India's Mission Shakti direct-ascent ASAT test against Microsat-R (2019)
What happened
On 27 March 2019 India destroyed its own Microsat-R satellite, a 740 kg spacecraft launched two months earlier, using a PDV Mark II interceptor. The target orbit was approximately 283 to 285 km, deliberately low so that fragments would decay quickly. NASA subsequently identified around 400 pieces of debris, of which about 60 were large enough to track at greater than 10 cm and 24 had apogees above the International Space Station's orbit. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called it a terrible thing to create an event sending debris to an apogee above the International Space Station, said the activity was not compatible with the future of human space flight, and stated that the risk to the ISS from small debris had risen by 44 per cent over a ten-day period. India announced the test on the day it was conducted.
The deliberate counter-example to the Fengyun-1C test in the same batch: the intercept altitude was chosen so fragments would re-enter quickly, and most did. It is also an incomplete counter-example, because 24 fragments still reached apogees above the International Space Station. NASA gave debris counts, 400 fragments identified and 60 of them trackable above 10 centimetres, but the figure that carried the operational effect was a risk estimate it made with the Combined Space Operations Center: a 44 per cent rise in small-debris impact risk to the International Space Station over ten days. That number is the output of a model running against a catalogue, which is a concrete instance of the general claim the Fengyun-1C record makes: the operational effect of a kinetic event reaches decision-makers through an information system, as a computed quantity. Attribution here was declaratory rather than deduced; India announced the test the same day.
Attack vector
Direct-ascent kinetic interceptor (PDV Mark II) launched from Earth against a satellite at approximately 283 km altitude.
Operational impact
Permanent loss of Microsat-R. Around 400 debris pieces, about 60 trackable, 24 with apogees above the International Space Station. NASA assessed the ISS small-debris collision risk as 44 per cent higher over a ten-day period.
Affected segments
space
Disclosed
2019-03-27
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
EX-0017.01 is defined as a missile launched from Earth to damage or destroy a satellite in orbit. The sources describe exactly that: a PDV Mark II interceptor against Microsat-R at approximately 283 km. The technique's observation that such attacks are easily attributed holds here to the point of being declaratory, since India announced the test the same day. The evidence type is derived rather than direct: the edge follows from the record's sources taken together against the technique's definition, and no verbatim excerpt of the cited account was read against it.
The satellite was permanently eliminated by physical damage, generating around 400 debris pieces. This is IMP-0005's central case, and it is the technique SPARTA's own bibliography associates with Mission Shakti.
The test demonstrated possession and use of direct-ascent kinetic capability, which is RD-0005.03's subject. The technique's accompanying observation that such actions often produce persistent hazardous debris is only partly borne out here, because the low intercept altitude caused most fragments to decay quickly while 24 still reached apogees above the International Space Station. That partial fit is the record's substantive point rather than a reason to weaken the edge.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
The debris was created, not used for concealment, and most of it decayed within weeks.
Rejected for the same reason as in the Fengyun-1C record, the technique requires the SDA pipeline to be the target, and more easily here, because the low intercept altitude shows the opposite intent: the test was designed to minimise the persistent catalogue burden.
The satellite was destroyed, not degraded.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
Tier 2: Named space-trade reporting of an on-the-record NASA Administrator statement. Authoritative on what Bridenstine said; it is not itself a NASA publication, which is the record's main sourcing weakness.
Tier 2: Named space-trade reporting published on 27 March 2019, the day of the test it describes, carrying the US military tracking account rather than the launching state's.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.