China's Missile Test Has the World's Attention

Jan 19, 2007 — -- When China launched an anti-satellite weapon to destroy one of its old weather satellites, it also launched an avalanche of speculation around the world. What is the ultimate goal of the Chinese?

The incident is believed to have happened around 5:28 p.m. EST, on Jan. 11, according to Craig Covault of Aviation Week & Space Technology. Covault broke the story late Thursday night, reporting that "the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA and other government organizations have a full court press under way to obtain data on the alleged test."

Covault reported the test is believed to have occurred as the weather satellite flew 520 miles above China's Sichuan province.

Blasting a satellite into bits is one way to get attention.

Covault said this test has significance on several levels. "Although more of a 'policy weapon' at this time, to me the test shows that the Chinese military can threaten the imaging reconnaissance satellites operated by the U.S., Japan, Russia, Israel and Europe," he tells ABC News.

What has many analysts worried are the 26,000 satellites orbiting the earth, from weather satellites to communications satellites. Even the International Space Station is a satellite, which orbits at about 220 miles, well within range of the Chinese anti-satellite weapon. Analysts also worry about the debris of a satellite's destruction.

Theresa Hitchens, with the Center for Defense Information, said knocking out a satellite like this creates about 300 to 800 pieces of debris the size of a baseball. Debris that size is big enough to do serious damage to the space station. A crack in the space station could mean loss of pressure. NASA's own tests have shown a tiny piece of debris could penetrate the space shuttle, and a hairline crack could have catastrophic results when the shuttle re-enters Earth's atmosphere.

Hitchens' concern is if there is some kind of "space shoot out" with two countries targeting the other's satellites, the fallout from debris could conceivably destroy satellites, or at least render their orbits unusable.