An interesting news article from the BBC, it is believed that the Chinese military did an anti-satellite weapons test against an old weather satellite of theirs and successfully destroyed it with a surface launched ballistic missile.
The report said that a Chinese Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite, launched in 1999, was destroyed by an anti-satellite system launched from or near China’s Xichang Space Centre on 11 January.
There is the usual outrage over the test, but I do wonder whether they would have said anything if it was the US who had done the same..
Update: China has confirmed that this test took place.
Do you believe this story? China denies having done so, even though they might gain a lot of ‘threat potential’ by confirming it.
One of articles about this ‘event’ stated:
Its [China’s] foreign ministry appeared to be caught by surprise by the revelation of the test, in Aviation Week magazine, and its confirmation by the Pentagon.
The only ‘source’ to confirm this is the Pentagon, and I can’t imagine a less credible source to confirm stories about countries not being friends with the US.
//lc
the nat. geog. mag this month has a small art, about space junk. some 13,000 pieces .tracked and maped.the destruction of the satellite and the missile vech.has now created a million more pieces of junk. one paint chip is capable of pitting the glass of a shuttle. this act of environmental vandalism is totally indicative of chinese attitudes towards the impending climate /environment. it throws into question..was the piosoning of the rivers flowing into russia really an accident? can we trust the chinese word for anything? to bring them into line we must boycott their goods and halt their expansionist intentions.Bush ,the media and the corporate groups are missing the point as usual. If the space junk generated by this act starts to affect our satellites we could find ourselves blind as the climate changes. I find it amazing that no one is understanding this. Science is cause and effect. there are concequences…….. and chinese scientists and leaders are smart enough to know it.
Would we have known? Indeed, would Bush have known?
As a former sailor and navigator, I was accustomed to plotting our positions with allowances for tide, wind etc, but then came ‘satnav’, and everyone knew roughly where they were at any given time. Then Clinton lifted the secrecy barrier and everyone knew exactly where they were….. the same goes for road travellers nowadays… everyone drives by satelite…. until somebody blasts the little magic beasties out of the skies.
However, the bigger picture is more serious. Compare the difference between my landing in a farmyard because my Tom-Tom goes wrong and the affect of several ‘nucular’ (Bush-speak) weapons pointing who knows where?….
China has now confirmed that they did do this test and they did destroy a satellite.