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Debris From India's Anti-Satellite Test Poses Threat To ISS, Says NASA (npr.org)
When India blew apart one of its satellites orbiting Earth last week, it created hundreds of pieces of orbital debris, and some of those pieces are large enough and high enough to pose a potential threat to the International Space Station, NASA says. "That is a terrible, terrible thing to create an event that sends debris in an apogee that goes above the International Space Station," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, referring to the debris' highest point in orbit. "And that kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human space flight that we need to see happen." NPR reports: In calculating the Indian test's potential impact last week, he said NASA determined that the risk of small debris hitting the space station was increased by 44 percent over a period of 10 days. "It's unacceptable, and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is," Bridenstine said, discussing space debris and India's anti-satellite test at a town hall event Monday.
As he spoke about the heightened risk, the NASA administrator also emphasized that both the space station and the astronauts aboard it are safe. The station can be maneuvered out of harm's way if needed, he added. But another danger, he said, is that "when one country does it, then other countries feel like they have to do it, as well." "The good thing is, it's low enough in Earth orbit that over time, this will all dissipate," Bridenstine said on Monday. Those pieces are expected to burn up as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere. India's intercept of its own satellite created 400 pieces of orbital debris, Bridenstine said. "What we are tracking right now -- objects big enough to track, we're talking about 10 centimeters [4 inches] or bigger -- about 60 pieces have been tracked," he said. "Of those 60, we know that 24 of them are going above the apogee of the International Space Station."
As he spoke about the heightened risk, the NASA administrator also emphasized that both the space station and the astronauts aboard it are safe. The station can be maneuvered out of harm's way if needed, he added. But another danger, he said, is that "when one country does it, then other countries feel like they have to do it, as well." "The good thing is, it's low enough in Earth orbit that over time, this will all dissipate," Bridenstine said on Monday. Those pieces are expected to burn up as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere. India's intercept of its own satellite created 400 pieces of orbital debris, Bridenstine said. "What we are tracking right now -- objects big enough to track, we're talking about 10 centimeters [4 inches] or bigger -- about 60 pieces have been tracked," he said. "Of those 60, we know that 24 of them are going above the apogee of the International Space Station."
> The Indians have a problem (putting it extremely lightly) with pollution, garbage, littering [...]
If it only were the Indians. All of us have a problem in that, and we in the industrialized nations have a headstart of 50-100 years. And we are running into problems because of that.
The worst criminals are those in denial. C'mon: if the Koch brothers keep paying people to say "oh, CO2 and warming are not a thing", and they sell coal... they should go to jail.
That bit of space debris pales in comparison. It is as if someone points at a stain on the wall while rats are all over the floor (not saying that it is a good idea, tho).
The space debris scenario is valid : The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions.[3] One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges impractical for many generations.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"international" space station. Not US space station. They didn't shit in our pool, they shit in the community pool.
India is being called out or this *now* because they have only just joined the 'blowing satellites up' club. Meanwhile America (among others) developed this tech back in the 1950s and developed their own test program that deposited a fair chunk of space debris as a result (Weapon System WS-199A).
Nasa tracks space debris so they can steer clear of it; largest they can currently track is 4cm diameter objects.
A 4cm diameter object has double the diameter and, if made of lead, 4-8 times the volume of a 12 gauge shotgun slug and likely around the total mass of a 50BMG bullet.
To reach orbit one must achieve a velocity of around 25000 feet per second; a 50BMG round travels at around this speed.
If the object is travelling in a transverse or opposing vector (so not in the same direction of the craft but either in the opposite direction or cross-ways), you have a risk of impact.
Putting this together, you have an object with under the volume of a 50BMG Round, some unknown mass and density (could be insulation, could be shattered aluminum fuselage, could be a shart of a hardened steel bolt), that can strike the space station at least at 25000 feet per second and at upto 50,000 feet per second. That object is not alone, there's an entire debris field is changing shape as it follows its ballistic trajectory, bounces off of itself, the thin atmosphere, and gets hit by rays of the sun and heated.
So the best way to think about this is the ISS Is a goose and India decided to fire a single 12 gauge defender round (that has both large balls and tiny ones) at within the effective range of the round. You fire a shotgun 100 times, you will get a different spread each time, and out of those spreads, 44 times they will hit the goose.
The worst thing that can happen here is a hardened bolt was shattered by the impact into a hundred tiny bits in a very tight pattern and happens to hit the station. That's like shooting the side of the ISS with 12 gauge buckshot except the velocity is upto 50 times what a 12 gauge is capible of putting out. We don't know density, but knowing what home made shotgun rounds filled with legomen can do to thin metal, thanks to youtube, I am not optimistic a feather hitting the ISS at 50,000 feet per second is just going to bounce off.
And that's if we know upfront the impact happened. You can get hit and not know for months, then find out at the worst possible time.
So yeah. This was a dick move by India. However, given they don't participate in our space program, I don't think they really care.
Says someone who doesn't appreciate the technology they use regularly that resulted from space exploration.
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html
Yes, lots of politics (domestic and international) behind this test.
One correction to the GP: NASA doesn't track the objects in orbit. CSpOC takes care of the tracking and distribution of data. NASA does statistical sampling and modeling of the environment, as well as impact testing and evaluation of shielding designs. Also, NASA scientists typically use metric (though the hardware people often still use inch-pound-second).