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Why the fuck? The Russians are fully aware of why these kinds of tests are a really really bad thing to do. I truly don't understand why they'd do this. They c

Why the fuck? The Russians are fully aware of why these kinds of tests are a really really bad thing to do. I truly don't understand why they'd do this. They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US. Do they really think testing out their satellite missiles is worth the result? It's not like there aren't a million other ways to test it without actually blowing anything up.

de6u99er 5y ago
Because of Space Force?
- belter 5y ago
  Satellite was exactly over the NOTAM area at precise time. https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1460305735317868545 https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1460305735317868545
  - de6u99er 5y ago
    I was just replying to the question why the Russians would do something stupid like this. Then I remembered Space Force, which IMHO is stupid too. Tbh. I am not sure what you are trying to tell me.
    - belter 5y ago
      I got it :-) When I posted my comment your comment said only Space Force so I misunderstood it as you mentioning it could have been Space Force doing it. I believe you updated your comment later to add the word Because? :-) I guess this what is called a virtual space comment collision?
andyjohnson0 5y ago
Its a capability demonstration - mostly for domestic consumption. > They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US. At the leadership level it may be that they only care about it as an area for inter-state competition or selling crewed lift capacity. The latter business is nearly done.
gadders 5y ago
There was this test as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test#Space_debris_tracking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
AlwaysRock 5y ago
> They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US. Do they? It does not seem like they do. > Do they really think testing out their satellite missiles is worth the result? It's not like there aren't a million other ways to test it without actually blowing anything up. If this was a show of force rather than a test it makes more sense. I don't think anyone said, "Whoops" in Russia after that strike.
bobthechef 5y ago
"But the Russian military called the U.S. response “hypocritical,” saying in a statement translated by NBC that “the United States knows for certain that the resulting fragments” from the ASAT test “did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities.”" "Both the U.S. and Russia, as well as India and China, have previously destroyed their own satellites in ASAT tests. The U.S. most recently conducted an ASAT test in 2008, while Russia on Tuesday called out the Air Force’s testing of the X-37 spacecraft as showing the Pentagon “is actively developing” space weapons." [0] I wonder how much of this is American politics playing the Russia card again. That is, maybe Russia's claim above is false, but tu quoque. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/russia-us-hypocritical-for-condemning-anti-satellite-asat-weapon-test.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/russia-us-hypocritical-for-c...
belter 5y ago
Same reckless behavior that caused this terribly sad event? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- belter 5y ago
  Looking at the downvotes, lots think its usual in Russia for Citizens to just drive Tanks across the border to visit relatives. BUK Missiles, its just something every Russian farmer keeps in stock for personal defense...
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    There's a biased court working hard to accuse Russia and it already took them 7 years, yet to come to conclusions that they wish to arrive at. So no. Meanwhile, Ukraine shooting Russian S7's Tu, USA shooting Iran's airliner and, recently and ironically, Iran shooting down Ukraine's airliner are all accounted for.
    - kspacewalk2 5y ago
      So no what? Are you in all seriousness questioning the fact that a Buk SAM complex which crossed the border days earlier from Russia has shot down MH17? The evidence for this is clearer and presented in more excruciating detail than pretty much any other such crime, at least in the public domain. Phone calls, geolocated videos and photos, witness testimony... I'm genuinely curious about the mental gymnastics one would need to resort to in order to deny that a Russian Buk shot down MH17.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        I think that there was at least one Buk SAM complex coming from Russia at the time in this area, as well as multiple Ukrainian Buk complexes. I do not know who fired the shot which downed the airliner. Neither side has any motivation to do so in a good faith. I don't think there exists a court whose sentence about this case I would accept, given that everybody has a skin in this game and everyone is very good at lying, but the court which does investigate this case did not come up with any sentence yet. Are you seriously questioning me about my mental gymnastics in the absense of court ruling? What's with yours? How can you ever come up with something else than "we don't know yet"?
dvt 5y ago
