Russia Detonates Anti Satellite Missile Creating Dangerous Debris

[Milchshake]

Good day for paranoid autocrats flexing.
Bad day for people that like GPS, telecommunications, and weather forecasts.

Today’s show of force was a demonstration of an antisatellite weapon to blow up an old out-of-use Russian satellite. Trouble is that the debris field’s orbit now endangers the International Space Station every 90 minutes or so. Russia presumably could have chosen ASAT target below ISS -- or much higher. So really raises questions re their intent (i.e., knowing threat to ISS) and/or decision making process (e.g., military did not consider hazard to Russian astronauts or diplomatic ramifications) Well done.

The US Space Command said it was tracking orbiting debris on Monday after Russia appeared to have conducted an anti-satellite missile test destroying an aging satellite creating over 1,500 pieces of trackable debris, the statement said. Astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) had to shelter in place and close and then reopen several compartments every 90 minutes due to debris. US State Secretary Antony Blinken said they "condemn Russia's reckless test of a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile against its own satellite," further adding, it creates a risk for "the integrity of the International Space Station." Russia, as of yet, has not commented on the incident.

This is what happens to aluminum when hit by a 1/2 oz (~14g) piece of plastic going 15,000 mph (~24000 km/h) in space

[Santti]

I'll try to Shalcker this one:

"There's lots of trash in space, can't possibly be from our satellite. What are the chances of that? Honestly now, this is just more Russophobia and biased western media. Here's an honest take from RT.com on why this is really Ukraine's fault."

[jonnysensible]

I fully support making space unviable and trapping everyone on earth with a steel vortex around us to keep those pesky greys away.

[Breccia]

I fully support making space unviable and trapping everyone on earth with a steel vortex around us to keep those pesky greys away.

Well someone watched Cowboy Bebop.

Yeah, there are some crazy ways you can use weapons in space. In the atmosphere, a half-ounce of plastic going Mach 30 won't be a problem...at least, not for very long.

This is where I wish @Skroe was around to tell us how new, innovative, or useful Russia's weapon is.

[Kaleredar]

I'll try to Shalcker this one:

"There's lots of trash in space, can't possibly be from our satellite. What are the chances of that? Honestly now, this is just more Russophobia and biased western media. Here's an honest take from RT.com on why this is really Ukraine's fault."

And if I may, as an addendum:

If there was a missile strike, you can't prove it was Russia.

If you can prove it was Russia, you can't prove they knew it would cause debris.

If you can prove they knew it would cause debris, you can't prove they did it intentionally.

If you can prove they did it intentionally, you can't prove it will cause problems.

If you can prove it will cause problems, you can't prove it's as bad as every country except Russia is saying.

If you can prove it's as bad as every country except Russia is saying, you can't prove that the United States hasn't done something exactly like this in the past 40 years.

If you can prove the United States hasn't done something like this in the past 40 years, isn't all morality just relative and we're but floating ether upon the breeze of eternity?


Unfortunately for him, most of those are already checked off. So I expect a rather quick jump to that last point and a general spinning of wheels on that for about 6 pages.



More on topic, though:

The Russian government: Malicious, or just incompetent? Sometimes it's difficult to tell.

Well someone watched Cowboy Bebop.

Yeah, there are some crazy ways you can use weapons in space. In the atmosphere, a half-ounce of plastic going Mach 30 won't be a problem...at least, not for very long.

This is where I wish @Skroe was around to tell us how new, innovative, or useful Russia's weapon is.

I don't imagine it's actually that difficult to blow up a satellite with a rather defined and predicable trajectory. They're going so fast that all you'd effectively have to do is hit them with... basically any object of considerable mass and they'd disintegrate, no explosives required.



Now stopping space debris? That's something worth looking into. I wonder if a large volume of some sort of aerogel-like substance could be effectively swept through problematic pieces of space debris to stop them, or at least slow them considerably such that they'd de-orbit. The issue that stands with that is whether the impact of the object into the aerogel would, itself, create aerogel spalling that could itself be problematic.

[Lynarii]

I don't imagine it's actually that difficult to blow up a satellite with a rather defined and predicable trajectory. They're going so fast that all you'd effectively have to do is hit them with... basically any object of considerable mass and they'd disintegrate, no explosives required.

Yeah, but hitting it with a ground based weapon is very very very hard. It was asked earlier in the thread what is new/innovative/dangerous about this technology? Nothing in the weapon itself, getting a missile into space is pretty simple by today's standards. What is significant is the targeting and guidance systems. Satellites are relatively tiny targets that are moving very very fast. To direct fire a missile up and actually have it connect is a challenge that not many countries can pull off.

[Ihavewaffles]

Is even 1/10 of what op writes remotly true?

