India's ASAT Test

 Mission Shakti was the first anti-satellite missile test achieved on March 27, 2019 from the Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam Island launch complex. The achievement by India's DRDO and ISRO makes it 4th country to successfully launch and test ASAT after USA, Russia and China. In 2016, the Indian Government approved a program codenamed Project XSV-1 for an ASAT test. PDV (Prithvi Defense Vehicle) Mk-II anti-ballistic missile was used to destroy the target. The satellite target was at an altitude of about 168 miles (270 km). The satellite was travelling at 18000 mph, created 60 pieces of debris. The destroyed probe was suspected as Microsat-R at LEO, medium sized military imaging satellite. Indian ASAT test was similar to Operation burnt Frost (2008) conducted by NASA. Outer Space Treaty (1967) bans use of mass destruction in orbit but doesn't explicitly ban missile technologies used for ASAT.


The test sparked concerns regarding the creation of space debris by USA and Europe. Irony is India still produces much less space junk than the top three polluters : Russia, USA and China, according to OPDO (optical Debris Program Office)  data. India made space debris rose from 117 (2018) to 163 (2019). Back in 2018, US had 4037 space debris followed by Russia (4035) and China (3524).

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