The United States considers the behavior of the inspector satellite launched by Russia in October 2017 to be abnormal for the category of vehicles to which Moscow ranks it, said Ilem Poblete, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Verification of Agreements, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.).
“Its behavior in orbit was inconsistent with anything previously seen: from in-orbit inspection to situational orientation capabilities in space, including other actions by Russian inspection satellites. And we do not know exactly what it is, and there is no way to define it,”Poblete said at a conference on disarmament in Geneva.
She added that the United States has expressed concern over the years during which Russia has developed and deployed anti-satellite weapons.
Poblete said the United States is concerned that the satellite could do something contrary to the intentions of its owners, since such actions not only create uncertainty in other satellite operations, but also in the intentions of the owners and the people operating the satellites.
The Assistant Secretary of State emphasized that transparency and purity of intent are essential to maintaining trust and confidence in situations that may have very little time to respond.
Poblete added that recent actions by Russian satellites highlight critical flaws in the logic and language of the proposed treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in space and raise questions about the transparency of Russia's space operations and programs. According to the assistant secretary of state, what is happening shows that any agreement on the control of space weapons is currently unverifiable.
In conclusion, Poblete stressed that the conference participants must take concrete steps to strengthen the security, stability and resilience of outer space, and added that the draft treaty proposed by China and Russia cannot be considered a suitable mechanism to achieve this.
Inspector satellites are spacecraft that have the technical ability to maneuver in orbit and observe or otherwise interact with other satellites. In August 2017, the Ministry of Defense announced the launch of a maneuvering inspector satellite into orbit. The satellite inspector separated from the small spacecraft of the Russian Ministry of Defense to remotely study the state of satellites in orbit in October 2017.
Promotional video:
