RUSSIA:Russian space experts have accused the US of disabling a satellite during experimental tests last month
According to one unnamed space official quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency, communications were lost with the Russian satellite on March 9th, just as the US was carrying out missile experiments.
A second Russian specialist, also unnamed, gave a different rationale, arguing it was affected by ground-based tests to knock out spacecraft through wave experiments.
The Russians insist they can find no other explanation for the sudden loss of communication with the probe, named Tatiana, which was launched two years ago and had been functioning normally until the abrupt halt of transmissions.
They believe it was somehow disabled by the US experiments, since it has not broken up in space. Tatiana was described as a form of weather satellite, which had been analysing space radiation levels for Moscow State University and a military academy in St Petersburg.
There was an immediate and swift denial from various US military and space agencies of any role. The US strategic command and the Pentagon both rejected accusations of some form of physical strike by an American weapon on Tatiana.
The US does admit it launched a ballistic missile, but insists this was two days earlier, on March 7th, and that it splashed down in the Pacific without hitting anything.
The Russians did not accuse the US of deliberately attacking their probe, but believe it fell victim to the US tests from either the ground or space.
The timing of the claim comes shortly after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attacked a US proposal to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe.
He dismissed US assurances it was to protect Europe from incoming Iranian missiles, saying it was instead intended to test Russia's nerve.
Mr Putin followed a long list of Russian diplomats and generals who warned that the US was going to return Europe to cold war tensions if it upset the current balance of power between Nato and Russia. Some suggested that if the sites are based in Poland and the Czech Republic, these would become new Russian targets.
The concept of space conflict between superpowers no longer rests in the realms of science fiction or James Bond films.
Two months ago, the Chinese military revealed it had deliberately destroyed one of its own weather satellites during tests with a ballistic missile.
The announcement was at first greeted with derision in Moscow, which quickly turned to shock at the pace of Chinese technical advancement.
In Washington, the Chinese satellite-killing experiment was condemned as unnecessary. Space experts criticised the Chinese for needlessly putting 40,000 shards of tiny shrapnel in orbit, which could damage any other satellite or spacecraft the debris collides with.