The US is closely monitoring Chinese activities that potentially threaten US assets in space as debris rapidly accumulates in low Earth orbit, the head of US Space Force said yesterday.
US Space Command Commander James Dickinson cheered the overwhelming passage in the UN of a resolution that countries not conduct direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) tests that create vast fields of space debris, which endanger satellites and space stations.
Of the four countries that have conducted such ASAT tests, the US was the only one that voted in favor, while China and Russia voted no and India abstained.
Photo: Reuters
“We can’t continue to contribute to the debris that we find in the space domain,” Dickinson said in a telephone news conference.
Most of that debris lies in crucial low Earth orbit, which has become “congested, competitive and contested,” he said.
Even tiny shards of metal can pose a danger, and the number of objects is growing rampantly. The US Space Command is tracking more than 48,000 in near Earth orbit, including satellites, telescopes, space stations and pieces of debris of all sizes, up from 25,000 just three years ago, Dickinson said.
China in 2003 became the third government to send an astronaut into orbit on its own after the former Soviet Union and the US. Its program has advanced steadily since.
The Chinese space program drew rare international criticism after it conducted an unannounced test in 2007 in which it used a missile to blow up a defunct Chinese satellite, creating debris that continues to pose a hazard.
Beijing believes that “space is a very important piece to not only their economic or the global economic environment, but also the military environment, so we continue to watch that very closely as they continue to increase capabilities,” Dickinson said.
The secretive Chinese program is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, precluding it from participating in the International Space Station or engaging in most forms of cooperation with NASA.
Proceeding with little outside help, China last month launched the last of three modules for its own space station, which briefly hosted six Chinese astronauts in space during a turnover of the three-person crew. It also has rovers on the moon and Mars, and is planning a crewed lunar mission.
With US-China tensions high over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and technology, space is increasingly becoming a potential flash point.
The Pentagon last week released an annual China security report that warned Beijing would likely have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, and that it has provided no clarity on how it plans to use them.
China continues to “build capabilities that, really quite frankly, hold most of our assets at risk in the space domain,” Dickinson said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS