11 ms·
India successfully shoots down satellite in space
- dajohnson89 7y agoI hope it was shot down in a manner that doesnt produce more space junk, which is already acknowledged as a serious problem!
- worldsayshi 7y agoYeah! I wondered how it's even possible to "shoot down" a satellite. More like smearing it out.
- z3phyr 7y agoIt should be possible to nudge it to an unstable orbit without smearing it, but it would require a lot of fuel for maneuvers.
- ygra 7y ago300 km altitude. Should re-enter fairly quickly, unlike the Chinese satellite that has been destroyed in 2007.
- yumraj 7y agoAccording to the FAQ put out by Gov of India [0] V. Does the test create space debris? The test was done in the lower atmosphere to ensure that there is no space debris. Whatever debris that is generated will decay and fall back onto the earth within weeks. [0] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/soon-after-pm-address-foreign-ministry-puts-out-faqs-on-mission-shakti-2013564 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/soon-after-pm-address-foreig...
- natch 7y agoUnless some pieces were boosted higher by the explosion. But I guess they are confident this could never happen.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoOrbits are periodic. If it is boosted up, it'll come back down. Orbital decay will still happen.
- lodi 7y agoWhen you boost an orbiting object in this manner there's only two possibilities for what can happen next: a) you give it enough energy to reach escape velocity, in which case there's no problem. b) you blow out the circular orbit into a long ellipse. The far end, apogee, can be very far out depending on how much energy you added, but the near end, perigee, is always at the same altitude as it was at the moment of impact. Therefore, as long as the satellite is "within" thin atmosphere at the moment of impact, the fragments will periodically pass through thin atmosphere as well. To properly boost yourself into a higher (circular) orbit you need to give yourself two kicks: one to raise your apogee, and then half an orbit later another to raise your perigee to match.
- natch 7y agoc) it collides with something and creates more debris problems before ultimately falling back into the atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be in a sustainable orbit to cause problems.
- abhinai 7y agoI wonder why the prime minister felt the need to announce this himself. If I remember correctly the Chinese premier did not announce their test.
- rishav_sharan 7y agoBecause the assembly polls didn't show bjp leading by as much as expected.
- rishav_sharan 7y agohttps://m.khaleejtimes.com/international/india/India-assembly-polls-Congress-starts-early-celebrations1-- https://m.khaleejtimes.com/international/india/India-assembl... Adding a link. Sorry about creating a new comment. Am on mobile
- bhargav 7y agoSo you think the entire exercise was carried out for BJP to pull ahead in elections? How much do you think Indian citizens care about this? Do you think it is enough to swing votes? Don't be too quick to find faults!
- sbmthakur 7y agoWell, I've heard people saying that everything from the Pulwama attack to Balakot airstrikes was orchestrated by BJP for electoral gains. So reading the grand parent wasn't surprising.
- timdiggerm 7y agoIt is definitely possible that the exercise was carried out independent of the election schedule, but Modi announcing it (instead of some lower official) is because of the elections, part of making every bit of possible patriotism count. Don't be too quick to overstate others' positions!
- shripadk 7y ago
- wyred 7y agoJust wondering, is it possible to use a big enough mirror and just reflect sunlight to do the same thing? Though this only means satellites can only be destroyed during daytime.
- indy7500 7y agoSounds unlikely lol but why would you want to? Definitely more expensive than missile
- evilduck 7y agoMissiles are easily tracked. Your opposition will know who, how, when and where someone was taking action against them. Light pressure could just subtly push a satellite off course as it passes overhead. They have finite propellant on board to correct for it. That said, I don't think a big mirror reflecting the sun is all that practical when a big ass laser would do the same job and be easier to manufacture and operate.
- Pharmakon 7y agoLet me get this straight, a missile is easy to track, but a giant mirror reflecting a load of sunlight that would have to be LoS to the satellite wouldn’t be? Not to mention that bombing the mirror would be a lot easier than shooting down the missile...
- jdsully 7y agoA missile can be viewed from many angles. A beam of light is (mostly) only visible by whoever its aimed at. Light dispersion not withstanding. Sunlight is quite bright and will mask a lot of the scattered light as well.
