Specialist: an exploding satellite USA will not threaten the ISS for another 15 years

The debris resulting from the destruction in orbit of the American satellite DMSP-F13, will not endanger the flight of the International space station (ISS) approximately 15 years, told RIA Novosti specialist private Russian space company “Dauria aerospace” (Dauria Aerospace) Vitaly Egorov.

Satellite DMSP-F13 was launched into space in 1995 in the interests of the U.S. air force and worked on a sun-synchronous polar orbit with an >

“Fly formed as a result of the incident, the fragments will be long - up to 50 years. However, in the next 15 years threats to manned space program and the ISS flight from them will not, therefore, development of the script of the film “gravity” is not expected. Later, in 20-30 years, when these fragments, and the fragments of the Chinese satellite will go down below, problems in orbit of the ISS will be, and they will need to solve,” said Egorov.

According to the expert, was not an explosion, and the decay of the satellite.

“The fact that the explosion would be formed thousands of fragments, and here is just 43 splinter. So could be both external cause - for example, a collision to a fragment of space debris, or internal: the collapse of the fuel tank or battery,” concluded Smith.