> I truly don't understand why they'd do this. Spoken like a true westerner that doesn't quite grasp Russian brashness, recklessness, carelessness, and disregard for human life.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  The west tried to blow up the van allen belts with a nuke in operation starfish prime. Give it a break. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Not to forget littering space with needles, some of which are still up there! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford
  - 1121redblackgo 5y ago
    Its worth noting that Starfish Prime happened in 1962. The Malaysia airlines flight, annexation of Crimea, election tampering, et al. happened in the 2010s.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      Substantial election tampering has not ever been proven, only minor instances that are laughable compared to e.g. Bill Clinton helping install Boris Yeltsin in the 90s. I'm not aware that MA370 has a known cause of disappearance. Crimea is a symptom of western NATO expansion and the funding of the color revolution in the Ukraine. It's not pleasant, but imagine if China interfered in Mexico and blocked off the gulf, I imagine the US would invade.
      - dvsfish 5y ago
        MA370 doesn't really have anything to do with the russians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 this however does.
14 5y ago
I think it only serves as a reminder they could take out other nations satellites should they choose. Almost like a reminder of M.A.D. and that if we think about attacking them in any way they can say you better be careful or else!
- yupper32 5y ago
  I don't get this take. Russia has had solid space capabilities for decades and decades. Did any nations have any doubt that Russia had the ability to take out satellites if they wanted to?
  - 14 5y ago
    Call it a jab. I don’t think we doubted they could we doubted they would. Now we see they are willing and capable.
    - belter 5y ago
      Its a good move, never threaten...just do it. “The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable.” ― Mario Puzo, The Godfather
      - LogonType10 5y ago
        Don is Italian gangster, Putin is Russian gangster.
        belter 5y ago
        "Vladimir Putin: 'the godfather of a mafia clan'" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/9100388/Vladimir-Putin-the-godfather-of-a-mafia-clan.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/91...
  - 5y ago
shmerl 5y ago
Putin doesn't care about his own people on the station. He is too obsessed with his weapon toys. Same reason recent nuclear accidents happened for his flying wunderwaffe megalomania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident
- MerelyMortal 5y ago
  If anything happened to the Russians on the ISS, then Putin could use that as an excuse for Russia to build its own station. I wonder what a modern Space Race would look like.
  - shmerl 5y ago
    My guess is that Russia will fail in it pretty much off the bat. Putin isn't about progress let alone in something needing such advanced technology as a space race. He is about stealing and feeding his own power manias. Just look at who runs his space program, it speaks for itself. He might dream about space race, but all he can do is spread space junk.
    - boibombeiro 5y ago
      well, if they cant win, they can make sure no one else does. they just demoed they can make the kessler syndrome
      - shmerl 5y ago
        That's more like Putin, yes.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Given how much the US spends on weapons, I think accusing Putin on being obsessed with toy weapons is kind of rich.
  - shmerl 5y ago
puttin-it 5y ago
I guess you are not watching the news. Stuff is happening in Eastern Europe right now. > War with Russia greater risk now than any time since Cold War, says UK army chief https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-war-army-nick-carter-b1957547.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-war-a... EDIT: lol, flagged in under one minute for pointing to news
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
Pure speculation on my part, but in recent weeks there's been a few news stories about how the Pentagon is considering declassifying some sort of currently secret anti satellite weapon. Russia may have wanted to send a message reminding the world they have this capability too.
- puttin-it 5y ago
  There's been bigger news regarding Belarus pushing migrants into EU and russian troops amassing at Ukraine's border.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Entirely possible. Think Clinton and the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Hybrid warfare is the 21st century way.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Ever space nation clearly has that capability already, no need to prove it. Blowing up a sat because somebody else can do makes no sense.
AnotherGoodName 5y ago
I do wonder if something happened to the satellite necessitating destruction. Everything about this seems so unbelievably reckless that it feels like an emergency protocol being enacted. It's an old satellite but old encryption keys still need to be guarded for the sake of the historical data that might be decrypted with them. I guess i just don't understand such a sudden move that's literally putting their own citizens lives (let alone all the others) at such risk.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Bud 5y ago
