How Russia’s anti-satellite test could threaten near-Earth space for years

It wasn’t exactly like the scenario in “Gravity”, but it came uncomfortably close. On Monday, astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station climbed into their Crew Dragon and Soyuz spacecraft and waited for hours, ready to return to Earth at a moment's notice.

The reason? Sometime late Friday night, the Russian military used an anti-satellite missile to destroy an aging Russian satellite orbiting, creating a debris field of more than 1,500 metal chunks larger than a softball, whirling around the Earth at 15,000 miles per hour.

“The orbit crosses that of the International Space Station every 90 minutes,” Brian Weeden, director of planning at the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, which promotes the peaceful use of outer space, tells Inverse.

Thankfully, the ISS was not impacted, and the crew appear to be safe for the short term. But the mess is going to stick around — and we’re not just talking about the geopolitics.