"With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts," he said. NASA administrator Bill Nelson said he was "outraged". He came out swinging against Russia, calling the test reckless and destructive and said it created space debris that "risks astronauts' lives, the integrity of the International Space Station, and the interests of all nations". This confirmation came after many hours of Russia downplaying the event but not confirming their involvement.Įarly on, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the explosion was caused by Russia testing a "direct ascent anti-satellite missile" against one of its own satellites. Russia's Defence Ministry said debris from the test had posed no threat and would pose no threat to space stations and satellites in orbit. Russia confirmed via state media on Tuesday that it had conducted a weapons test targeting an unused Russian satellite on November 15. Those spacecraft can be used like lifeboats, which would allow the crew to escape back to Earth in an emergency situation. NASA says crew took shelter in their docked spacecraft capsules for about two hours. The crew aboard the International Space Station were woken up and told to close the hatches to certain modules on the station as it approached the cloud of debris, just in case the pieces caused any damage. NASA says there are more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris, but it's estimated there could be hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces now orbiting the Earth. Thankfully no major incidents were reported, but US officials are very unhappy.Ī Russian satellite called Kosmos 1408 was blown up, with the explosion generating a cloud of space junk. On Monday, the astronauts working on the International Space Station were woken up and told to take shelter - the station could potentially be hit by a cloud of space debris.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |