Russia has stated they will react with ‘military means’ if the proposed US-Czech anti ballistic missile system is deployed in the Czech Republic.

The USA made an initial agreement with the Czech Republic today over siting of the system which Russia believes will undermine their own balistic missile capabilities. The official US line is that the ABM system is designed solely for interception of launches from ‘rogue states’ (probably Middle Eastern states or perhaps specifically Iran).

A Russian foreign ministry statement said:

“we will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,”

Russia isn’t specifying but I’m hoping when they say they will respond with ‘military-technical methods’ they are implying they would use ‘Electronic Attack’ or radar jamming rather than rolling the Russian military machine into Prague. It seems clear that the Russian line is they will not be interested in any more diplomacy on the matter once an ABM system is deployed.

I don’t think it’s the greatest idea to antagonise Russia as they’re just about as strategically paranoid as everyone else who played a part in the cold war and are now left wondering exactly where they stand. Russia already offered to allow stationing of an ABM system on their own soil and this was turned down which undoubtedly worried them even more.

It’s certainly true that the system proposed for the Czech Republic would be far too small to block a Russian strategic launch in any meaningful way but Russia may be seeing this as the ‘thin end of the wedge’ in terms of US and future NATO plans for ABM systems.

In space, nobody can hear you crossing your legs.

The toilet systems on the International Space Station have been playing up for the last few days with the waste/gas seperator pump of the liquid waste handler failing to function. The toilet system is a Russian design built into the Zvezda core module. I’m unsure as to whether this toilet is a descendant of those fitted to the last century’s Salyut design of which Zvezda is a variant (DOS-8)

Seemingly the cosmonauts and astronaut could go for a “number 2″ on the ISS loo but would have to refrain from a “number 1″.

In the mean time, the Soyuz capsule systems have been used but they only have enough capacity for a few days use. The ultimate fallback would probably be the Apollo-era tried and tested ’sealy-bag’ method.

A NASA engineer is reported to be flying from Russia at the moment with a 16kg replacement pump in his hand luggage. On arrival at Kennedy Space Center, this pump will be taken directly to Space Shuttle Discovery which is already on the pad in preparation for lift-on on STS-124 to the ISS on Saturday.

In the mean time, unconfirmed reports suggest that curry may be off the menu.

According to FT.com, the Russian government have signed off on plans to increase fuel prices which would ultimately see the wholesale price of Russia’s natural gas product increase by 28 percent a year.

Russia’s Gazprom supplies the European Union with around 25% of it’s natural gas supplies.

BBC is carrying a video which shows a Georgian UAV being shot down by what appears to be a Russian Fighter aircraft, probably a Mig 29.

The video shows the UAV on a reconnaissance mission which, according to an official, is over Georgian territory. The UAV is reportedly unarmed and looks like a low-speed, probably piston-engined type.

The Georgian UAV operator was apparently warned by Georgian ground-based radar that the UAV was about to be intercepted and commanded the UAV’s camera toward the oncoming aircraft. We see the intercepting aircraft lining-up on the rear of the UAV, rolling wings-level and then firing an air-to-air missile which hits the UAV terminating the feed. An English “Master Caution” message is then presented on screen by the UAV command software.

Video here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7359514.stm

The Georgia seem to be rather upset with the Russia about this.

In a dispute over unpaid national debt, Russia has said it will reduce the supply of gas into Ukraine today.

Russia said that gas supplies to Europe which run through pipes crossing Ukraine would be unaffected but the Ukraine government threatened to cut supplies into Europe.

A worrying naive view from the UK national grid is that because we don’t get any of our gas directly from Ukraine, we would be okay. This seems to fly in the face of the logic that in the event of supply via Ukraine to Europe being cut, some of the UK supply would be diverted to support Europe.

Who’s idea was it not to have a strategic gas reserve eh?

…well disrupted at least.

The US Department of Defense today released a statement describing how the US Navy Triconderoga class Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG-70) fired a single, modified RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) from the Pacific ocean and hit the errant spy-satellite which, they say, was travelling at “over 17,000mph”. Arleigh-Burke class Aegis Guided Missile Destroyers USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) also took part in the operation as backups for USS Lake Erie.

It is reported that in another Pentagon statement, the speed of USA-193 was 22,783mph when shot at about 133 miles altitude (71 miles into ’space’ which officially begins at 62 miles in altitude). The DoD statement says that the debris from the satellite will mostly burn up within 24-48 hours and the rest within 40 days. However, a Professor Richard Crowther, a ’space debris expert’ with the STFC, was quoted in a BBC article stating that in his opinion, up to 25% of the satellite’s mass could still survive re-entry.

“USA-193″ as it is called by amateur satellite trackers or NROL-21 by it’s launch number, was believed to be a radar reconnaissance satellite launched in December 2006 but which failed to deploy into proper operation. The orbit of the satellite had been decaying ever since and the US government stated their reason for ‘destroying’ the satellite was to protect humans from the risks of the satellite’s near half-ton of hydrazine fuel stored on board. Unfortunately, US officials no cannot say whether the fuel tank was properly destroyed by the AEGIS missile and, as such, there could now be 450kg of hydrazine ice flying around the planet pending re-entry. If you happen to see a spacecraft fuel-tank lying around some time soon, don’t go near it.

Of course, Russia and China have immediately accused the USA of ASAT willy-waving. The fact that the interception and destruction occurred outside the atmosphere means that at least part of the Outerspace Treaty on weapon use in space has been violated. China is calling for more information about the operation as (presumably) they believe this to have been a deliberate ASAT technology test and it doesn’t help the USA’s position much that they decried China’s recent ASAT test. Russia is just out-and-out calling this an ABM test and you can see their point. If Aegis can hit an object flying at 17,000mph + at 133 miles, it can probably hit slower, lower ICBMs. Aegis is after all, by design, an Anti Ballistic-Missile defence system.

Ultimately, all is fair in international love and cold war

Update: Fixed km/miles mistake.

Update 16:49: I’ve just watched the intercept video and the press officer states that the intercept occurred at 153 nautical miles altitude. This is equivalent to the 133 ‘international’ standard miles that I mention.