Lessons from the satellite crash

Ajay Lele

Ajay Lele is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The author of two books — ‘Bio-Weapons: The Genie in the Bottle’ and ‘Weather and Warfare’ -- also contributes regularly to various websites, newspapers and national and international journals.

More than 50 years after the first man-made satellite was sent up, two satellites collided in space on February 10, 2009, raising some crucial strategic and commercial issues.

The collision between a private US satellite and a defunct Russian military satellite 780km above Siberia not only destroyed both, but also scattered at least 500 to 600 pieces of debris, each with a diameter more than 10cm, which now pose a threat to other satellites and space craft.

The Russian communication satellite belonged to the famous Cosmos series. Russia had put many satellites in this series into orbit, mostly for military use. The 950 kg Cosmos 2251 was a military satellite launched in 1993, but stopped functioning two years later. At the moment, no country has the technology to either guide these satellites to a safe location or bring them back to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

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The 560 kg US communication satellite was launched in 1997 by Iridium. It was part of Iridium’s 66-satellite constellation mainly used for relaying calls from satellite phones. Iridium has more than 3,00,000 subscribers, including private clients and the US Department of Defence.  The users of this system possess handsets that are two-three times bigger than conventional mobile phones, and are not dependent on local cellular networks. Iridium announced on February 13 that it had completed a "service hole patch" to prevent service disruptions caused by the loss of the satellite.

The first man-made satellite was launched in 1957 by the erstwhile USSR. Since then, more than 6,000 satellites have been sent to space.

The collision raised several issues related to space security, both at the geopolitical and commercial levels. On the commercial front, the first reaction came from the stock market, where Iridium saw a limited downward trend in share prices. Today, this company is run on the money put in by many private parties. In the ’90s, this company was an economic failure when it was run by Motorola.

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The insurance companies have taken a serious note of this collision, and are likely to raise their premiums for insuring new satellites.

Currently, outer space is filled with an estimated 18,000 pieces of debris. But the recent collision still had an extremely low probability factor. While physical damage to other satellites in the orbit due to the debris floating around is not ruled out, many space scientists feel there is not much danger to any space system, at least in the near future.

Any major risk to the International Space Station (ISS), where three astronauts are currently living, is also being ruled out because the ISS is revolving at a height of around 440km above the Earth’s surface. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Earth observation satellites, which are at higher orbits, face a bigger risk.

Since this accident happened at higher altitude, the debris is likely to remain in space for many years. If the accident had occurred at a lower altitude, then over a period of time the debris would have entered the Earth’s atmosphere due to gravity and burn out.

Major space faring states have developed networks of tracking stations to monitor objects in the space. European space scientists were reportedly aware of these satellites passing very close to each other. This accident proves it is difficult to accurately predict such collisions.  A few agencies are even cataloguing the debris and their movements, though at times it is difficult to predict the behaviour of such objects because of gravity characteristics, solar radiation effects and lack of knowledge about the composition of atmosphere at those heights.

This actually means a huge asteroid could strike Earth without us having any prior warning about it.

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Space may be infinite, but the orbital altitude where the recent accident occurred is among the most crowded place in low Earth orbit, and is likely to get even more crowded as more countries launch their own satellites. Iran recently launched its satellite, and several other nations are likely to follow suit. Also, the dependence of militaries on space-based assets is expected to increase.

This accident clearly highlights the need for countries to develop a code of conduct for civil and military activities in outer space.

The debris problem is expected to increase in this century mainly because there is no globally acceptable space regime agenda. Analysts predict weaponisation of space becoming a reality in near future. Indications towards that are already available.

In January 2007, China conducted an anti-satellite test, which was followed by the US destroying its rogue satellite that had gone out of control. Both these acts have direct and indirect military connotations and have increased the amount of debris in the outer space.

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There is thus a crying need for the international community to come together and initiate various technological as well as political measures to avoid further pollution of space.

There is also a  need to develop satellite-hardening technologies. Major research and development projects need to be undertaken to devise techniques to manage dead satellites. It is also essential to develop legal structures to address situations arising out of such collisions,  and fix the responsibilities and financial liabilities for such damage.

More importantly, it is essential to develop a universally accepted space regime under the aegis of the United Nations to deal with situations in space.

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com.

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