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Egypt Independent
Russian officials rejected accusations on Tuesday, that they endangered astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) by conducting a weapons test which created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk on Monday.
US officials accused Russia of destroying an old satellite with a missile in what they called a “reckless and irresponsible strike”. They noted that the “debris could do major damage to the space station as it is orbiting at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph)”.
“Astronauts now face four times greater risk than normal”, NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, told The Associated Press.
The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed on Tuesday carrying out a test and destroying a defunct satellite which has been in orbit since 1982, but insisted that “the US knows for certain that the resulting fragments, in terms of test time and orbital parameters, did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities” and called remarks by US officials “hypocritical”. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said “the strike was carried out with surgical precision and posed no threat to the space station”.
“The test clearly demonstrates that Russia, despite its claims of opposing the weaponization of outer space, is willing to … imperil the exploration and use of outer space by all nations through its reckless and irresponsible behaviour”, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos did not confirm nor deny that the strike took place. “The unconditional safety of the crew has been and remains our main priority”, Roscosmos said in an online statement released on Tuesday.
Once the situation became clear, early Monday morning, the four Americans, one German and two Russians on board the International Space Station were ordered to immediately seek shelter in their docked capsules. They spent two hours in the two capsules, finally emerging only to have to close and reopen hatches to the station’s individual labs on every orbit, while passing near or through the debris.
“This was a reckless act by Russia to actually shoot down and destroy a satellite as part of a test of an anti-satellite weapon system, which created a lot of space debris”, NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters in Brussels.
A similar weapons test by China in 2007, also resulted in countless pieces of debris. One of those threatened to come dangerously close to the space station last week. While it later was dismissed as a risk, NASA had the station move anyway.
Anti-satellite missile tests by the US in 2008 and India in 2019 were conducted at much lower altitudes, well below the space station at about 260 miles (420 kilometres.)