  Russia demonstrably does not care about its citizens' lives. At all. Neither does the Trump GOP, as demonstrated so vividly by covid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-release-interview-excerpts-with-messonnier-birx-and-others/d4efe499-329f-41c7-a3aa-0e06b0e52b94/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-r...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - djfobbz 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - csallen 5y ago
      Among numerous other relevant differences, Biden has been president for longer than Trump was while COVID-19 was actually at meaningful levels in the US, so it's disingenuous to compare total death counts.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      You understand exponentials, right? It's like pointing an aircraft at the ground, removing flight controls, and then handing over saying 'it's yours now, if it crashes it's not my fault'.
dboreham 5y ago
Because narcissism.
orbital-decay 5y ago
>It's not like there aren't a million other ways to test it without actually blowing anything up. How do you test a system without ever using it? Every ASAT weapon in operation (from ASM-135 to the Indian one) has been tested on live targets, except for the old Soviet Kontakt which remained unproven yet still was in operation for some time (IIRC).
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Couldn't testing be performed on targets that are in a very low orbit with high drag, so 90% of the debris is on that orbit or lower?
  - jabbany 5y ago
    It's not like they're sending up a new satellite just to blow up... From Wikipedia: > Kosmos 1408 was a Soviet Union ELINT (Electronic and Signals Intelligence) satellite launched into low Earth orbit on 16 September 1982. It replaced Kosmos 1378. > On 15 November 2021, it was destroyed during an anti-satellite weapons test, resulting in over 1500 pieces of debris that subsequently risked collision with the International Space Station (ISS). I'd say this is not that much different from something like Operation Crossroads where a bunch of decommissioned (old & captured) warships are blown up to "test what would happen if you nuked a warship"...
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      The last US and India ASAT tests were all on newly launched satellites.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Of course it could. AFAIK that's what the US has always been doing. Not so much Russia or China. But India tried to minimize debris as well.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Coulda been a decoy, coulda been a message
vkou 5y ago
> I truly don't understand why they'd do this For the same reason that the United States did this exact thing in 2008, India in 2019, and China in 2007.
njarboe 5y ago
Every great power needs to know that their anti-satellite weapon system works. China, India, and the US have also shot down one satellite. Creates lots of space debris that are a pain in the ass, but a least countries aren't doing hundreds of these test like the did with nuclear weapons.
- lutorm 5y ago
  Sure. But if that's your position, you can test targets at lower orbital altitudes where the debris will decay far faster.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    And India and the US did just that.
piokoch 5y ago
Yes, they are aware. Russia wanted to demonstrated that they can blow satellite from the ground - from the military perspective this is important as they can blind to some extent NATO (or Chinese) battle control systems. This is demonstration of their force, which in reality is not that great, but Russia is a master in the game of pretending that they are immensely powerful. This gives them a lot of political benefits and leverage. This is kind of action as grouping troops on the Ukrainian border or flooding Polish-Belarusian border with migrants, etc.
- MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  >This is demonstration of their force, which in reality is not that great Ahm, they can still blow us all up with thermonuclear weapons, if they decide that its necessary. ... Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war room! (I mean only general Ripper could have said a phrase like this ;-)
- hnarn 5y ago
  That their force is “not that great” would maybe be true if we were still in the era where wars are won with infantry and tanks, at least comparing Russia to NATO and mostly due to poor hardware and not a lack of manpower: but this hasn’t been the reality for almost a hundred years. Russia is one of the worlds largest nuclear powers, there will be no all out conventional war with them or any other similarly equipped nation without global nuclear armageddon.
  - dolmen 5y ago
    We are in an era where observation satellites are critical to military power. And sending a nuclear bomb for a lost western military satellite would not be an appropriate response.
  - 271828182846 5y ago
    they wouldn't gain leverage if their force just wasn't that great and it all would be just a bluff. I mean, if someone on HN knows that the US government would know that, too. I think what they demonstrate is unpredictability and trigger happiness. people keep their hands of others if they might go off easily.

