{"id":573150,"date":"2026-08-18T22:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T22:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/573150\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T22:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T22:38:10","slug":"wayne-mapp-says-russian-space-debris-likely-forced-us-air-force-antarctica-flight-to-return-to-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/573150\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Mapp says Russian space debris likely forced US Air Force Antarctica flight to return to NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis activity was notified to CAA NZ by the Russian Air Traffic Management Corporation, resulting in the issuance of a Notam advising pilots of the hazard,\u201d a spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Ryan Bridge TODAY, Mapp \u2013 who was the North Shore MP from 1996 to 2011 and the fifth National Government\u2019s first Defence Minister \u2013 said the material was \u201cbound to be either a re-entering satellite or space junk\u201d originating from Russia\u2019s space programme.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe C-17 Globemaster returned to Christchurch after receiving an official aviation notice warning Antarctic-bound aircraft of “potentially hazardous” space activity. Photo \/ Graham Sutherland<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the Russians contacted the CAA would indicate that it was their satellite, or perhaps just a bit of space junk that they were monitoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CAA issues their Notam and, obviously, the crew of the Globemaster decided not to take any risks, and that was pretty sensible, I would have thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mapp said countries typically direct their space debris into an isolated area of ocean in the deep South Pacific<\/a>, colloquially known as the world\u2019s \u201cspacecraft cemetery\u201d.<\/p>\n

Point Nemo lies between New Zealand and South America, more than 2500km from land, making it an ideal dumping ground for defunct space equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where they\u2019ve targeted, but frankly, sometimes they overshoot, and that was the risk here, I guess, because the route from Christchurch to the Antarctic is pretty much on the edge of that zone,\u201d Mapp said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t always work. You know, space junk has been found in New Zealand, often of Russian origin, even as far west as Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not a guaranteed science; it\u2019s an intent. Mostly it happens, but sometimes they overshoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis activity was notified to CAA NZ by the Russian Air Traffic Management Corporation, resulting in the issuance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15031,5811,68,31844,21453,42333,1403,142977,70,5760,679,2740,71,120,109403,6722,111,43,139,69,9527,1527,8105,8221,312,392,61,3040,3542,80],"class_list":["post-573150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abort","tag-admitted","tag-air","tag-aircraft","tag-antarctica","tag-debris","tag-defence","tag-essentially","tag-flight","tag-force","tag-forced","tag-former","tag-from","tag-likely","tag-mapp","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-programme","tag-return","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-says","tag-space","tag-to","tag-us","tag-wayne","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}