A collision between U.S. and Russian satellites in early February may have been a test of new U.S. technology to intercept and destroy satellites rather than an accident, a Russian military expert has said.
According to official reports, one of 66 satellites owned by Iridium, a U.S. telecoms company, and the Russian Cosmos-2251 satellite, launched in 1993 and believed to be defunct, collided on February 10 about 800 kilometers 500 miles above Siberia.
However, Maj. Gen. Ret. Leonid Shershnev, a former head of Russias military space intelligence, said in an interview published by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper on Tuesday that the U.S. satellite involved in the collision was used by the U.S. military as part of the “dual-purpose” Orbital Express research project, which began in 2007.
Interesting article but could it actually be disinformation intended to obscure the fact that this was a Russian search-and-destroy mission. Why would anyone use an Iridium bird? And which country would be more irked about a satellite over Siberia?
Found by Joe Carlson.
Wasn’t the Army’s Joint Expeditionary Digital Information (JEDI) program a big customer of Iridium a few years back?
I think the Russians listen to Noagenda or they have a hidden mic up Curry’s bum.
What ELSE are you going to do with Iridium satellites?
it’s irrational for any military person to make a statement like that. if they were going to test a kinetic kill system in its early stages, they would use a drone target. for low-earth orbit, they could (conceivably) send them up on the same vehicle, but in two separate stages. and, assuming the media dissemination is correct, a kinetic kill object would lose efficiency with a mass in the .5-.75 ton range. efficiency actually increases with a smaller, faster-moving projectile because energy imparted increases with the square of velocity, versus direct proportions with increased mass. in short, this is totally bogus.
the concerning thing is, though: why make incendiary comments like this when the US and Russia are generally on pretty good terms?
So, some of the Iridium birds were have more capabilities than we know, and the Russians got a whiff from a spy, and took it out. Didn’t I read this in a Clancy novel once?
Solution is simple but I don’t know who has relevant info (except Russian and US govt.). If either one was used to intentionally hit the other, it should have changed its orbit in other way than just the gravity. There are people (enthusiasts) who track satellites for fun. They could tell us about both satellites motions. Would be interesting to see if there is real data confirming either scenario. If both just moved as usual – no Curry-conspiracy.
This is BS, if anything he’s trying to cover the fact that the Russians purposely hit the US satellite. Even if the Iridium system does have military capabilities, its unlikely that the capability requires it to destroy itself in a kamikaze type mode of operation.
While there is a ton of space junk in orbit, I still think its suspect that these two birds hit. The Iridium team knows where every one of its birds are, and the US tracks 20,000 piece of space junk down to the size of a paint flake. The Iridium bird could have easily been moved slightly to avoid hitting the Russian bird. The most likely reason they hit was because the Russian bird was on a different trajectory than last observed by the US space junk tracking team. Now, I wonder how that happened….
Perhaps there is a third party at play here. So far these odd ‘collision’ incidents have affected all of the major nuclear powers on Earth; France and England had their nuclear subs collide, China had their lunar research satellite crash into the moon under strange circumstances, and Russia and the US had this satellite collision that has effectively stalled our respective space programs for a while. Is someone trying to send a message, something like “Don’t get uppity, remember who is really in control here.” And who would be trying to make such a point? Some sort of SPECTER like organization? Aliens worried about the sociopathic nuclear apes making trouble? I can’t say I know, but this is all very unlikely to be occurring at random.
We live in interesting times with Russia and China. The USA is planning on trusting Russia with supervising Iranian nuke salad. Last month a freight liner was sunk with Chinese nationals off the coast of Russia. Word on the side street is that it was a transporting something no one wants to talk about. I’m almost paranoid.
#9 Yes, if the rumors about the scuttled Chinese vessel are true, we all owe Russia a big hearty thank you. . . .
if you’re convinced it was actually an Iridium satellite, why are y’all even engaged in this discussion? Iridium was initially launched by Motorola with funding from a handful of private companies. they weren’t built with this kind of capability. generally, satellites only change their attitude (direction they’re pointing) and not their orbit. I doubt they even had the necessary prop to perform any significant change to their orbits and electrically powered devices are severely limited in that respect. if they did have any prop, it most likely wouldn’t have accomplished the delta v to move it a few kilometers away from another satellite (minimum safe distance).
Let’s see Iridium satellites were launched a decade ago, and now they are testing out this functionality?
Is today quote a Russian day?
Can we expect statements from their climate scientists about how bogus global warming is?
#11 considering Iridium says they will move a spare into place to replace the killed sat, i would suspect there was enough prop capability to move.
Check out this video, on a similar topic..
http://www.heritage.org/33-minutes/
“The most likely reason they hit was because the Russian bird was on a different trajectory than last observed by the US space junk tracking team. Now, I wonder how that happened…”
Depending upon whether or not either of the satellites had any remaining RCS fuel. As you imply, it could have been an “oops” by the Ruskies due to one of their own orbit mods.
“Perhaps there is a third party at play here. So far these odd ‘collision’ incidents have affected all of the major nuclear powers on Earth”
Tin foilish, but it would be possible for any nation with a high-powered laser to gradually push dead satellites into orbits that collide with others. However, that would be counterproductive for any nation planning to ever orbit a satellite of their own because the eventual cascade effect from a debris belt would lead to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_Syndrome
Baaaaad…
I know that suggestion was pure tin foil, but given so many billions to one occurrences happening in such a short time, I tend to look for explanations, and unlikely explanations often explain unlikely events.
The Kessler Chain Reaction also weighs on my mind at the moment. One wonders how accurate NASA’s stated reasons for delaying the Shuttle launch several times over the past few weeks are, or if the real reason is the enormous cloud of debris this ‘accident’ released into orbit.
Yeah right, they did the same thing when the Kursk sunk. They blamed that on a collision with a US sub. Until they couldn’t prove it at least, and they tried. Soviet style propaganda, all military screw-ups are actually due to treachery from the enemy, and not incompetency.
Well, my alternate hypothesis is that some sort of electromagnetic anomaly is causing all guidance systems to go awry, which no government care to admit to. . .
# 4 Brian said, in part:
“why make incendiary comments like this when the US and Russia are generally on pretty good terms?”
Because Putin wants to be Russia’s new Stalin for the 21st century. Also, he was seriously creeped out when Bush looked into his soul that time…
The US military is suspicious of the Russian satellite used, because it looked like a giant catchers mitt.
how about you all get off the conspiracy bandwagon and check out the response irridium gave after the US military space tracking service released a statement?
US military gave frequent warnings to irridium about the trajectory over the period of 3 weeks
irridium screwed the pooch by taking too long and having too much beurocracy in place to make any deviation to avoid a collision
case closed
@21
How about you give a source to your information in regards to the military or defense department making such a claim.
Like the one I have here.
“The U.S. Defense Department has said it did not predict the collision and Iridium has said it had no warning before the collision, which created two big clouds of debris, containing at least 500 to 600 identifiable pieces.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1244243120090213
Case not closed.
“…Russias military space intelligence…”?!?
another oxymoron like american military intelligence…
HAR!
It could be over Siberia so they could pick up the pieces….
great tips. I enjoyed reading this