hoping the next NPT for Space will have India's seat already reserved. If other nations are going to play game of dual diplomacy it's leaves no option but to demonstrate show of force. India cannot afford to become Another Ukraine, Tibet or Taiwan becomes some other nation can abuse it's power. Edit:Will provide citation in 2 hours currently in Mobile.
ThePhysicist 8y ago
The movie “Gravity“ was based on such a scenario, although there it were the Russians that shot down a satellite, resulting in the debris to hit a space shuttle and destroy it. Not happy to see reality catch on so fast with science fiction to be honest.
- atomlib 8y ago
  The premise is entirely unrealistic since the difference in orbit parameters. We aren't talking about some slight misconceptions; reality completely walks out of the window in Gravity: * Most satellites and all crewed spaceships orbit Earth from west to east. Why would they hit each other? * There is no way to travel between the Hubble and space stations like the way it happened in the movie. Especially not with that EMU with 25 m/s delta-v. That's like taking a cup of kerosene, pouring it into a Boeing 747, and traveling 9000 km. Hubble and the ISS have completely different orbits with different inclination. * Overall, writers of Gravity have no understanding of orbital mechanics whatsoever. * ISS orbit height is something like 400 km, for Hubble it's about 550 km. Most communication satellites are orbiting the Earth thousands of kilometers above the sea level. A circular geosynchronous orbit is 35 786 km above Earth's equator. As for the ISS, the majority of debris created by recent India's incident are 300 km above the sea level. ISS is about 100 km higher. According to this https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm objects with 300 km altitude will enter atmosphere in a month.
  - kranner 8y ago
    > As for the ISS, the majority of debris created by recent India's incident are 300 km above the sea level. ISS is about 100 km higher. Please read the article. 24 pieces are (so far) known to have gone higher than the ISS. These are objects "10cm (six inches) or bigger". There are other pieces "which are dangerously large but too small to track".
  - mcv 8y ago
    > reality completely walks out of the window in Gravity A bit of an overstatement. Gravity got orbital mechanics very wrong, but it got orbital mechanics relevant in the first place. Most movies dealing with space are far less realistic than Gravity.
ironic_user 8y ago
Yeah, is way nicer to throw a garbage car into orbit... Why not?
- cesarb 8y ago
  A garbage car is a single object, and it's large enough that earth-based radar can track its orbit, so it poses much less risk (since its orbit is known, the ISS and other satellites can move out of the way whenever a potential collision is predicted). Missile tests like this one generate debris that's too small to be tracked, but large enough to cause significant damage in case of a collision.
  - ironic_user 8y ago
    Ok, trackable garbage is ok then?
    - DFHippie 8y ago
      It isn't a binary choice, but if you require it to be binary, it seems it's pretty close to harmless, so yes. Edit: trackable garbage in useful orbits is not so great, but in Starman's orbit, yes.
    - ZoFreX 8y ago
      Largely yes. Or at least a lot less of a problem. The biggest risk from space garbage is that the small stuff is not trackable, so at any point it could slam into satellites or, god forbid, people or space stations. It's going fast enough that despite being small this would have dreadful consequences. Larger items can be tracked, and therefore can be avoided, so they don't pose a risk any more than non-junk large items like other satellites and so on. There's quite a lot of room so if you know where things are it's not hard to avoid them. Some amount of garbage is sadly unavoidable at this point in our development of space travel. For example many rockets are multi stage and jettison those stages, farings to protect satellites are jettisoned, and so on. That all falls into the "large and trackable" category so it's not a terrible problem, at least not yet. So the main current strategy for avoiding creating problems is to avoid creating small garbage, and people work very hard at that - being careful not to lose tools or even a single nut or bolt. And yes, before you mention it, "lots of room" is a relative statement and this is not an infinitely sustainable strategy. But people are working on methods to capture and clean up garbage, and as those get more feasible we'll be able to go and clean up all this large garbage that we are tracking. So even with a long-term perspective, the large stuff is less of a problem.
reacharavindh 8y ago
At the risk of sounding like useless - "But, what about".... As long as we are stating facts and blaming and shaming China and India on their activities, can we please get a full picture on the REST of the contributors to this debris of quoted total 10,000 pieces of space debris? If China contributed nearly 3000, and India recently contributed 400, who did contribute to the rest of approximately 6600? Not advocating that all countries should shoot down waste satellite and turn them into dangerous debris. Just wondering what standing does NASA have on this issue...?
- cesarb 8y ago
  According to a source for the Wikipedia article on the collision between Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision), ~1000 of these would be from Kosmos-2251 (Russia) and ~300 from Iridium 33 (USA). Looking at the graph on that source (http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/10-breakups-account-for-13-of-cataloged-debris/ http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/10-breakups-account-for-...) there are several more from other failed satellites from the USA and Russia (which makes sense, given the amount of satellites these two countries have launched).
paol 8y ago
After the entirely justified public shaming of China when they did this I though, hey at least this disaster will serve as an example and no one will be so stupid as to do it again. Then India proves they are so stupid as to do it again. I can't imagine the decision process that leads to the go-ahead on something like this. The only scenario that enters my head is some Dr. Stangelove-grade military lunatics getting the hands on the launch keys.
- sbzodnsbd 8y ago
  India isn’t stupid. They demonstrated to countries, including one that recently (1970s) threatened to nuke them to the Stone Age, their capability. The country that threatened them with nukes is crying afoul, while creating a space force to more easily nuke countries.
aaron695 8y ago
Anyone who knows Kerbal want to explain how - Given gravity at 300-400km is only ~10% less than sea level, how exactly did an explosion/crash shoot something 100+ km above it's current location(280km) to above the ISS orbit (400km)? A nuke on earth wouldn't do that right? How does a small attack rocket do that? Rise debris 100km and keep it in orbit for days?
dreamcompiler 8y ago
A visualization of what happened is here [0]. The problem when you explode an object in LE orbit is that you decelerate some bits of it -- which causes those bits to fall lower and reenter the atmosphere -- but you accelerate other bits, which causes them to move into a higher orbit. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destroying-missile-threaten-international-space-station-terrible-thing-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destro...

