ASPI’s Senior Analyst Dr Malcolm Davis says the cloud of space debris created by Russia’s destruction of the Kosmos 1408 with an anti-satellite weapon will “continue to grow” for years.
“The nature of orbital dynamics means that it will eventually expand across the entirety of that region in space, and it will be up there for decades,” he told Sky News Australia.
Dr Davis said when China destroyed one of their satellites in 2007 in a similar fashion to Russia, it had lasting results.
“That created a cloud of about 4,000 pieces of space debris, most of which is still in orbit today, so the same thing is going to happen here.
“You are going to see this long-term threat from this space debris that’s going to get worse over time.
“We need to find some way to ban these sorts of kinetic kill anti-satellite weapons.”
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