Washington: The NASA on Tuesday termed as a “terrible thing” India’s shooting down of one of its satellites that has created about 400 pieces of orbital debris, endangering the International Space Station. Last week, India carried out Mission Shakti, in which it successfully targeted a low Earth orbit satellite. PM Modi had hailed its success as “an unprecedented achievement.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said about 60 pieces of debris have been tracked so far and out of which 24 are going above the apogee of the ISS. “That is a terrible, terrible thing to create an event that sends debris and an apogee that goes above the international space station.
That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight,” he said at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration town hall here. “We all live in space, let us not make it a mess,” US acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan said, in what was seen as a mild rebuke to India. “Space is a place where people should have the freedom to operate,” he added.
FAILED ASAT TEST, TOO
WASHINGTON: A month before India’s successful test of an anti-satellite missile, a similar test had failed, a leading expert from the Federation of American scientists has claimed.
Quoting US government sources, Ankit Panda has written in The Diplomat magazine that a missile tested on February 12 failed after flying for 30 seconds and did not intercept its target, a satellite, likely in low Earth orbit. Writing in The Diplomat, Ankit Panda said.
“According to US government sources with knowledge of military intelligence assessments, the United States observed a failed Indian anti-satellite intercept test attempt in February.” Panda said India did, however, give the United States “a vague heads up” of this impending test, reports NDTV.
