MOSCOW — Russia’s military acknowledged on Tuesday that it had conducted a test of an antisatellite weapon that obliterated a target in orbit, sending a vast cloud of debris zipping around Earth and forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to seek shelter. The announcement followed a day of silence in Moscow about the sophisticated weapon test, coming amid already heightened military tensions between the United States and Russia. Earlier on Tuesday, a Russian member of Parliament had denied any test took place, though some of the fragments had loomed near enough to the International Space Station that astronauts closed hatches and took shelter. The Russian weapon, identified in Russian news reports as possibly an S-500 Prometey missile, blew up a long-defunct Soviet signal intelligence satellite that had been launched in 1982 and was orbiting silently for years.

Source: International New York Times November 16, 2021 23:21 UTC