A collision between U.S. and Russian satellites in early February may have been a test of new U.S. technology to intercept and destroy satellites rather than an accident, a Russian military expert has said.
According to official reports, one of 66 satellites owned by Iridium, a U.S. telecoms company, and the Russian Cosmos-2251 satellite, launched in 1993 and believed to be defunct, collided on February 10 about 800 kilometers 500 miles above Siberia.
However, Maj. Gen. Ret. Leonid Shershnev, a former head of Russias military space intelligence, said in an interview published by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper on Tuesday that the U.S. satellite involved in the collision was used by the U.S. military as part of the “dual-purpose” Orbital Express research project, which began in 2007.
Interesting article but could it actually be disinformation intended to obscure the fact that this was a Russian search-and-destroy mission. Why would anyone use an Iridium bird? And which country would be more irked about a satellite over Siberia?
Found by Joe Carlson.
how about you all get off the conspiracy bandwagon and check out the response irridium gave after the US military space tracking service released a statement?
US military gave frequent warnings to irridium about the trajectory over the period of 3 weeks
irridium screwed the pooch by taking too long and having too much beurocracy in place to make any deviation to avoid a collision
case closed
@21
How about you give a source to your information in regards to the military or defense department making such a claim.
Like the one I have here.
“The U.S. Defense Department has said it did not predict the collision and Iridium has said it had no warning before the collision, which created two big clouds of debris, containing at least 500 to 600 identifiable pieces.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1244243120090213
Case not closed.
“…Russias military space intelligence…”?!?
another oxymoron like american military intelligence…
HAR!
It could be over Siberia so they could pick up the pieces….
great tips. I enjoyed reading this