61 points by zhte415 8y ago

Alternative title: Country that has already done thing decries country that is doing thing. See also the non-proliferation treaty.

deanCommie 8y ago
<Deep breath> 1) Whataboutism doesn't help anyone. Two wrongs don't make a right. 2) India has the hindsight of history that the US and earlier Space programs didn't. Humanity did not consider these kinds of things earlier. Space was treated as essentially infinite. We now know better and know that this debree can cause a real threat to future space missions, even in the worst case dooming humanity to Earth as a prison[1]. By the way, the same applies to carbon emissions. Yes, the West got to industrialize by rampantly polluting the world. No, that doesn't mean China and India get a free pass for it. Also, to the exploitation of countries/economies/people below you on the totem pole. Again, no free pass for what China is doing in Africa just because Europe did it for hundreds of years. 3) This is a slightly different point from (2), but back when Russia and US were rampantly launching rockets into space and exploding satellites, there wasn't a permanently occupied space station in orbit, crewed continuously by human beings from an international peaceful cooperating collective. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU
- reitzensteinm 8y ago
  Who is giving China and India a free pass? It seems to me that the opposite is happening, where they're behind and very far behind the per capita emissions of Western countries respectively yet we're giving them shit instead of getting our own house in order.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Well, this was a political move, nothing more (or less). I presume you know about recent bombings in Kashmir, sovereign part of Indian territory since its creation of 1947. Done by terrorists most probably trained and equipped in Pakistan. Their secret service is very happy to do these kind of activities, not caring much who is current Pakistani president du jour. Kind of state within the state. Where was/is US? Still supporting Pakistan, it really doesn't matter much what they do. Together with China. In light of these facts it doesn't seem so shocking, they had to do something. It doesn't make it right either obviously for all the reasons stated here, but I blame US and its stupid foreign policies for these kind of senseless escalations.
kranner 8y ago
> Alternative title: Country that has already done thing decries country that is doing thing. This is no argument. It is now recognised as an irresponsible thing to do by anyone. The US dropped nuclear bombs on populated areas during WW2. Should it not try to stop countries that may want to drop such bombs in 2019?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >The US dropped nuclear bombs on populated areas during WW2. Should it not try to stop countries that may want to drop such bombs in 2019? It's tone deaf for nations that already have nuclear protection to tell other countries not to develop the capability. It's like Bloomberg or Fienstien, or some other politician who lives somewhere safe and has a security detail telling a town hall meeting in the 48205 (a zipcode in Detroit that would make a lot of people here uncomfortable) that they'd all be safer if they turned in their guns.
- roenxi 8y ago
  Obviously the US should try to stop other countries that want to drop bombs; it makes sense from every perspective in a moral and realpolitik sense. However, the issue we face in your counter is that the US dropped 2 bombs, the world didn't end, and obviously they were happy enough with the results that they've kept a rather large nuclear arsenal in prime condition, ready to be used. I'm not even sure if the US apologised for dropping those nukes. From a high-functioning-sociopath perspective, which is what large agglomerations of humans do frequently degenerate to, why shouldn't a given country not strive to emulate something that clearly worked? For the US to decry such mimicry is meaningless at best, hypocritical at worst: 1) If they think an act is against some great universal principle they should not have done it in the first place. 2) If individual politicians would almost certainly seek power by any means if roles were reversed, that is just the sort of people who become politicians. It is fine if they want to boss countries around to support their own interests; that is sort of expected. To do more is to invite eye rolls.
  - kranner 8y ago
    Just because countries tend to act like sociopaths doesn’t make that sort of behaviour acceptable. And if we leave behind the bomb analogy, this was an action with global consequences. Not only potentially harming the ISS but risking escalating an arms race that could jeopardise all future satellites and space missions.
sbzodnsbd 8y ago
Surely you’ll be accused of whataboutism. And they’re right. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And if India is wrong to do test, she’s right to dismiss hypocrites.
smohare 8y ago
Gee, you sure convinced me with that textbook use of tu quoque.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