de6u99er 5y ago

Because of Space Force?

belter 5y ago
Satellite was exactly over the NOTAM area at precise time. https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1460305735317868545 https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1460305735317868545
- de6u99er 5y ago
  I was just replying to the question why the Russians would do something stupid like this. Then I remembered Space Force, which IMHO is stupid too. Tbh. I am not sure what you are trying to tell me.
  - belter 5y ago
    I got it :-) When I posted my comment your comment said only Space Force so I misunderstood it as you mentioning it could have been Space Force doing it. I believe you updated your comment later to add the word Because? :-) I guess this what is called a virtual space comment collision?

andyjohnson0 5y ago

Its a capability demonstration - mostly for domestic consumption. > They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US. At the leadership level it may be that they only care about it as an area for inter-state competition or selling crewed lift capacity. The latter business is nearly done.

gadders 5y ago

There was this test as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test#Space_debris_tracking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

AlwaysRock 5y ago

> They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US. Do they? It does not seem like they do. > Do they really think testing out their satellite missiles is worth the result? It's not like there aren't a million other ways to test it without actually blowing anything up. If this was a show of force rather than a test it makes more sense. I don't think anyone said, "Whoops" in Russia after that strike.

bobthechef 5y ago

"But the Russian military called the U.S. response “hypocritical,” saying in a statement translated by NBC that “the United States knows for certain that the resulting fragments” from the ASAT test “did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities.”" "Both the U.S. and Russia, as well as India and China, have previously destroyed their own satellites in ASAT tests. The U.S. most recently conducted an ASAT test in 2008, while Russia on Tuesday called out the Air Force’s testing of the X-37 spacecraft as showing the Pentagon “is actively developing” space weapons." [0] I wonder how much of this is American politics playing the Russia card again. That is, maybe Russia's claim above is false, but tu quoque. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/russia-us-hypocritical-for-condemning-anti-satellite-asat-weapon-test.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/russia-us-hypocritical-for-c...

belter 5y ago

Same reckless behavior that caused this terribly sad event? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
belter 5y ago
Looking at the downvotes, lots think its usual in Russia for Citizens to just drive Tanks across the border to visit relatives. BUK Missiles, its just something every Russian farmer keeps in stock for personal defense...
- thriftwy 5y ago
  There's a biased court working hard to accuse Russia and it already took them 7 years, yet to come to conclusions that they wish to arrive at. So no. Meanwhile, Ukraine shooting Russian S7's Tu, USA shooting Iran's airliner and, recently and ironically, Iran shooting down Ukraine's airliner are all accounted for.
  - kspacewalk2 5y ago
    So no what? Are you in all seriousness questioning the fact that a Buk SAM complex which crossed the border days earlier from Russia has shot down MH17? The evidence for this is clearer and presented in more excruciating detail than pretty much any other such crime, at least in the public domain. Phone calls, geolocated videos and photos, witness testimony... I'm genuinely curious about the mental gymnastics one would need to resort to in order to deny that a Russian Buk shot down MH17.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      I think that there was at least one Buk SAM complex coming from Russia at the time in this area, as well as multiple Ukrainian Buk complexes. I do not know who fired the shot which downed the airliner. Neither side has any motivation to do so in a good faith. I don't think there exists a court whose sentence about this case I would accept, given that everybody has a skin in this game and everyone is very good at lying, but the court which does investigate this case did not come up with any sentence yet. Are you seriously questioning me about my mental gymnastics in the absense of court ruling? What's with yours? How can you ever come up with something else than "we don't know yet"?

dvt 5y ago

> I truly don't understand why they'd do this. Spoken like a true westerner that doesn't quite grasp Russian brashness, recklessness, carelessness, and disregard for human life.

