The race to prevent satellite Armageddon

That talk was motivated by a Russian satellite called Cosmos-2553, which is thought to be secretly testing the necessary electronics some 2,000km above Earth’s surface. A nuclear detonation there would probably be too high to wreak any meaningful direct damage on the surface of Earth. But it could cause what Lieutenant-Colonel James McCue, an outgoing official with America’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency, calls a “satellite Armageddon”. Many of the nearby spacecraft tightly packed in lower orbits would be immediately fried; a greater number farther afield would slowly succumb to the radioactive aftermath. The blast would affect all countries’ satellites indiscriminately.