x7u70y 8y ago

Superpower by 2020.

pjc50 8y ago
India arguably became a superpower when they acquired their first nuclear bomb in 1974. However, the recent Kashmir conflict has not made their conventional forces look very good.
- swarnie_ 8y ago
  Nukes only really work when you flex against someone without them, see Russia and the Ukraine or America and most the world. The dick waving contest between India and Pakistan is probably the scariest situation on earth right now.
  - 687ma4 8y ago
    The reason why nations with a very low average IQ should not be allowed to have nukes. IN/PK having nukes bothers me much more than Russia or China having nukes.
    - justforfunhere 8y ago
      Could you provide some source/citation from where you came to this conclusion that IN/PK have low average IQ.
      - rudiv 8y ago
        Already gone. I'm not surprised to see the sentiment expressed though - things like the space program tend to bring out the racists in full force.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - simonh 8y ago

dominicr 8y ago

They really need an international treaty to stop these valueless demonstrations of power. Sure it shows you've got capabilities for shooting down really low satelites, but it also shows you don't have consideration for the effect this will have. If we don't cooperate globally and stop so much space debris being created some orbital ranges could become impractical to use and manned space flight becomes even more dangerous.

pjc50 8y ago
There is a treaty against the militarisation of space, but it doesn't cover this. Ironically India was recently arguing for it to be strengthened. https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/india-urges-strengthening-outer-space-treaty/ https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/india-urges-strengthening-ou...
- glax 8y ago
  You have to look through the geopolitical aspect. Treaties, historically have been favorable for those who ride the high horse, bystanders gut mud slung upon them. In the 60's India was pressurized not to develop Nuclear bombs, but it was secretly known pakistan was developing it with the help of china and stolen tech. If India had signed the NPT back then, it would not have have anykind of deterrence action against Pakistan where they had full scale war and USA coming to pakistans's Aid when India was trying to liberate East Pakistan where there was full scale genocide of ethnic Bangla people going, that we now know as Bangladesh. They developed the bombs but with a no first use policy. Now in 2019 with 2 front war with both Pakistan and china, where both party have actively militarized the border with them and playing the proxy war it was sure coming. China vetoing 2 times action against J-E-M terrorist group based in Pakistan that are active in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir state of India. They are also actively claiming the state of Arunachal Pradesh as the territory like they did with Tibet China has also amassed large number of military installation near the North-Eastern border of India and have actively tried en roaching into Indian territories, several kilometers sometimes into the past few year resulting in border skirmishes sometimes. Last time India declined the UNSC seat and gave it to china & they are still regretting the the decision. They are hoping the next NPT for Space will have India's seat already reserved. If other nations are going to play game of dual diplomacy it's leaves no option but to demonstrate show of force. India cannot afford to become Another Ukraine, Tibet or Taiwan becomes some other nation can abuse it's power. Edit:Will provide citation in 2 hours currently in Mobile.

ThePhysicist 8y ago

The movie “Gravity“ was based on such a scenario, although there it were the Russians that shot down a satellite, resulting in the debris to hit a space shuttle and destroy it. Not happy to see reality catch on so fast with science fiction to be honest.

atomlib 8y ago
The premise is entirely unrealistic since the difference in orbit parameters. We aren't talking about some slight misconceptions; reality completely walks out of the window in Gravity: * Most satellites and all crewed spaceships orbit Earth from west to east. Why would they hit each other? * There is no way to travel between the Hubble and space stations like the way it happened in the movie. Especially not with that EMU with 25 m/s delta-v. That's like taking a cup of kerosene, pouring it into a Boeing 747, and traveling 9000 km. Hubble and the ISS have completely different orbits with different inclination. * Overall, writers of Gravity have no understanding of orbital mechanics whatsoever. * ISS orbit height is something like 400 km, for Hubble it's about 550 km. Most communication satellites are orbiting the Earth thousands of kilometers above the sea level. A circular geosynchronous orbit is 35 786 km above Earth's equator. As for the ISS, the majority of debris created by recent India's incident are 300 km above the sea level. ISS is about 100 km higher. According to this https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm objects with 300 km altitude will enter atmosphere in a month.
- kranner 8y ago
  > As for the ISS, the majority of debris created by recent India's incident are 300 km above the sea level. ISS is about 100 km higher. Please read the article. 24 pieces are (so far) known to have gone higher than the ISS. These are objects "10cm (six inches) or bigger". There are other pieces "which are dangerously large but too small to track".
- mcv 8y ago
  > reality completely walks out of the window in Gravity A bit of an overstatement. Gravity got orbital mechanics very wrong, but it got orbital mechanics relevant in the first place. Most movies dealing with space are far less realistic than Gravity.

