Source: Xinhua

02-13-2009 10:54

Special Report:   Tech Max

MOSCOW, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The collision between two satellites of the United States and Russia on Tuesday would be the result of a failure on the part of the U.S. Iridium satellite, an official of the Russian Defense Ministry told Xinhua Thursday.

A computer-generated image released by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows trackable objects in Low Earth Orbit (LOE).  US and Russian satellites crashed in space, the first known major accident of its kind, creating two clouds of debris  that were being tracked by experts.(Xinhua/AFP Photo)

 

The orbit about 800 km above the Earth is called the "junk orbit," where defunct satellites from different countries gather together, said Yuri Ivanov, an official of the defense ministry's press office.

He presumed that the incident might be caused by the U.S. satellite's mistaken crash into the "junk orbit."

The Interfax news agency quoted space technology expert Igor Lisov as saying that the Iridium Satellite LLC would have prevented the incident.

The U.S. side might not know or ignore the possibility that the two satellites would smash into each other, he said.

Earlier in the day, a spokeswoman for the Maryland-based Iridium Satellite LLC told Xinhua that Tuesday's collision is not the result of a failure on the part of the Iridium satellite or its technology.