Within our category of Space Technology we like to tell the news of a sector in constant growth, although unfortunately weapons are an important part of it.
A few hours ago the US Space Command announced that it found evidence that Russia recently conducted an anti-satellite weapons test, although it did not destroy or damage any objects. SpaceCom claims that on July 15, the Russian satellite Kosmos 2543 deployed a new object in its own orbit, similar to an anti-satellite demonstration conducted a few years ago, in 2017.
Apparently Kosmos 2543 had been operating abnormally close to a US government satellite, and from there it launched another object close to the Russian target satellite. They say that does not make sense on an inspection satellite, and they believe it is a demonstration of anti-satellite weapons.
According to Russia, it is a satellite created to monitor its own satellites in orbit, supposedly to make sure that those satellites are working correctly, but they have not given explanations why they have soldered something near one of the United States.
There is nothing illegal about the inspection satellites, but they comment at MIT that Russia has a habit of placing its satellites very close to other objects in a way that suggests they are demonstrating potential weapons or trying to spy on the assets of other countries.
In 2017, a Russian satellite launched a high-speed projectile near another Russian satellite. At the time, the United States said it was a weapons demonstration.
With this fact, the importance of creating norms of behavior so that everyone is on the same page is now raised in terms of what is considered responsible activity in space and what is considered threatening. At the moment, not much has been written about space-based conflicts, it is an extremely new scenario for the world, with very few rules and agreements, but it seems that international norms of the type will have to be set: do not release strange things near me.