tehjoker 5y ago
The west tried to blow up the van allen belts with a nuke in operation starfish prime. Give it a break. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Not to forget littering space with needles, some of which are still up there! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford
- 1121redblackgo 5y ago
  Its worth noting that Starfish Prime happened in 1962. The Malaysia airlines flight, annexation of Crimea, election tampering, et al. happened in the 2010s.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    Substantial election tampering has not ever been proven, only minor instances that are laughable compared to e.g. Bill Clinton helping install Boris Yeltsin in the 90s. I'm not aware that MA370 has a known cause of disappearance. Crimea is a symptom of western NATO expansion and the funding of the color revolution in the Ukraine. It's not pleasant, but imagine if China interfered in Mexico and blocked off the gulf, I imagine the US would invade.
    - dvsfish 5y ago
      MA370 doesn't really have anything to do with the russians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 this however does.

14 5y ago

I think it only serves as a reminder they could take out other nations satellites should they choose. Almost like a reminder of M.A.D. and that if we think about attacking them in any way they can say you better be careful or else!

yupper32 5y ago
I don't get this take. Russia has had solid space capabilities for decades and decades. Did any nations have any doubt that Russia had the ability to take out satellites if they wanted to?
- 14 5y ago
  Call it a jab. I don’t think we doubted they could we doubted they would. Now we see they are willing and capable.
  - belter 5y ago
    Its a good move, never threaten...just do it. “The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable.” ― Mario Puzo, The Godfather
    - LogonType10 5y ago
      Don is Italian gangster, Putin is Russian gangster.
      - belter 5y ago
        "Vladimir Putin: 'the godfather of a mafia clan'" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/9100388/Vladimir-Putin-the-godfather-of-a-mafia-clan.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/91...
- 5y ago

shmerl 5y ago

Putin doesn't care about his own people on the station. He is too obsessed with his weapon toys. Same reason recent nuclear accidents happened for his flying wunderwaffe megalomania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident

MerelyMortal 5y ago
If anything happened to the Russians on the ISS, then Putin could use that as an excuse for Russia to build its own station. I wonder what a modern Space Race would look like.
- shmerl 5y ago
  My guess is that Russia will fail in it pretty much off the bat. Putin isn't about progress let alone in something needing such advanced technology as a space race. He is about stealing and feeding his own power manias. Just look at who runs his space program, it speaks for itself. He might dream about space race, but all he can do is spread space junk.
  - boibombeiro 5y ago
    well, if they cant win, they can make sure no one else does. they just demoed they can make the kessler syndrome
    - shmerl 5y ago
      That's more like Putin, yes.
panick21_ 5y ago
Given how much the US spends on weapons, I think accusing Putin on being obsessed with toy weapons is kind of rich.
- shmerl 5y ago

puttin-it 5y ago

I guess you are not watching the news. Stuff is happening in Eastern Europe right now. > War with Russia greater risk now than any time since Cold War, says UK army chief https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-war-army-nick-carter-b1957547.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-war-a... EDIT: lol, flagged in under one minute for pointing to news

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

Pure speculation on my part, but in recent weeks there's been a few news stories about how the Pentagon is considering declassifying some sort of currently secret anti satellite weapon. Russia may have wanted to send a message reminding the world they have this capability too.

puttin-it 5y ago
There's been bigger news regarding Belarus pushing migrants into EU and russian troops amassing at Ukraine's border.
bobthechef 5y ago
Entirely possible. Think Clinton and the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Hybrid warfare is the 21st century way.
panick21_ 5y ago
Ever space nation clearly has that capability already, no need to prove it. Blowing up a sat because somebody else can do makes no sense.

