• Russia has conducted an anti- satellite weapon (ASAT) test, resulting in over 1 500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of smaller orbital debris.

• U.S. State Department: “dangerous and irresponsible behavior by the Russian Federation”

• The ISS crew sheltered in their lifeboats today due to the risk of debris from the test.

Russia destroys satellite in ASAT test https://spacenews.com/russia-destroys-satellite-in-asat-test/

by Jeff Foust — November 15, 2021

Updated 4 p.m. Eastern with British statement.

LAS VEGAS — A Russian satellite broke up in low Earth orbit in a deliberate test of a Russian antisatellite device that created thousands of pieces of debris.

The satellite, Cosmos-1408, appears to have broken up late Nov. 14 or early Nov. 15 Eastern time, based on commercial and government tracking data. The satellite, weighing about 2,000 kilograms, was launched in 1982 and, now defunct, was last tracked in an orbit about 485 kilometers high.

Read more at https://spacenews.com/russia-destroys-satellite-in-asat-test/

Russian direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test creates significant, long-lasting space debris https://www.spacecom.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2842957/russian-direct-ascent-anti-satellite-missile-test-creates-significant-long-last/

By U.S. Space Command Public Affairs Office

PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, Colo.  –  

Russia tested a direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile on Nov. 15, 2021, Moscow Standard Time, that struck a Russian satellite [COSMOS 1408] and created a debris field in low-Earth orbit. The test so far has generated more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and will likely generate hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris.

“Russia has demonstrated a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability, and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations,” said U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, U.S. Space Command commander. “The debris created by Russia’s DA-ASAT will continue to pose a threat to activities in outer space for years to come, putting satellites and space missions at risk, as well as forcing more collision avoidance maneuvers. Space activities underpin our way of life and this kind of behavior is simply irresponsible.”

USSPACECOM’s initial assessment is that the debris will remain in orbit for years and potentially for decades, posing a significant risk to the crew on the International Space Station and other human spaceflight activities, as well as multiple countries’ satellites.

Read more at https://www.spacecom.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2842957/russian-direct-ascent-anti-satellite-missile-test-creates-significant-long-last/

The post Russian Anti-Satellite Test Results In Orbital Debris appeared first on EMFSA.

By Mike Wall

Yunhai 1-02’s wounds are not self-inflicted.

In March, the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (18SPCS) reported the breakup of Yunhai 1-02, a Chinese military satellite that launched in September 2019. It was unclear at the time whether the spacecraft had suffered some sort of failure — an explosion in its propulsion system, perhaps — or if it had collided with something in orbit. 

We now know that the latter explanation is correct, thanks to some sleuthing by astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who’s based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Snippet:

McDowell described the incident as the first major confirmed orbital collision since February 2009, when the defunct Russian military spacecraft Kosmos-2251 slammed into Iridium 33, an operational communications satellite. That smashup generated a whopping 1,800 pieces of trackable debris by the following October. 

However, we may be entering an era of increasingly frequent space collisions — especially smashups like the Yunhai incident, in which a relatively small piece of debris wounds but doesn’t kill a satellite. Humanity keeps launching more and more spacecraft, after all, at an ever-increasing pace.

“Collisions are proportional to the square of the number of things in orbit,” McDowell told Space.com. “That is to say, if you have 10 times as many satellites, you’re going to get 100 times as many collisions. So, as the traffic density goes up, collisions are going to go from being a minor constituent of the space junk problem to being the major constituent. That’s just math.”

Our current space junk problem is not that severe, but the Yunhai event could be a warning sign of sorts. It’s possible, McDowell said, that Object 48078 was knocked off the Zenit-2 rocket by a collision, so the March smashup may be part of a cascade.

“That’s all very worrying and is an additional reason why you want to remove these big objects from orbit,” McDowell told Space.com.

Read the article at: https://www.space.com/space-junk-collision-chinese-satellite-yunhai-1-02

The post Space collision: Chinese satellite got whacked by hunk of Russian rocket in March appeared first on EMFSA.

by Jeff Foust — October 13, 2020

WASHINGTON — While launch providers are doing a better job at disposing of upper stages left behind in orbit, rocket bodies still constitute the most dangerous pieces of orbital debris.

The European Space Agency released Oct. 12 its annual Space Environment Report, the agency’s assessment of orbital debris. The report identifies more than 25,000 tracked objects, including satellites, upper stages and debris.

While collisions between objects can create additional debris, a bigger concern is the breakup of satellites or rocket bodies caused when batteries or propellant tanks on them explode. “The biggest contributor to the current space debris problem is explosions in orbit, caused by leftover energy — fuel and batteries — onboard spacecraft and rockets,” Holger Krag, head of ESA’s Space Safety Program, said in a statement. “Despite measures being in place for years to prevent this, we see no decline in the number of such events.”

Rocket bodies are of particular concern because their size can create a large number of objects. A breakup of a Japanese H-2A upper stage in 2019 created more than 70 pieces of tracked debris, one of which came close enough to the International Space Station in September to warrant a maneuver by the station.

Read more at: https://spacenews.com/upper-stages-top-list-of-most-dangerous-space-debris/

The post Upper stages top list of most dangerous space debris appeared first on EMFSA.