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Space debris is increasingly becoming a hazard (symbol image)
Photo: Evgeniy Shkolenko / iStockphoto / Getty Images
No one knows exactly what Kosmos 2499 actually was.
Russia might solve the mystery, but the very launch of Kosmos-2499 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia was a big mystery.
Because officially only three satellites and some space debris were to be released during the mission into space in 2013.
But when the garbage suddenly started moving, intelligence services around the world became suspicious and continued to monitor the flying object.
The device, which is only 30 centimeters tall and orbits our planet in a significantly higher orbit than the International Space Station ISS, may have been a spy satellite.
Or an anti-satellite weapon that eliminates enemy reconnaissance satellites.
So it must be some kind of clandestine technology that intelligence agencies don't talk about.
Some experts thought it was possible that the satellite was being repaired or serviced.
But the fact that Moscow was keeping Kosmos 2499 a secret didn't make it likely.
Whether the mystery can still be solved is questionable.
The US has now announced the end of Kosmos 2499.
"18SDS has confirmed the breakup of Kosmos-2499," the US Space Force's 18th Space Defense Squadron reported on Twitter.
According to this, the secret satellite broke up on January 4th at an altitude of 1169 kilometers above the earth – under what circumstances it is unclear, it may have been decrepit.
At least 85 pieces of space debris from Kosmos 2499 are now floating around in orbit.
Such scrap is increasingly becoming a problem, even tiny particles could cause damage in collisions.
According to the European Space Agency ESA, thousands of tons of waste are circling our planet.
Depending on the altitude of the orbit, debris can remain in low-Earth orbit for up to centuries before burning up in the atmosphere.
They then become a threat to manned space programs and space stations, and also to other satellites.
At the end of 2021, Russia had tested an anti-satellite missile - probably of the A-235 PL-19 "Nudol" type - and shot down one of its disused satellites.
This created a cloud of debris made up of thousands of pieces that whirled through space.
Shortly after the satellite was destroyed, parts of the International Space Station ISS had to be evacuated.
The crew, which at the time included German astronaut Matthias Maurer, were told to retreat to a docked spacecraft.
The universe is also becoming more of a military focus and strategically more important.
In 2019, NATO declared space to be a new so-called
operational domain
.
The USA, Russia, China and Israel operate their own spy satellites, which regularly spy out the globe and send data to the operating states.
For years, the military has also been working on using space weapons to disable such enemy reconnaissance satellites.
The USA also tested with a disused satellite
Anti-satellite missiles can sometimes be launched from military jets.
The USA had developed such a rocket – the Vought ASM-135 could be launched from an F-15 jet.
The US military used it to destroy a disused satellite at an altitude of 555 kilometers in 1985.
However, the program was discontinued.
After all, Germany recently agreed not to test such weapons because their use harbors risks.
The United States made a similar commitment in April, attempting to launch an international initiative to ban such weapon developments.
Canada and New Zealand had joined.
joe