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Win Some, Lose Some

On November 15, 2021

At 1:34 pm

In General

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Russia has been massing (not amassing) troops along the Ukrainian border and encouraging Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenka, to push Middle Eastern refugees across the Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian borders. Today’s show of force was a demonstration of an antisatellite weapon to blow up an old out-of-use Russian satellite. Trouble is that the debris field’s orbit now endangers the International Space Station every 90 minutes or so. Well done.

Russia presumably could have chosen ASAT target below ISS — or much higher. So really raises questions re their intent (i.e., knowing threat to ISS) and/or decision making process (e.g., military did not consider hazard to Russian astronauts or diplomatic ramifications) https://t.co/tfn0IPaWHg— David Burbach (@dburbach) November 15, 2021

This suggests that the intercept was generally in the same direction as the satellite velocity vector, rather than against it, minimizing relative velocity but increasing overall inertial velocity of the debris field. Expecting significant debris to higher apogee— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) November 15, 2021

And the problem right now is that even the big pieces do not have well tracked orbits, so ISS doesn't have the info needed to dodge— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) November 15, 2021