Indian Satellite's Pieces Unlikely to Collide With ISS - Russian Space Agency

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The likelihood of a collision between pieces of a destroyed Indian satellite and the International Space Station (ISS) is not high but some of these parts are small and hard to track, Sergey Krikalev, director of manned spaceflight at Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos said in an interview with Sputnik on Thursday.

"Not all these pieces are possible to track. The reflectivity of the small ones is low, so, probably, it is impossible [to track them]. Though the likelihood of a collision is not high, it is better to keep them in mind for ensuring the station's safety", Krikalev said.

In late March, India successfully destroyed the Microsat-R satellite in low-Earth orbit as part of an anti-missile weapon test. Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised this as a benchmark event, stressing that the test has proven India's ability to safeguard its space assets.

NASA has meanwhile slammed the test, saying that it had created at least 50 pieces of debris, increasing the risk of the ISS colliding with debris by 44 percent.

READ MORE: India to Draft Space Doctrine After Successful Anti-Satellite Missile Test

India's neigbour, Pakistan, has also lashed out at the test, saying that it threatens regional security.

Moscow, for its part, has stated that anti-satellite tests conducted recently by India are largely the result of the deteriorating situation in the arms control sphere, caused by US actions