- Pharmakon 7y agoThe effects of a beam of light strong enough to push a satellite into a rapidly decaying orbit would bloom like mad through the atmosphere, and create very detectable thermal effects. It would be detectable in a number of wavelengths for a staggering distance. You’d also have to impact the satellite so strongly that its station-keeping thrusters would be insufficient, while account for losses through the atmosphere. It would have to work quickly enough that the satellite wouldn’t fly out of range, and your weapon would only work during the day in clear weather. It really makes no sense at all.
- Cactus2018 7y agoThe first minutes of WWIII will see a multitude of satellites shot 'down', followed by cascading space debris beget space junk. ""In the journey of every nation there are moments that bring utmost pride and have a historic impact on generations to come. One such moment is today,"" U+1F644
- 0xfaded 7y agoU+1F644 is the codepoint for "Face with eyes looking up to sky watching cascading space debris mark the beginning of WW3", in case anyone was wondering. https://codepoints.net/U+1F644 https://codepoints.net/U+1F644
- azeirah 7y agoI was really hoping for a "418 - I'm a teapot" kind of situation here :(
- devoply 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnnaFCWwk3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnnaFCWwk3I
- dugluak 7y agoWell done DRDO and well publicized by the PM office.
- mobilemidget 7y agoIs there any video/photo footage of this? We can see space-x events from 32 different angles and audio of everything happening, I kind of assume you would record these events too?
- z3phyr 7y agoIts a weapons program. They won't release missile footage publicly.
- SEJeff 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome :(
- foxyv 7y agoIn cases where the satellite is orbiting low, Kessler shouldn't be a problem. In this case the satellite was at 300km and the pieces would decay in less than a year. Even if pieces were pushed into a higher orbit by the explosion, they would still dip down to 300km periodically and decay just a little longer. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay#/media/File:Altitude_of_Tiangong-1.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay#/media/File:Alti...
- SEJeff 7y agoAh that is great to know. I believe the Chinese asat test was around 500 or so miles and it caused a real mess of debris.
- adictator 7y agoShooting a satellite in space is many many times more difficult than shooting a bullet with another bullet. It's not just because space is vast, but also because satellites move at about 35000 kmph & you need to factor for the trajectory, gravitation forces etc.
- stunt 7y agoSuch a huge step toward more peace in the world. What do you expect when world major democracy advocates are also the world major weapon sellers. I don't think there is any technological glory on destroying a satellite that deserves such a public announcement. Perhaps it is far less complicated than putting a satellite into space which is what India was already good at it.
- vtbprog 7y ago>>I don't think there is any technological glory on destroying a satellite We are talking about the capability to track and destroy a live satellite in space in under a span of 3 minutes with precision. There is a significant amount of technology involved here right from the types of propellants, precise navigation controls to steer rock in a specific direction...all of which has been developed indigenously. This technology can be easily used in other space programs for civilian applications. Not sure on what basis you are considering this as not being technologically significant.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- techie128 7y agoThis is critical for the geopolitical stability of the region. Pakistan, China have traditionally assumed that India lacks the political will as well as the technological capacity to build advanced weapons such as these. This will be a big deterrence and help bring it peace to the region. I would not be surprised if India announces ICBMs in the next 5 years. A country that can place 100s of satellites in space as well as place geostationary satellites, has the necessary rocket technology to build an ICBM. Just because they don't talk about it, doesn't mean they can't do it. I think India is in the midst of adopting an active deterrence policy. Being passive hasn't yielded good results.
- shripadk 7y agoIndia already has ICBMs. Read about Agni-V here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-V
- nashadelic 7y agoStrangely, I'm not seeing a wide enough condemnation of this. Another country is building destructive weapons, bringing down LEOs; how is this a good thing? All the while the region suffers from chronic poverty, poor access to clean water and basic services. Sending a science mission to space is great and rightly lauded, this is wasteful and energies spent better elsewhere.
