Nightlife
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev, for RIA Novosti)...
Iridium-33 telecommunications satellite owned by U.S. company Iridium Satellite LLC and its defunct Russian equivalent, the Kosmos-2251 with a nuclear propulsion unit, collided over northern Siberia. This resulted in potentially hazardous space debris.At present, 30 Russian and seven U.S. spacecraft with nuclear systems onboard are orbiting the earth at 800-1,100-km altitudes, where similar collisions can take place. This makes up for about 40 "potential nuclear explosions."
If any of these satellites hits a fragment of space junk, it will slow down and eventually re-enter the atmosphere, spewing radiation above the Earth and on its surface.
Since the 1978 Kosmos-954 crash, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has always focused on the use of space-based nuclear reactors.
Its survey formed the basis for the UN General Assembly"s December 1992 resolution entitled "Principles
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