The world is of the verge of a space war after the United States thought Russia was showing “signs of aggression” high above Earth.
According to several sources, US-based Slingshot Aerospace officials were panicking after it spotted Russia moving one of its Luch satellites to within 60km of a one of the satellites put into orbit by an unnamed Western nation. The company tracks satellites in space using AI, and spotted the Luch-5X satellite coming dangerously close.
And it was seen as an act of “aggression”.
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General John Raymond, United States Space Force Chief of Space Operations said: "This test is further proof of Russia’s hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control proposals designed to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting their counter-space weapons programs.
“The United States is ready and committed to deterring aggression and defending the Nation, our allies and US interests from hostile acts in space.” It is unknown why Russia moves its tech in the way that it did, and it seems to still be there days later.
According to Slingshot's calculations, the satellite was performing a “parking manoeuvrer”, and seems set to stay where it now find itself.A spokesman said: “Slingshot’s object profiling algorithms identified multiple parking manoeuvrers.
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“The Slingshot Global Sensor Network has verified it's location and we are continuing to track this developing situation.”
The Luch-5X satellite are used mainly to provide positional data to Russia's space programme, but Russia being Russia, it is possible that the data it is now gathering is being used for other purposes. Audrey Schaffer, former director of space policy at the National Security Council said: “We predicted where we thought it would stop, and lo and behold, it did actually stop there.
“But nonetheless, what you’re seeing is behavior that could be considered unfriendly.” Russia calls the satellite in question an “inspector” satellite, and has issued no comment on the current issue.
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