MOSCOW — Russia’s army acknowledged on Tuesday that it had performed a take a look at of an antisatellite weapon that obliterated a goal in orbit, sending a huge cloud of particles zipping round Earth and forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to hunt shelter.
The announcement adopted a day of silence in Moscow concerning the subtle weapon take a look at, coming amid already heightened army tensions between the United States and Russia.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Russian member of Parliament had denied any take a look at passed off, although a number of the fragments had loomed close to sufficient to the International Space Station that astronauts closed hatches and took shelter.
The Russian weapon, recognized in Russian information stories as probably an S-500 Prometey missile, blew up a long-defunct Soviet sign intelligence satellite tv for pc that had been launched in 1982 and was orbiting silently for years.
The blast created greater than 1,500 items of trackable particles and is more likely to ultimately generate a whole bunch of hundreds of smaller items, in keeping with the U.S. State Department, which was sharply essential of the take a look at for posing risks to satellites and crewed spaceships.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, in a assertion on Monday, sharply criticized the take a look at as “recklessly conducted.”
The U.S. Space Command mentioned the particles is more likely to stay in orbit for years and even a long time, including to a huge array of area junk. Just a few days earlier than the Russian take a look at, the area station had to dodge debris from a 2007 Chinese weapons take a look at.
“The Ministry of Defense of Russia successfully completed a test,” the ministry said in a assertion on Tuesday, in the nation’s first official acknowledgment. “The result was the destruction of an inactive Russian space apparatus.”
The particles cloud, the assertion mentioned, posed no threat to the International Space Station, different crewed spaceships or satellites.
Earlier on Tuesday, the deputy chairman of the Russian Parliament’s committee on protection, Yuri Shvytkin, had denied any take a look at passed off. “The fantasy of the State Department knows no bounds,” Mr. Shvytkin said, the Interfax information company reported. “Russia is not militarizing space.”
There was no rationalization for the contradictory statements or indication that Russia’s two cosmonauts on the International Space Station had acquired advance warning.
Along with two Americans and one German astronaut on board, the Russians took shelter for about two hours on spaceships docked to the station that might return them to earth if wanted.
NASA’s administrator, Bill Nelson, mentioned he had “no reason to believe” Russia’s human spaceflight program was conscious of the army missile take a look at. He famous the particles cloud additionally endangered three astronauts now aboard China’s Tiangong space station.
The worldwide fallout from the episode unfold Tuesday. In a post on Twitter, Florence Parly, France’s protection minister, didn’t point out Russia by identify however criticized “vandals” for polluting outer area.
“Space is a common good, that of the 7.7 billion inhabitants of our planet,” she mentioned. “Space vandals have an overwhelming responsibility by generating debris that pollutes and puts our astronauts and satellites in danger.”
Ms. Parly mentioned the European Union was cleareyed that area was a new “territory for conflict.”
Managing area junk has been a looming drawback for years. The Russian take a look at added to an already huge swarm of junk in orbit, together with outdated satellites, components of rockets and particles from earlier antisatellite weapon exams by China, India and the United States.
