Now, Russia worried over satellite debris

Tribune News Service 

New Delhi, April 19

Russia has joined the US in expressing doubts that the debris from India’s March 27 anti-satellite test will not harm the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting around the earth.

While the observations by US National Space Agency Administration were papered over by the US State Department, there has been no clarification from the Russian Foreign Ministry so far.

The Russian news agency TASS has said the debris left after India’s anti-satellite weapon test might at a certain point jeopardise the ISS which has three to six astronauts stationed at it all the time.

It is not as if ISS astronauts are defenceless. The ISIS has thrusters of its own that enable it to shift position. It also has space capsules docked all the time which serve as emergency shelters for the astronauts. The ISS is a multi-country operation with participation from the US, Russia, Japan and some European countries.

Sources, however, pointed out that NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine had added there was no immediate danger of ISS getting hit by the debris of the “killed” Indian satellite. In case of the Russian statement, they said it came from a middle-level official at a seminar whose sole theme was on space debris.

The Russian official had also added a rider on the lines of the statement by NASA by observing that the more than 100 fragments “may at a certain point” endanger the ISS.

However, according to Defence Research and Development Organisation chief G Satheesh Reddy, India had deliberately chosen a lower orbit of 283 km to avoid the threat of debris to global space assets. Moreover, there was a 125 km gap between the ISS and the killed Indian satellite. Care had also been taken to hit the satellite when it was over the Bay of Bengal while the ISS was over French Guinea, more than 10,000 km away horizontally. 

“An orbit of around 300 km was chosen for the test for capability demonstration, and the purpose was to avoid threat of debris to any global space assets,” Dr Reddy had said at a press conference. “Pin-point accuracy was achieved and space debris concerns were addressed by extensive simulations,” he had further said.