{"id":4053,"date":"2021-11-21T11:32:20","date_gmt":"2021-11-21T16:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/?p=4053"},"modified":"2021-11-21T11:32:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T16:32:20","slug":"russian-satellite-explosion-causes-international-space-station-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/2021\/11\/21\/russian-satellite-explosion-causes-international-space-station-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Satellite Explosion Causes International Space Station Panic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Liam Brucker-Casey<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>International News Editor\/Assistant Editor-in-Chief<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On November 15th, Russia destroyed one of its own space satellites, whi<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ch led to condemnation by the United States. The destruction and subsequent debris led to fears of a threat to the International Space Station. Those on board the ISS took shelter in escape capsules as a precaution in case of a collision with the debris. US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2021\/11\/15\/us-space-debris-russia-satellites-522406\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">1500 pieces of debris<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the explosion were orbiting the Earth, and the ISS was passing through the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/russia-asat-test-space-debris-dangerous-irresponsible\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">debris field every 90 minutes<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Price criticized the Russian action as &#8220;dangerous&#8221; and &#8220;irresponsible&#8221; while also stressing that the explosion not only jeopardized astronauts from other countries<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/11\/15\/22782946\/russia-asat-test-satellite-international-space-station-debris\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0but also Russian lives<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, &#8220;I&#8217;m outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action&#8230;With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS but also their own cosmonauts.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The satellite, Kosmos 1408, was launched by the USSR<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-59307862\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the 1980s to aid radio surveillance<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4052\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4052\" style=\"width: 324px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4052\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"324\" height=\"182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1-1024x575.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1-768x431.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/files\/2021\/11\/ISSDebris1.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 324px) 100vw, 324px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4052\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><b>The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour is docked at the International Space Station on August 21st, 2021\u00a0<em>(Photo courtesy of NASA via Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/b><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Russian official had initially denied that any explosion had occurred. While later a different official acknowledged the test but was dismissive of concerns, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu described the blast as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-59169899\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">not posing a risk<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to those onboard the ISS. The Russian military stated the explosion was a planned activity to strengthen its capabilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The debris is expected to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/16\/world\/europe\/russia-antisatellite-missile-test.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">remain in orbit for years<\/span><\/a>,<span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> according to the US Space Command, this explosion, while especially outrageous considering the recklessness, is only another instance of dangers presented by space debris. Less than a week before the incident, the ISS was forced to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/10\/science\/china-debris-space-station.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">dodge a piece of debris<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> caused by a Chinese anti-satellite test in 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The explosion was also thought to jeopardize Chinese astronauts&#8217; safety<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the Country&#8217;s Tiangong Space Station.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Liam at liam.bruckercasey@student.shu.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On November 15th, Russia destroyed one of its own space satellites, which led to condemnation by the United States. The destruction and subsequent debris led to fears of a threat to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4531,"featured_media":4190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,867],"tags":[546,1035,1030,423,217,232],"class_list":["post-4053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news","tag-546","tag-international-space-station","tag-nasa","tag-november","tag-russia","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4189,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053\/revisions\/4189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}