NASA is looking India’s destruction of a satellite final week a “terrible, terrible thing” and says the space particles created by the explosion ought to be thought of a risk to the International Space Station and the astronauts on board.
India intentionally destroyed one of its satellites with a missile final week, a transfer Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed as one which established India “as a space power.”
But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told employees on Monday that it posed an “unacceptable” risk to astronauts on board the ISS.
He mentioned the satellite shattered into items, many of them massive sufficient to pose a hazard to the space station however not massive sufficient to trace. It is unclear what number of items of particles had been created.
“What we are tracking right now, objects big enough to track — we’re talking about 10 cm (4 inches) or bigger —about 60 pieces have been tracked,” he mentioned.