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Whatever happens, this event marks a rare escalation for Washington due to military technology in space.
Until now, the possibility of using one satellite to attack another has been quite theoretical.
The United States, Russia, China and, since 2019, India, have the means to attack satellites launched from Earth. However, exploding satellites scatter a large amount of debris into orbit, so powerful countries avoid such attempts.
This week’s incident could be seen as a message from Washington, when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, decided to create a space force, a new type of armed force.
Space forces commander General Jay Raymond reiterated on Friday that “space is an area of war, just like air, land and sea.”
Object E
In November 2019, Russia launched space satellite 2542. A week later, the camera surprised observers with the launch of a smaller satellite, Space 2543, which could maneuver in orbit and monitor, verify, or spy on other satellites.
This small satellite approached the US intelligence satellite US-245 and then another Russian satellite. Orbits that began in orbit were closely monitored by Earth astronomers and U.S. military personnel.
July 15 at approximately 7 p.m. 50 min. In Greenwich, half an hour (10:50 a.m., Lithuanian time), the small satellite “Kosmos 2543”, which, according to the US Army, has an area of less than 1 square meter. m, it launched another object flying at a fairly high speed of about 200 m per second, said astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
Called “Object E” in the United States, the formation is still in orbit and does not appear to have obstructed anything. Its size, shape, and purpose remain puzzling, but that in no way diminishes the potential threat from this device.
Bullet
In orbit, satellites orbit at speeds of tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. The slightest contact with another object could pierce the satellite’s solar cells, damage or destroy the apparatus itself, depending on the nature of the collision.
According to the United States, in space the difference between a satellite and a weapon is only theoretical: whatever the true purpose of “object E” is, in fact it is a “projectile” and at the same time a “weapon”.
Christopher Ford, deputy chief of state security for international security and nonproliferation, said the object was equivalent to a “space bullet.”
“There is no concave wing,” said the official, referring to possible satellite collisions.
Moscow implicitly recognized it, accusing Washington and London that their “satellite inspector” and “satellite repairman” programs could be used as “anti-satellite weapons.”
The United States has raised military satellites capable of changing the trajectory of its movement, capable of releasing smaller aircraft.
However, it remains unclear whether the US aircraft will be able to launch high-speed “shells”, as a Russian satellite did, said Brian Weeden, a space security expert at the Washington-based Secure World Foundation.
“But they probably could, if they wanted to,” he told AFP.
High dependence on space technology
“Russia may be trying to send a strategic message about vulnerabilities in American systems,” Weeden said.
American intelligence satellites generally use state-of-the-art technology and we don’t develop them much, which makes them very expensive.
Russia is much less dependent on satellites than the United States, and its satellites are much cheaper, the expert said.
Space Force Commander Raymond echoed the position on Friday, saying that since the Gulf War in the 1990s, the entire U.S. military, from military aircraft to infantry units, has relied on space technology used to navigation, communications and intelligence.
“There is nothing we can do … that is not related to space at every step,” the general admitted.
The United States and Russia will have an opportunity next week to discuss these issues during direct talks in Vienna, which will be the first meeting between the two countries on space security since 2013.
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