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Junk from China missile test raises fear of satellite collision Dan Glaister An anti-satellite weapon test conducted by China last month has added
at least 800 pieces of junk to the Earth's orbit, fuelling concerns that
space debris has reached a critical mass. China launched an anti-satellite rocket on January 11, destroying an old weather satellite 537 miles above the Earth. Early estimates by scientists and US authorities tracking the debris suggested that between 500 and 800 pieces of debris measuring more than 10cm (4in) wide were created by the blast. Officially 647 pieces had been detected, but hundreds more were being tracked. Because the blast took place so far above the Earth's surface the debris is expected to remain in orbit for tens and perhaps thousands of years. Such tests are usually conducted at a lower altitude, but it is thought that the Chinese chose not to endanger the International Space Station orbiting 220 miles above the earth. The debris from the blast has spread since the explosion, and now ranges from 100 to 2,000 miles above the Earth. The new debris joins thousands of pieces of junk orbiting the Earth. It includes 3,100 spacecraft, two-thirds of them inactive, spent rocket stages, even a camera. The US air force reportedly monitors 14,000 pieces of space junk. "There's a lot of stuff up there in low-Earth orbit," TS Kelso, a space-surveillance analyst, told Space News. "While we can't tell them that 'five months from now, you're at risk for being hit,' it's not unreasonable to expect that it's going to affect a lot of stuff in orbit." Nicholas Johnson, Nasa's chief scientist for orbital debris, told the New York Times: "It's inevitable. A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation." Donald Kessler, a former head of Nasa's debris programme, and the man who gave his name to the Kessler syndrome - the notion that one day there will be so much space junk that it will be impossible to launch - told the paper that the Chinese test had merely hastened the inevitable. "If the Chinese didn't do the test, it would still happen," he said. "It just wouldn't happen as quickly." In April China is to host the annual meeting of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. Mr Kessler expected that Chinese officials might feel "some embarrassment". ---------------------------------------------------
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