I'm sure iss is fine, n it's not up to putin to pick targets, you really need to lay off the comic book narrative, spouting tabloid talking points...

Speaking of debris, elon musk wants 12k satellites orbiting earth...

Btw ur own link says the debris isn't even in same orbit now with the iss, so pointless thread?

[XDurionX]

Is even 1/10 of what op writes remotly true?

I'm sure iss is fine, n it's not up to putin to pick targets, you really need to lay off the comic book narrative, spouting tabloid talking points...

Speaking of debris, elon musk wants 12k satellites orbiting earth...

I heard they love to do unnecessary maneuvers for leisure.

[Ihavewaffles]

I heard they love to do unnecessary maneuvers for leisure.

Im sure they aren't emotionally scarred. Not anyone gets sent up there n they don't whine on twitter like kids, this is part of their job.

Btw who walked out of missile treaty? Who created space force? Who started weaponizing space?
Whenever someone raises the bar militarly, escalation is the result..i'm sure I heard that somewhere..
Other countries are forced to respond n this is what happens. Op gives no reason why, like Putin woke up one day n ordered a satellite strike for teh lulz?

[Breccia]

Is even 1/10 of what op writes remotly true?

Russia confirmed it. The rest of your lack of argument is, therefore, summarily handwaved.

So I had coffee with an old friend who knows more about this than I ever will, and I'll try to recapture his best hits.

1) This was clumsy and stupid. Putin didn't tell the Russian Space Agency he was doing this. At best, it looks like an incompetent accident. At worst, this is Putin saying "I hate manned space flight, and fuck your agency, and also fuck you personally". For Putin, someone who actually knows how loyalty works, that was a bad move.

2) This technology isn't exactly new. It's still rocket science and therefore not something two dudes could set up in their garage, but, India's been working on it since 2019. India would be the fourth if they could get it working reliably, and here's where I look at a reeeeeeeeeeeeeally racist joke about tech support and balk at the last second. But I did think about it, because I'm a horrible person.

Now my friend, talking about their tech level and not in the apparent racist closet I'm in, said something along the lines of "if India can do it, anyone can do it". Yeah, that's bullshit. I'd like to see Greece try this. Or Nigeria. Or Jamaica, I guess with tech from Predator 2, with one would assume a pink rocket fueled by ganja (but not blasting reggae because there's no sound in space, even racism must yield to physics). But the spirit of his tone was taken. India is pretty decent with tech, they do have nukes after all. But they're not leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the civilized world. The UK, France, and Germany could do this easily. Japan could, too. Hell, I'm fairly sure China already has, but after my search history already has "how to know if you're a fucking racist" and "how do you spell ganja" I think adding "how easily could China kill everyone" would be too much for the FBI to ignore.

3) Leaving aside the "it's difficult to get to space" issue, it's not really that difficult to hit a piece of space tech. Most satellites can't hide themselves. Most satellites are reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally slow to change course, direction, or orbit distance. [NOTE: This is where I remember I failed to ask my old friend if there were US Ninja Satellites with fast-burning directional thrusters to perform mad jukes and noscope 360's. Probably for the best -- I think he would have laughed at the idea] And most satellites don't have sensors or cameras looking for shit coming straight at them, because space is pretty big yo. there's really not much call for that. I mean, what's it going to do, really? ICBMs travel at something ridiculous like Mach 17 once "minor" details like air resistance isn't a factor. That's five miles a second. Yes, I'm rounding. So even if the satellite could see and detect it was a hostile missile from, I dunno, a thousand miles out? Do we even have cameras that good? Whatever. That's three minutes to change position, and somehow, hope the missile doesn't track (spoiler alert: it does). And you don't even need to hit the target, just explode close enough.

4) The US has something called a Pegasus missile. I'll be honest, I saw Under Siege 2 and thought that was bullshit. Nope, real thing. You take one of those in a high-alt aircraft (at least 35,000 feet) and fire it outside the atmosphere. In the movie, fuck my life I'm quoting a Steven Seagal movie as evidence? Hold on.



Jesus Christ, we can launch these from commercial airliners? Holy shit this is scary. I'm glad I don't know this stuff. That missile in that picture put a satellite in orbit 400 miles up. ISS is 250 miles up. Fucking Southwest Airlines could join the Space Force. Jeez.

But let's go deeper.

If you read this CNN article and say "whoa, that's an ugly site, when was this made, 2008?" I would say "well that's oddly accurate from broken typeface, but yes". In 2008 the US shot down an aging satellite with an SM-3. If you don't know what that is, like I didn't until 30 seconds ago, it's a ship-launched missile. Yep. We've got shit we can throw from ground level that can fucking hit space. So, not only can we launch anti-satellite weapons from the redeye from NY to LA, apparently we can launch them from stealth subs, too. Awesome.

