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WASHINGTON — A defunct Russian satellite has broken up into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter for about an hour and adding to the mass of space junk already in orbit, U.S. space agencies said.
There were no immediate details on what caused the breakup of the RESURS-P1 Russian Earth observation satellite, which Russia declared dead in 2022.
U.S. Space Command, tracking the debris swarm, said there was no immediate threat to other satellites.
The event took place about noon EDT (1600 GMT) Wednesday, Space Command said. It occurred in an orbit near the space station, prompting U.S. astronauts on board to shelter in their spacecraft for roughly an hour, NASA’s Space Station office said.
Russian space agency Roscosmos, which operated the satellite, did not respond to a request for comment or publicly acknowledge the event on its social media channels.
U.S. Space Command, which has a global network of space-tracking radars, said the satellite immediately created “over 100 pieces of trackable debris.”
By Thursday afternoon, radars from U.S. space-tracking firm LeoLabs had detected at least 180 pieces, the company said.
Large debris-generating events in orbit are rare but of increasing concern as space becomes crowded with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband internet and communications to basic navigation services, as well as satellites no longer in use.
The satellite’s breakup was at an altitude of roughly 355 km (220 miles) in low-Earth orbit, a popular region where thousands of small to large satellites operate, including SpaceX’s vast Starlink network and China’s station that houses three of its astronauts.
“Due to the low orbit of this debris cloud, we estimate it’ll be weeks to months before the hazard has passed,” LeoLabs said in a statement to Reuters.
The some 25,000 pieces of debris bigger than 10 cm (4 inches) in space caused by satellite explosions or collisions have raised concerns about the prospect of a Kessler effect — a phenomenon in which satellite collisions with debris can create a cascading field of more hazardous junk and exponentially increase crash risks.
Russia sparked strong criticism from the U.S. and other Western countries in 2021 when it struck one of its defunct satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile launched from its Plesetsk rocket site. The blast, testing a weapon system ahead of Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, created thousands of pieces of orbital debris.
In the roughly 88-minute window of RESURS-P1’s initial breakup, the Plesetsk site was one of many locations on Earth it passed over, but there was no immediate indication from airspace or maritime alerts that Russia had launched a missile to strike the satellite, space tracker and Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell said.
“I find it hard to believe they would use such a big satellite as an ASAT target,” McDowell said. “But, with the Russians these days, who knows.”
He and other analysts speculated the breakup more likely could have been caused by a problem with the satellite, such as leftover fuel onboard causing an explosion.
What happens to old satellites?
Dead satellites either remain in orbit until they descend into Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery demise years later, or in widely preferred — but less common — circumstances, they fly to a “graveyard orbit” some 36,000 km (22,400 miles) from Earth to lower the risk of crashing into active satellites.
Roscosmos decommissioned RESURS-P1 over onboard equipment failures in 2021, announcing the decision the following year. The satellite has since appeared to be lowering its altitude through layers of other active satellites for an eventual atmospheric reentry.
The six U.S. astronauts currently on the space station were alerted by NASA mission control in Houston late Wednesday evening to execute “safe haven” procedures, where each crew member rushes into the spacecraft they arrived in, in case an emergency departure is required.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams boarded their Starliner spacecraft, the Boeing-built capsule that has been docked since June 6 in its first crewed test mission on the station.
Three of the other U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut went into SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule that flew them to the station in March, while the sixth U.S. astronaut joined the two remaining cosmonauts in their Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried them there in September last year.
The astronauts emerged from their spacecraft roughly an hour later and resumed their normal work on the station, NASA said.
The prospects of satellite collisions and space warfare have added urgency to calls from space advocates and lawyers to have countries establish an international mechanism of managing space traffic, which does not currently exist.
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Jakarta, Indonesia — Indonesia aims to launch 19 satellites into low-Earth orbit next year, part of an ambitious plan to move the country into the forefront of the world’s growing space industry and reduce its reliance on other countries for its satellite data.
The broader program, known as the 2045 space map, is set to begin next year. Officials hope to boost Indonesia’s economy and drive foreign direct investment by leveraging its unique geography as a near-equatorial, fuel-efficient launch point for space travel and research.
While the satellite launches would support key economic sectors such as agriculture and mining with remote-sensing technology to track weather patterns, mining emissions and mineral-rich areas, the longer-term plan includes development of a leading-edge spaceport to reduce reliance on foreign launch sites.
But according to officials at BRIN, Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency, there’s still no confirmation of which company or government agencies would be responsible for the spate of launches planned for 2025.
“The main constraint was the government’s financial planning and budget cuts. We also couldn’t clinch foreign investment partners to join in developing the spaceport because it is high technology and high cost,” said BRIN researcher Thomas Djamalludin.
Starlink, SpaceX and Elon Musk
Jakarta has relied on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for launching its satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida, since 2019, and the billionaire entrepreneur last month launched a Starlink internet services satellite directly from Bali.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has repeatedly invited Musk to use the Papuan province island of Biak as a primary Starlink launch site, which has drawn outrage from locals who say developing the island as a spaceport will devastate its fragile ecology.
Although Biak has an airstrip, military base, deep-water seaport and ground stations, the 500 hectares (1.9 square miles) of government-owned land suitable for the spaceport would require foreign investment to cover the preliminary $613 million required to build the initial phase of the project. The total cost is dependent on what additional facilities investors want to build at the space port.
Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said that Starlink is mulling the offer but that there are no immediate plans for collaboration.
According to Djamalludin of BRIN, China, which has dominated Indonesia’s 5G market and is on track to be the nation’s largest foreign investor, had expressed interest. However, a catastrophic April 2020 rocket launch that destroyed Indonesia’s $220 million Nusantara-2 satellite has complicated Jakarta’s relationship with China’s state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corporation.
Beijing has since dialed back its financial interests, declaring the Biak location too distant, while Jakarta has doubled down on wooing SpaceX for the upcoming launches, deeming the company more reliable, offering more time slots and cheaper reusable rockets.
Indonesia’s director of investment promotion at the Investment Coordinating Board, Saribua Siahaan, told VOA that Jakarta continues offering financial incentives, along with an easy investment permitting process for public-private partnerships.
No takers in 2023
As recently as 2023, BRIN officials promoted their spaceport plans at the G20 Space Economy Leaders’ Meeting and Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum. China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and India were invited as potential partners, but none signed on.
“Despite the 2013 Space Law having been in effect for nearly a decade, [Indonesia’s] government has yet to finalize implementing regulations for commercialization of space and spaceport development,” said Indonesian space-law scholars Ridha Aditya Nugraha and Yaries Mahardika Putro in a recent Jakarta Post op-ed.
Indonesia was the first country in ASEAN to enforce national space legislation. The 2013 Space law provides a legal framework regarding outer space, and it lays the foundation for space industry growth.
Foreign direct investment in space activities brings legal certainty that can attract investors. In the past decade, though, implementation of regulations has not occurred and that has made it difficult for the related ministeries to make Indonesia a space-faring country.
“This must be resolved immediately if Indonesia is serious about making outer space a revenue center and the driver of the economy in the future,” the op-ed said.
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