Lives of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency’s flagship satellite, were put in danger as the risk of a collision rose 40% in the 10 days following the Indian exercise, NASA head Jim Bridenstine said.
Washington D.C: NASA has criticised India’s Mission Shakti, the launch of an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile a few days ago, for the space debris it has left behind.
Lives of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency’s flagship satellite, were put in danger as the risk of a collision rose 40% in the 10 days following the Indian exercise, NASA head Jim Bridenstine said in a town hall with employees on April 01 in Washington D.C.
“Intentionally creating orbital debris fields is not compatible with human spaceflight,” Bridenstine said. “It’s unacceptable and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is.”
The debris created by the anti-satellite test carried out by India last week had increased the risk to the International Space Station, he said.
Bridenstine, in a response to a question from a colleague, said that the risk to the ISS (due to a possible collision with the space debris) had gone up by 44 per cent after the Indian anti-satellite test, though he added that both the ISS and the astronauts were safe.
“Here is what we know about the most recent direct ascent anti-satellite test done by India. We know that we have identified 400 pieces of orbital debris from that one event. That is what has been identified. Now, all of it cannot be tracked. What we are tracking right now, objects big enough to track and we are talking about objects 10 cm or bigger… about 60 pieces have been tracked. They have got a tracking number… Out of those 60, we know that 24 of them are going above the apogee of ISS. That is a terrible terrible thing to create an event that creates debris that goes above the apogee of ISS,” Bridenstine said.
“We are charged with commercialising LEO. We are charged with enabling more activities in space than we have ever seen before, for the purposes of benefiting the human condition… all of those activities are placed at risk when this kind of events happen. And when one country does it, other countries feel like they have to do it as well… It is unacceptable,” Bridenstine said.
India had said that the test was done in the lower atmosphere to ensure that there was no space debris. “Whatever debris that is generated will decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks,” an Indian government statement had said.
India is the fourth country to launch an ASAT missile, after the US, Russia, and China. The last test, conducted by China in 2007, at almost triple the height as India’s, had left behind 3,000 pieces of space debris. The United States military is currently tracking 23,000 objects in space, of which 10,000 are debris.
In a televised address on March 27, prime minister Narendra Modi announced that the country had shot down a live satellite from the lower-earth orbit using an ASAT missile.