India ASAT test debris poses danger to International Space Station, NASA says

Enlarge / Portions of the debris field created by the March 27 anti-satellite weapons test by India could reach the International Space Station, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told NASA employees. (credit: NASA)

During a meeting with NASA employees on April 1, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine delivered sharply critical remarks about India's March 27 anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) test. Bridenstine said that some of the larger debris from the collision of the ground-launched missile and the Microsat-R satellite had been thrown into orbits that could pose a danger to the International Space Station (ISS).

The "Mission Shakti" ASAT shot hit the Microsat-R Earth observation satellite at an altitude of about 300 kilometers-an altitude Indian officials said would pose little risk to other spacecraft. But Bridenstine said that some of the debris created by the test had been thrown into orbits with a much higher apogee. In some cases, he said, those orbits could cross the track of the ISS, which orbits at an altitude of 410 kilometers.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine's full employee town meeting.

Of the 400 pieces of debris that had been identified by NASA, Bridenstine said, 60 were large enough to be tracked by the US Air Force's Space Surveillance Network and US Strategic Command's Combined Space Operations Center. "Of those 60, we know that 24 of them are going above the apogee of the International Space Station," he continued. Calculations by NASA and DOD after the test found that the risk of debris striking the space station went up by 44 percent over a ten-day period following the test, Bridenstine told NASA employees.

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