AnotherGoodName 5y ago

I do wonder if something happened to the satellite necessitating destruction. Everything about this seems so unbelievably reckless that it feels like an emergency protocol being enacted. It's an old satellite but old encryption keys still need to be guarded for the sake of the historical data that might be decrypted with them. I guess i just don't understand such a sudden move that's literally putting their own citizens lives (let alone all the others) at such risk.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Bud 5y ago
Russia demonstrably does not care about its citizens' lives. At all. Neither does the Trump GOP, as demonstrated so vividly by covid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-release-interview-excerpts-with-messonnier-birx-and-others/d4efe499-329f-41c7-a3aa-0e06b0e52b94/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-r...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- djfobbz 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - csallen 5y ago
    Among numerous other relevant differences, Biden has been president for longer than Trump was while COVID-19 was actually at meaningful levels in the US, so it's disingenuous to compare total death counts.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    You understand exponentials, right? It's like pointing an aircraft at the ground, removing flight controls, and then handing over saying 'it's yours now, if it crashes it's not my fault'.

dboreham 5y ago

Because narcissism.

orbital-decay 5y ago

>It's not like there aren't a million other ways to test it without actually blowing anything up. How do you test a system without ever using it? Every ASAT weapon in operation (from ASM-135 to the Indian one) has been tested on live targets, except for the old Soviet Kontakt which remained unproven yet still was in operation for some time (IIRC).

alkonaut 5y ago
Couldn't testing be performed on targets that are in a very low orbit with high drag, so 90% of the debris is on that orbit or lower?
- jabbany 5y ago
  It's not like they're sending up a new satellite just to blow up... From Wikipedia: > Kosmos 1408 was a Soviet Union ELINT (Electronic and Signals Intelligence) satellite launched into low Earth orbit on 16 September 1982. It replaced Kosmos 1378. > On 15 November 2021, it was destroyed during an anti-satellite weapons test, resulting in over 1500 pieces of debris that subsequently risked collision with the International Space Station (ISS). I'd say this is not that much different from something like Operation Crossroads where a bunch of decommissioned (old & captured) warships are blown up to "test what would happen if you nuked a warship"...
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    The last US and India ASAT tests were all on newly launched satellites.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Of course it could. AFAIK that's what the US has always been doing. Not so much Russia or China. But India tried to minimize debris as well.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Coulda been a decoy, coulda been a message

vkou 5y ago

> I truly don't understand why they'd do this For the same reason that the United States did this exact thing in 2008, India in 2019, and China in 2007.

njarboe 5y ago

Every great power needs to know that their anti-satellite weapon system works. China, India, and the US have also shot down one satellite. Creates lots of space debris that are a pain in the ass, but a least countries aren't doing hundreds of these test like the did with nuclear weapons.

lutorm 5y ago
Sure. But if that's your position, you can test targets at lower orbital altitudes where the debris will decay far faster.
- jhgb 5y ago
  And India and the US did just that.

piokoch 5y ago

Yes, they are aware. Russia wanted to demonstrated that they can blow satellite from the ground - from the military perspective this is important as they can blind to some extent NATO (or Chinese) battle control systems. This is demonstration of their force, which in reality is not that great, but Russia is a master in the game of pretending that they are immensely powerful. This gives them a lot of political benefits and leverage. This is kind of action as grouping troops on the Ukrainian border or flooding Polish-Belarusian border with migrants, etc.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago
>This is demonstration of their force, which in reality is not that great Ahm, they can still blow us all up with thermonuclear weapons, if they decide that its necessary. ... Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war room! (I mean only general Ripper could have said a phrase like this ;-)
hnarn 5y ago
That their force is “not that great” would maybe be true if we were still in the era where wars are won with infantry and tanks, at least comparing Russia to NATO and mostly due to poor hardware and not a lack of manpower: but this hasn’t been the reality for almost a hundred years. Russia is one of the worlds largest nuclear powers, there will be no all out conventional war with them or any other similarly equipped nation without global nuclear armageddon.
- dolmen 5y ago
  We are in an era where observation satellites are critical to military power. And sending a nuclear bomb for a lost western military satellite would not be an appropriate response.
- 271828182846 5y ago
  they wouldn't gain leverage if their force just wasn't that great and it all would be just a bluff. I mean, if someone on HN knows that the US government would know that, too. I think what they demonstrate is unpredictability and trigger happiness. people keep their hands of others if they might go off easily.