The Federal Target Program (FTP) to counter the space threat can get a start in life. Russian experts from the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Roscosmos and TsNIIMASH have created a draft target program to counter space threats, including meteorites falling to Earth. According to Lydia Rykhlova, head of the astronomy department of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the program involves protecting the planet from asteroid hazards and space debris. The project contains proposals for the creation of new telescopes in Russia. According to Rykhlova, the project, designed for 10 years, has already been developed, approved by Roscosmos and is “on the table” of Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the Russian defense industry.
The project of the prepared target program is also designed to protect Russia from meteorites. On the morning of February 15, residents of a number of regions of the Urals became unwitting witnesses to an event of a planetary scale. Residents of Chelyabinsk and neighboring regions first saw a huge luminous ball in the sky, which then disintegrated into several parts. Later, only traces of smoke remained in the sky, which looked like a plume from a passing plane. A bright flash from the explosion was visible over the territory of the Chelyabinsk region, as well as over Yekaterinburg and Tyumen. Experts estimated the power of the air explosion at 300-500 kilotons, and the shock wave formed after the explosion caused damage to thousands of buildings, many of which have lost their glazing.
In Chelyabinsk alone, more than 1,200 people turned to doctors with cuts and bruises; by a lucky coincidence, this event was without casualties.
According to Rykhlova, the fall of meteorites can be predicted if Russian scientists receive more telescopes. At the present time, we cannot predict such situations, in particular, because there are currently almost no wide-angle and high-quality telescopes in Russia. The telescope installed at the Pulkovo Observatory functions on enthusiasm, absolutely outdated equipment is installed here, another telescope is being built in Irkutsk, but its construction is taking a very long time, Lydia Rykhlova noted.
According to Rykhlova, it is not enough just to find an asteroid, it needs to be studied. Small telescopes with special equipment can be engaged in the study, as there are still not enough of them in Russia. Our country occupies a very large territory in longitude, so we need at least 3 wide-angle telescopes and several smaller ones for monitoring. At the same time, a single center is needed to collect and process incoming information. That is why today we have 3 tasks in order to create a Russian system for countering space threats: monitoring and detection, the creation of a unified information and analytical center and the creation of a risk assessment system that will allow us to establish how dangerous the detected space object is for us.
The prepared document, which includes a detailed description of the components of this system, including space-based telescopes, has been in Roskosmos since 2012, where it has already been approved. However, the total project costs at the level of 58 billion rubles (almost 2 billion dollars) for 10 years in Roskosmos were considered prohibitively high. According to Rykhlova, the scientists were simply told that there is currently no such money. In turn, Andrei Ionin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, noted that he respects the position of Roscosmos, but it is not his task to decide whether to allocate funding or not. As we see today, meteorites pose a real threat to Russia and its citizens, while Roscosmos solves other problems and is not responsible for the safety of Russian citizens. In the case of Roskosmos, he had to go out with the received document to the government, if it was clear that his funds were not enough to implement such projects.
Currently, work on such systems is quite active in the United States, the EU and, possibly, in the PRC. No one currently wants to depend on someone else's information on dangerous space objects. In Russia, separate universities and observatories work in this direction, but they work in isolation and are divided into small programs. The situation is aggravated by the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country's best telescopes remained in places with the most transparent and clean air - in the mountains of Armenia and the republics of Central Asia.
Dmitry Rogozin last Friday tweeted about the need to develop a system to detect space objects dangerous to the Earth. At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister cited the example of the United States and Australia, where there are programs for the early detection of asteroid hazards. It is worth noting that Rogozin expressed a similar idea two years ago, when he was Russia's special envoy for missile defense (ABM), a system that is being created by the United States in Europe. At the time, Rogozin proposed redirecting missile defense efforts to asteroids.
Currently, the federal target program presented in Russia requires financing of 58 billion rubles, it is worth noting that this amount has already caused an ambiguous reaction in society and the press. In particular, today there are a lot of negative comments, for example, that 58 billion rubles are 12 Phobos-soils, or that the damage from the fall of the Chelyabinsk bolide is currently estimated at 1 billion rubles, and with the adoption of a new federal target the program, it will grow to 59 billion rubles. Lydia Rykhlova has already managed to respond to these claims, noting that at present in Russia there is an absolutely sick society: no one talks about cuts.
In an interview with Gazeta. Ru, Rykhlova noted that the development of the program began not yesterday, not after the meteorite fell on Chelyabinsk, but for quite some time. Work on it began in June 2010 after the joint RAS Council on Space and the Roscosmos Presidium. Then Russian scientists were told: "It is necessary to start creating a system to counter space threats." In the United States, a similar service has been operating since 1998, with its help they discover asteroids, including the famous 2012 DA14, which flew at the shortest distance from the Earth. At the same time, in Russia, all information about asteroids is taken from this American system, since we do not have our own.
Initially, the Russian FTP included only asteroid-cometary safety, but a year later, according to Rykhlova, a suggestion was made to finalize the program, referring to man-made space debris. The developed target program for countering space threats provides for the modernization of small (mirror diameter up to 60 cm) institute and university telescopes so that they become modern and can be used in these works. At the same time, it is also necessary to develop a number of wide-angle telescopes (the mirror diameter is about 2 m). The area of the entire sky is about 42 thousand square degrees. In order to monitor this entire area, Russia will need at least 3 telescopes, which will need to be located in different parts of the state, since the Russian Federation takes up a lot of space in longitude.
The most important thing today is observation. The size of the meteorite that fell in the Chelyabinsk region was about 15 meters. On the one hand, it is a small celestial body, but on the other, it is the size of a typical five-story building. One can only imagine the consequences of what happened if the meteorite had not exploded in the sky, but would have fallen on some of the cities. It is to prevent such cases in the future that observations are needed, not only to determine the trajectory of a celestial body, but also its composition. All meteorites are different, among them there are stone, ice, iron, etc. In order to establish this, spectral and photometric observations of celestial objects are necessary.
At the same time, one must take into account the fact that ground-based telescopes are limited in their capabilities: they are often hampered by the earth's atmosphere, they can follow the sky at night, plus it is necessary to take into account the illumination from modern large cities. Once the Pulkovo Observatory was far from Leningrad, today it is practically in the city and the starry sky is very poorly visible from Pulkovo. The situation is the same with other telescopes, primarily institute ones. That is why the program involves the launch of 1-2 space telescopes, so that they, being put into near-earth orbit, are looking for dangerous objects using spectral and photometric methods. All this requires 58 billion rubles. At the same time, this program will help to attract young people to science, improve the qualifications of existing Russian specialists.
Taking into account the fact that over the past 300 years, statistics have been kept quite well, near Chelyabinsk a meteorite fall for the first time in history led to massive injuries of people (until now there were 1-2 blows to a person without a fatal outcome, and as a result of the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, more than 1000 people). Therefore, spending such funds on astronomy, a warning system, tracking space bodies and warning people is justified.
Yes, we are not yet able to avert the space threat from the planet, but we can warn the population about the danger. If astronomers had notified people in time about the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, advised not to approach the windows after a bright flash, many would not have received bruises and cuts from broken glass and broken frames. Frames and windows would have suffered, but not people, and fewer injured would have been possible, so a space threat warning system must be put in place.
