US ends anti-satellite missile testing

Vice President Kamala Harris, March 4, 2022. AP - Jacquelyn Martin

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Anti-satellite missile launches are widely criticized for the danger they create in orbit.

A great deal of debris is generated during the destruction of satellites.

A test conducted by Russia, for example, created tens of thousands of them in November 2021. 

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Asat tests are missile launches from the ground intended to destroy one of its own satellites.

The interest of this type of military exercise is obvious: to develop a technology making it possible to attack the machines of other countries in orbit around the Earth. 

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But these tests have another consequence: the satellite thus destroyed explodes into a thousand pieces of debris which can continue to turn up there for years, spinning at several thousand kilometers per hour.

They can potentially cause colossal damage.

The United States is therefore ending these tests and calling on other countries to do the same.

These are India, China and Russia, the three others to have this technology.

Moscow had also carried out the last test to date last November.

The resulting tens of thousands of debris had even forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to seek shelter in the event of a collision. 

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It remains to be seen whether the American decision will serve as an example since some are already pointing to the hypocrisy of the United States in this matter.

The country has indeed conducted many Asat tests in the past, the last in 2008, and had until then always strongly spoken out against their ban. 

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