India joined an exclusive group of world powers with military space capabilities on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a successful anti-satellite missile test.
div > div.group > p:first-child"> Space is seen as a key military domain by the world's superpowers. While anti-satellite missiles are by no means new, only a few countries have been able to develop, test and prove the capability. Satellites make up the backbone of GPS, communications, intelligence and more – making the ability to destroy spacecraft a coveted military strength.
The latest revelations from India, however, come as the United States, China and Russia sprint to equip their arsenals with anti-satellite missiles. Images of the mysterious missile on a modified Russian MiG-31, a supersonic near-space interceptor, appeared in mid-September. The Pentagon has recently emphasized in its unclassified version of the missile defense review that anti-satellite capabilities"could threaten U.S. space-based assets."
Although conducted at the relatively low orbit of 300 kilometers, the debris from India's weapons test may"pose a threat" to anything in higher orbits, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, told CNBC. The test's altitude is just below the orbit of the International Space Station, which circles the Earth at about 400 kilometers up.
A recently unclassified report from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, or NASIC, explained how China conducted an anti-satellite test in 2007 that produced a great deal of space junk. At an altitude of about 800 kilometers, China destroyed one of its own weather satellites with an anti-satellite missile. Although the test was successful, the satellite shattered into thousands of pieces, which continue to zip around in an orbital cloud of deadly debris.
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