ironic_user 8y ago

Yeah, is way nicer to throw a garbage car into orbit... Why not?

cesarb 8y ago
A garbage car is a single object, and it's large enough that earth-based radar can track its orbit, so it poses much less risk (since its orbit is known, the ISS and other satellites can move out of the way whenever a potential collision is predicted). Missile tests like this one generate debris that's too small to be tracked, but large enough to cause significant damage in case of a collision.
- ironic_user 8y ago
  Ok, trackable garbage is ok then?
  - DFHippie 8y ago
    It isn't a binary choice, but if you require it to be binary, it seems it's pretty close to harmless, so yes. Edit: trackable garbage in useful orbits is not so great, but in Starman's orbit, yes.
  - ZoFreX 8y ago
    Largely yes. Or at least a lot less of a problem. The biggest risk from space garbage is that the small stuff is not trackable, so at any point it could slam into satellites or, god forbid, people or space stations. It's going fast enough that despite being small this would have dreadful consequences. Larger items can be tracked, and therefore can be avoided, so they don't pose a risk any more than non-junk large items like other satellites and so on. There's quite a lot of room so if you know where things are it's not hard to avoid them. Some amount of garbage is sadly unavoidable at this point in our development of space travel. For example many rockets are multi stage and jettison those stages, farings to protect satellites are jettisoned, and so on. That all falls into the "large and trackable" category so it's not a terrible problem, at least not yet. So the main current strategy for avoiding creating problems is to avoid creating small garbage, and people work very hard at that - being careful not to lose tools or even a single nut or bolt. And yes, before you mention it, "lots of room" is a relative statement and this is not an infinitely sustainable strategy. But people are working on methods to capture and clean up garbage, and as those get more feasible we'll be able to go and clean up all this large garbage that we are tracking. So even with a long-term perspective, the large stuff is less of a problem.

reacharavindh 8y ago

At the risk of sounding like useless - "But, what about".... As long as we are stating facts and blaming and shaming China and India on their activities, can we please get a full picture on the REST of the contributors to this debris of quoted total 10,000 pieces of space debris? If China contributed nearly 3000, and India recently contributed 400, who did contribute to the rest of approximately 6600? Not advocating that all countries should shoot down waste satellite and turn them into dangerous debris. Just wondering what standing does NASA have on this issue...?

cesarb 8y ago
According to a source for the Wikipedia article on the collision between Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision), ~1000 of these would be from Kosmos-2251 (Russia) and ~300 from Iridium 33 (USA). Looking at the graph on that source (http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/10-breakups-account-for-13-of-cataloged-debris/ http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/10-breakups-account-for-...) there are several more from other failed satellites from the USA and Russia (which makes sense, given the amount of satellites these two countries have launched).

paol 8y ago

After the entirely justified public shaming of China when they did this I though, hey at least this disaster will serve as an example and no one will be so stupid as to do it again. Then India proves they are so stupid as to do it again. I can't imagine the decision process that leads to the go-ahead on something like this. The only scenario that enters my head is some Dr. Stangelove-grade military lunatics getting the hands on the launch keys.

sbzodnsbd 8y ago
India isn’t stupid. They demonstrated to countries, including one that recently (1970s) threatened to nuke them to the Stone Age, their capability. The country that threatened them with nukes is crying afoul, while creating a space force to more easily nuke countries.

aaron695 8y ago

Anyone who knows Kerbal want to explain how - Given gravity at 300-400km is only ~10% less than sea level, how exactly did an explosion/crash shoot something 100+ km above it's current location(280km) to above the ISS orbit (400km)? A nuke on earth wouldn't do that right? How does a small attack rocket do that? Rise debris 100km and keep it in orbit for days?

dreamcompiler 8y ago

A visualization of what happened is here [0]. The problem when you explode an object in LE orbit is that you decelerate some bits of it -- which causes those bits to fall lower and reenter the atmosphere -- but you accelerate other bits, which causes them to move into a higher orbit. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destroying-missile-threaten-international-space-station-terrible-thing-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destro...