Pretty damn interesting given the context of China planning to expand its space agency.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/world/asia/india-weather-satellite-missle.html
Non paywalled source
i keep forgetting wapo is paywalled, my apologies
Well, at least it was a low-altitude test, so there shouldn't be long-term debris risks. All the little bits should deorbit in the next year or two, most of them in just months.
in any case, they're just doing what Russia, China, and the US have done
The Chinese one is a big problem - they shot down a much higher-altitude satellite, some of that shit's gonna be up there for decades, if not centuries. And any debris is a risk to other satellites or spacecraft - at orbital velocity, a penny is like an artillery shell.
The American test was even lower than the Indian one, all the debris was gone within weeks. (It purportedly was not a test, just destroying a failed satellite that had a lot of toxic fuel that could be a hazard on the ground... blatantly untrue, but the pretense did mean it was a very "safe" ASAT test.)
Did Russia actually test their ASAT against a satellite? I've seen that they did test launches, but no full-up tests.
If I were to describe the face of the Indian Prime Minister he looks like the kind of guy you'd see commanding the Allies in a Command and Conqure game but he's the one giving you orders in the mission where they
introduce the Annihilator Battletank.
can't wait for the great space debris cascade trapping us on earth for eons!
Just shoot magnets into space, it's fine i'm sure.
shit, they really are on their way to be a superpower by 2020.
Aren't anti-satellite weaponry banned by the UN?
Well they've got 9 months left til they're a super power so rapid advancement in capabilities like this shouldn't be surprising
I think it's specifically weapons mounted to satellites since they can deliver pretty much anywhere without an easy trace to the weapon's origin
please no, unless these weapons are capable of completely vaporizing all remains of their target this seems like a slippery slope to Kessler syndrome.
This is why we need the US Space Force.
Weapons mounted in space are illegal, But using kinetic energy to strike targets is okay:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Just its extremely inefficient.
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