Oh, and that same article? Apparently a US jet got to 80,000 feet -- wow -- and fired a modified air-to-air missile at one of our own satellites, destroying it. In 1989. So even if Russia was 30 years behind us, which sounds about right from some posters' style and presumably turnip-scented breath, they still have this ability.

So, despite the terror that researching this topic was, my God humans have really impressive ways of killing each other, nothing here is really new. Basically, everyone eats at Taco Bell, Russia was just the one who farted in an elevator.

5) And my friend's even less comforting point, after "this is old news" was "this is irrelevant". Yes, the US has waaaaaaaaaay more targets in space for Russia to shoot at, than vice versa. And doubtless we have weapons to shoot down their weapons to shoot down our weapons OH GOD INCEPTION. But if Russia really wants to fight us, my friend insists, they won't bother to "sniper" our satellites. They'll just arm all their nukes and throw them at once, knowing we can't possibly hit them all. Nor would we bother to take out what few satellites they have, likely running on 1970's Buick engines and a used GameBoy chip.

Yeah, I know, big surprise: the US has weapons way overtech'd for the targets we'd use them on. Surely we knew that about the time we used depleted uranium rounds on Taliban terrorists armed with sticks and rocks. "Hey, you shot first," we said walking away from an explosion the size of an NFL stadium, "also you all have cancer now." Americans have engineered anti-satellite weapons far beyond what we'd actually need in a crisis, but come on, the USA has been using flasks and runes in LFR for a generation now. (We could go from here and talk about anti-ICBMs weapons but I think we've done that already)

Space is so empty that it's easy to see what's going on in there. If Russia launched one, or two, or ten, or fifty, missiles at our Space Force, it'd be almost literally blindingly obvious. That's a declaration of war, and we'd just Ctrl-A our nukes and click "Send".

So...good news! We'll at least see the apocalypse coming. Yay!

Can you sleep soundly tonight? I guess that depends on if you've slept soundly since 1989.

[Tuor]

So, the plot for the movie Gravity (2013) becomes true. For those that own the DVD, there is a documentary on the DVD about space junk, sadly i don't seem to find it on Youtube.

[Breccia]

So, the plot for the movie Gravity (2013) becomes true.

The plot maybe, but I'm led to believe that space isn't nearly this crowded.

[Ihavewaffles]

So I had coffee with an old friend

I stopped reading right there.

[Easo]

To play devil's advocate - others states have tested such weapons before, with the same results and warnings. It is not an exclusive club after all, invites are not needed to join. What I dislike is the "we did nothing bad" response from Russia.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59169899

You cannot control where debris will go nor how many pieces there will be, not more than any other nation who did such tests, you can just approximate. Safe is a word Kremlin should not be using.

[Skulltaker]

Is even 1/10 of what op writes remotly true?

I'm sure iss is fine, n it's not up to putin to pick targets, you really need to lay off the comic book narrative, spouting tabloid talking points...

Speaking of debris, elon musk wants 12k satellites orbiting earth...

Btw ur own link says the debris isn't even in same orbit now with the iss, so pointless thread?

No, but, Putin being the president, he put the people responsible for the military in charge. A country's leader is responsible for the actions of the military, to some degree.

You can put 100.000 satellites in orbit, and that is no issue whatsoever. You have billions of cubic kilometers of space available.

- - - Updated - - -

I stopped reading right there.

Because you reached the limit of your comprehension? We understand that =)

- - - Updated - - -

The plot maybe, but I'm led to believe that space isn't nearly this crowded.

It isn't. While most satellites are in LEO and MEO, there are some as high up as 330.000 kilometers. If you do the math that leaves some stunningly large volume of space to park satellites.

[uuuhname]

space debris is an ever increasing problem that we have no way of addressing so can we not make it worse?

[Easo]

To anyone who understands Russian this should be a funny read:


To those who don't - Russia's Lower House, Duma, denies anti-satellite weapon test and complains about "American fantasies" + whataboutism, followed by Russian military confirming said test half a day later.
Welcome to Russia.

[Ihavewaffles]

Eh, it's not the duma that should confirm or deny these things..

[PC2]

Maybe the Russian military doesn't have any competent and ethical physicists that can tell them why this isn't safe, or maybe the military doesn't care about their opinion. But what's probably more likely is they do have some competent and ethical physicists that had valid reasons for green lighting the test.

It's hard to know though because so much of this kind of stuff is classified or has to be denied.

[Milchshake]

Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, a Hero of the Soviet Union, Commander of Russia's Space Division has concluded...

This crime was committed by Siberian Separatists!




On November 13 1995, Golden Eye was released, what a coincidence.