India Has Successfully Shot Down A Satellite

Wednesday the 27th of March, India became a member of the space warrior club. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and announced the anti-satellite weapon test was successful.

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Only three countries so far managed to destroy a satellite in orbit – the United States, China, and Russia. Now a fourth country joined the club, India. The anti-satellite weapon developed by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) was launched from the Integrated Test Range. After 168 seconds in destroyed its target – a military satellite Microsat-R 274 kilometers high.

But not everyone is happy about the test. NASA is saying that more than 400 pieces of space garbage were created and 60 of them are worth continuous observation. And scarier, 24 of them might sometime in future hit the International Space Station. While DRDO claims that the majority of the scrap will burn in the atmosphere within 45 days. But Jim Bridenstine from NASA disagrees. He says the scrap will be orbiting for years and the anti-satellite test increased the risk of space debris hitting the ISS by 44 %.

When it comes to space debris orbiting the Earth we should be afraid of the Kessler syndrome. This hypothetical scenario originally presented by Donald Kessler back in 1978 describes an unfortunate interplay of circumstances where a domino effect takes place. A cloud of debris will cause more collisions creating more debris, causing more collisions and so on and so on. If something like that happens, it could lead to a loss of a large number of satellites in orbit. And perhaps it could lead to our inability to fly into space for some time because the risk would be just too large.

Sources:

• https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-in-india-just-shot-down-a-low-orbit-satellite-in-space-2019-3?r=US&IR=T

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