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Russia loses contact with army satellites Reuters News Agency Moscow — Russia lost control of four military satellites overnight because of a fire at an important relay station, a senior military official said on Thursday. Military chiefs insisted however the overall satellite control system was working normally. “As a result of the fire, we do not have constant contact with four satellites,” Anatoly Perminov, commander of Russia's Space Forces, told state-run RTR television. “Restoring permanent contact with these satellites will technically be possible once the fire is extinguished.” “The entire satellite control system is working normally, including ones with a military designation,” he added. Some U.S. experts have warned recently that failures by Russia's ageing early-warning satellite system could lead Moscow to launch nuclear missiles in reaction to a false alarm. Starved since the collapse of the Soviet Union of the vast funds it once enjoyed, the Russian military keeps much ageing equipment in use well past its designed lifespan. Military specialist Alexander Golts told Reuters that 70 per cent of Russia's 100-130 military satellites are nearing the end of their operational life. Bureaucratic reorganizations have left the satellite network short of cash and bedevilled by a complicated chain of command, he said. Itar-Tass news agency quoted Defence Ministry officials as saying an electrical short circuit started the blaze at the relay station near Serpukhov, in the Kaluga region some 200 kilometres southwest of Moscow. Fire fighters were sent from the capital to help tackle the blaze with specialized foam-making equipment that Defence Ministry crews on the scene lacked. No one was injured and all secret documents, computer programs, weapons and equipment were rescued from the burning relay station, Mr. Perminov said. Geoffrey Forden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote last week that Russia's failing space-based early-warning systems posed a potential risk. “Russia no longer has the working fleet of early warning satellites that reassured its leaders that they were not under attack during the most recent false alert,” he said in an article posted on the Cato Institute Web site. He was referring to a 1995 incident in which Russia briefly mistook a scientific rocket launched from Norway for a U.S. nuclear missile. “With decaying satellites, the possibility exits that, if a false alert occurs again, Russia might launch its nuclear-tipped missiles,” he wrote. Russian officials dismissed the article as groundless. |
