Let’s Pollute Space Next!
Trash from China’s satellite-killing missile test has spread widely in space, creating a debris cloud that could jeopardize spy satellites and commercial imagery satellites in low orbits around Earth, U.S. officials said on Monday.
Even the manned International Space Station is vulnerable to being hit by some of the thousands of pieces of trash created when China slammed a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile into an aging Chinese weather satellite about 537 miles above Earth on January 11, the officials said.
“The test created a lot of debris. It definitely raises the possibility that something is going to be hit, including the space station,” Peter Hays, a senior adviser to the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office, told Reuters.
Theresa Hitchens, who heads the non-profit Center for Defense Information, told a conference held by the George C. Marshall Institute that U.S. tracking data showed debris from the test had been seen from 266 miles to 1,875 miles above the Earth.
“A huge number of satellites have been put in harm’s way,” she said, estimating that more than 120 satellites were orbiting in the area. It could take decades for debris from the Chinese weather satellite to fall out of orbit.
GeoEye, the world’s largest commercial satellite imagery company, operates its satellites around 425 miles (680 km) above Earth, but said it was not concerned because its satellites were in a different orbit. GeoEye spokesman Mark Brender said it can maneuver satellites in their orbits and “close their lens caps” during cosmic dust storms.
Col. Patrick Rayermann, chief of the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Division, told Reuters the Chinese test had reenergized discussions about the need for a treaty or certain rules for actions taken by space-faring countries. However, he added that verifying compliance could prove difficult.