[FPSPACE] Msnbc.com (Oberg): Russians Suggest US Killed ScienceSatellite

[Geoff Richards]

Acording to NK news, the Federal Space Agency issued a statement saying such
an attack was unlikely, but as it was a student satellite a more likely
scenario is that someone uplinked an incorrect command.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Oberg" <joberg at houston.rr.com>
To: <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 12:54 PM
Subject: [FPSPACE] Msnbc.com (Oberg): Russians Suggest US Killed
ScienceSatellite


> Msnbc.com (Oberg): Russians Suggest US Killed Science Satellite
>
>
>
> Satellite failure revives space weapons flap
>
> Russian report implies U.S. disabled spacecraft; Pentagon denies claim
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com:80/id/17952518/
>
> By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst // Special to MSNBC
>
> Updated: 5:33 p.m. CT April 4, 2007
>
>   Russian space experts are wondering whether the United States used an
> anti-satellite weapon last month to kill a small Russian research
> satellite, the Novosti news agency reported Wednesday.
>
>   The claim that the Pentagon intentionally crippled the satellite brought
> an almost immediate denial from U.S. military officials. "There's no way
> this is a credible story," U.S. Navy Capt. James Graybeal, spokesman for
> the U.S. Strategic Command, told MSNBC.com. "We've checked with everybody,
> we have talked to everyone."
>
>   The latest flap comes less than two months after China's surprising
> launch of a missile that hit one of its own retired satellites, blasting
> the spacecraft into thousands of shards of space junk and sparking an
> international outcry over anti-satellite weaponry. Last month's satellite
> failure did not involve an actual breakup of the spacecraft, according to
> the Novosti report. Nevertheless, Wednesday's claims revive an issue that
> has been a sore point between Washington and Moscow in the past.
>
>   The satellite in question is a small spacecraft built and launched for
> Moscow State University and St. Petersburg's Mozhaisky Space Military
> Academy in St. Petersburg to monitor space radiation. The probe, nicknamed
> Universitetsky or Tatiana, was launched as a piggyback payload along with
> a military satellite in January 2005 from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome,
> north of Moscow.
>
>
>
> A question of timing
>
>   The Russian space experts' speculation was based on the timing of the
> satellite's failure: They claimed that the satellite stopped functioning
> on March 7 and said the United States was conducting a military experiment
> at about the same time.
>
>   "According to some Russian experts, chances are high that the satellite
> fell victim to U.S. experiments in ray influence on spacecraft," Novosti
> reported.
>
>   In the late 1990s, the Pentagon performed some aiming tests of a
> powerful ground-based laser in New Mexico that successfully illuminated a
> U.S. spacecraft. The Soviet Union performed similar aiming experiments in
> the 1980s. However, the Pentagon has discontinued such laser tests.
>
>   Novosti quoted an unnamed source in the Russian rocket industry as
> saying that the satellite "could have been lost as a result of influence
> of some Earth-based technical means."
>
>   "One of such experiments, according to official information, was held in
> the U.S. shortly before our satellite stopped sending signals," the source
> was quoted as saying, without elaboration.
>
>   The source described how Universitetsky-Tatyana stopped sending signals
> suddenly: "Stable communication with the satellite was maintained until it
> left the sector of Russian ground-based assets' radio visibility," Novosti
> quoted the source as saying. "When it made a spin and returned to our zone
> about an hour later, its onboard equipment was already dead."
>
>   While it might be possible that this was caused by impact with a piece
> of space junk, the source didn't think it likely. Furthermore, a collision
> should have produced more debris, and apparently none was tracked.
>
>
>
> Debate over missile testing
>
>   Novosti talked with a second space expert who had a different
> explanation for the satellite's loss, but still blamed U.S. activity. "The
> sudden failure of the satellite could be connected with the missile launch
> from the U.S. territory on March 7," the agency quoted him as saying.
>
>   Graybeal said the U.S. Strategic Command, which absorbed the U.S. Space
> Command five years ago, had no record of any launch on March 7.
>
>   The only recorded test launch in that time frame was an exercise
> involving a short-range target missile, fired from an aircraft over the
> Pacific Ocean toward missile defense radars in the western United States.
> The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said that test, which concluded
> March 5, was not aimed at disabling any satellites.
>
>   "The missile used during the test followed a ballistic trajectory and
> splashed down into the Pacific Ocean," agency spokesman Rick Lehner told
> MSNBC.com. "It did not strike any objects along the way."
>
>   A high-level U.S, military source, now retired, was also skeptical about
> the Russian claims. He discussed the case in an e-mail exchange with
> MSNBC.com, on condition of anonymity.
>
>   "I have zero experience which would indicate that any U.S. entity would
> have done this intentionally at any level of classification." he wrote.
> "Inadvertent illuminations are possible and have occurred involving U.S.
> assets, public, private, and/or government, affecting government (and
> possibly commercial) satellites in the past."
>
>   Experience also has shown that satellites occasionally "die" suddenly
> from catastrophic breakdowns of power or communications systems, so it
> remains possible that there was no external influence on the
> Universitetsky-Tatiana's failure. The payload was built by the Polyot
> spacecraft plant in Omsk, a facility already noted for its aging workforce
> and underfunded production line in the years after the Soviet collapse.
>
>
>
> Photo: Moscow State U. The Universitetsky-Tatiana satellite, shown here
> before its launch in 2005, is a small spacecraft designed to monitor space
> weather.
>
>
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