NEW DELHI – India insisted Saturday that debris from its anti-satellitemissile test was not a danger to the International Space Station, in arebuff to criticism from the US space agency.
India has been on the defensive following the March 27 test that NASAbranded a “terrible thing” that had created new dangers for astronautsaboard the International Space Station.
“The mission had been designed in a away that debris decays very fast andthat minimal debris goes up,” G. Satheesh Reddy, head of India’s DefenceResearch and Development Organisation told reporters. “There was a risk for 10 days and we have crossed that period,” he told apress conference.
“As per our simulations, there were no possibilities of hitting theInternational Space Station with debris from the satellite,” he added.
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine last week condemned India’s destruction of thesatellite as a “terrible thing” that created 400 pieces of orbital debris,or “space junk”.
The danger from “space junk” is not that it falls to Earth but that itcollides with orbiting satellites.
Even the smallest piece of debris travelling at great speeds can put asatellite out of action.
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The Indian satellite was destroyed at a relatively low altitude of 300kilometers (180 miles), 120 kilometres below the ISS and most orbitingsatellites.
Bridenstine and other space experts also said the risk from the Indiandebris would dissipate as much of it would burn up as it entered theatmosphere.
The US military tracks objects in space to predict the collision risk forthe ISS and satellites. They are currently tracking 23,000 objects largerthan 10 centimeters.
These includes about 10,000 pieces of space debris, of which nearly 3,000were created by a Chinese anti-satellite test.
India has hailed the test as a sign that it is a space power. Only theUnited States, Russia and China had previously carried out successfulanti-satellite missile strikes in space. – APP/AFP
