Thomas Pesquet was hot.
Less than a week after his return from the International Space Station (ISS), his seven fellow astronauts (including two Russians) had to take shelter in their capsule moored to the platform, ready to evacuate it urgently.
In question: the firing by Russia of a direct missile on one of its inactive satellites, which projected some 1,500 traceable debris - and hundreds of thousands smaller - at 27,400 km / h in a low orbit crossing that of the ISS.
To those who saw "star wars" as a science fiction hypothesis, the episode shows that space has become a major strategic issue, both a battlefield and a new frontier of economic conquest.
Without the 4,000 satellites in service, all kinds of human activity would be instantly plunged into darkness, from everything from telecoms to GPS for transportation, from weather forecasts to military surveillance and espionage.
In the game of the great powers, each
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