- FreedomToCreate 7y agoAdvancing your countries technological capability and dealing with one of the largest populations living in poverty are two separate endeavors. Expecting a country to abandon growth in one sector to improve another is not really sensible. Both challenges are being tackled simultaneously. The US conducted Apollo and the Mars missions, spending billions while people in Skid Row or Detroit live in 3rd world level poverty.
- gnarmis 7y agoThis is a common argument (bordering on memetic and cached) and well, the budget for ISRO is about 170M USD, rounding up and considering steady increases lately. That 1:9 compared to recent outlay for just healthcare in the budget, after some basic googling. And strategically, India’s historically wanted increased self-sufficiency after the colonial era, and you need deterrence and military power to protect your own interests. So, it seems to just follow from basic needs and doesn’t seem to be out of whack. ISRO handles a ton of commercial launches too, and space industry is growing more and more — makes economic sense to continue to compete and iterate.
- sbmthakur 7y ago> Strangely, I'm not seeing a wide enough condemnation of this. Another country is building destructive weapons, bringing down LEOs; how is this a good thing? I've seen some criticism from certain individuals. However, I haven't read any condemnation from any Western government(as yet). I'm not sure but Western governments(or at least the US government) was probably taken into confidence either before the event or soon after the test. Considering that China already has this tech, it becomes paramount for India to have it. I think this is generally supported by the US(the government) as well. > All the while the region suffers from chronic poverty, poor access to clean water and basic services. Developing such such security apparatus doesn't mean we are ignoring poverty and other essential things. Both can be done simultaneously, just like the US did(explained by a sibling comment).
- walrus01 7y agoThe thing about shooting down another nation's satellites in a military conflict - your own satellites are equally as vulnerable. It's like starting a nuclear war. I certainly hope that among the nations and people who are developing these weapons, they have a number of game theory people who have thoroughly considered all of the ramifications of mutually assured destruction. In a major conflict, the US and Russia have a number of geostationary and MEO orbit military satellite communications systems which are outside of the reach of any LEO antisatellite weapons (capable of shooting down things up in up to approximately 550x550km circular orbits). On an Indian specific note, this threat has to be aimed only at whatever Pakistan might put into orbit. At present Pakistan has negligible ability to launch anything themselves, and very little actual Pakistani owned/manufactured/controlled satellites in low earth orbit. But who else can it possibly be considered a threat to? India is hopefully not foolish enough to think that they could get into a shooting war with China and come out ahead.
- droithomme 7y agoSatellites are sitting ducks. This feat is as admirable as kicking down a sandcastle on the beach. We need an international treaty banning this because the detritus produced in the form of hundreds of thousands of new fragments in orbit is one of the largest threats to future space development.
- bsmith 7y agoAren't little bits of debris in LEO going to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up pretty quickly, though? Not an expert here, but I think there is enough atmosphere left at standard LEO altitudes that thrusters are needed semi-regularly to keep these things in orbit. Granted, some debris may get launched into a weird elliptical orbit that takes them farther away from Earth for a bit, but then won't they come right back into the atmosphere at perigee and burn up?
- OneFamousGrouse 7y agoLook who didn't read the article.
- KorematsuFred 7y agoTo give a context to why this is important (even though technologically it is much easier to shoot a satellite). Western Nations often have this tendency of pass international laws with exceptions for themselves using ridiculous arguments. Such as nuclear proliferation treaties which allows existing nuclear powers to build more nuclear war heads but does not allow others to build even the first nuke. India's NSA Ajit Doval in 2011 had pointed out that this is going to happen to satellite sabotage as well. The existing players will gang up to ban such weapons while making exemptions for themselves. By publicly showing and acknowledging this capability India has ensured a seat at the table in future.
- vaguesortof 7y agoWe're already working on putting missiles and directed energy in space at my job in missile defense. They are 'defensive' missiles but the new ones they're putting up there will have offensive capabilities as well
- bobbydreamer 7y agoSo future will be like satellites will be loaded with missiles. Entire thing will look like mine field later.
- doe88 7y agoDoes the fact it was on low orbite would mitigate the risk of adding-up even more space debris to the current graveyard of debris? I remember it was a big concern/critique when China did its own attempt. I don't know enough about this test/space to tell if it's different this time.