Space Trackers Cause False Alert U.S. Told Australia That Booster Rocket Was A Russian Spacecraft Carrying Plutonium; Real Spacecraft Crashed Day Earlier

The U.S. Space Command on Sunday apparently mistook the upper stage of a booster rocket for a spacecraft carrying deadly plutonium, prompting what turned out to be an unnecessary scare for the Australian people.

On Sunday evening, President Clinton phoned Australian Prime Minister John Howard to inform him that the Space Command trackers were reporting that remnants of the crippled Russian spacecraft Mars ‘96 could crash in the vicinity of Canberra. Howard subsequently went on TV to warn his country of the potential disaster, saying he had mobilized the military and civil defense forces.

Howard came under criticism Monday after Australian newspapers reported that those emergency teams actually had put themselves on alert two hours ahead of the American president’s call - based on the same U.S. tracking information - but that Howard and other top officials had not been informed.

Clinton’s call reached the prime minister’s residence at 8:05 a.m. local time, “as Mr. Howard was finishing his breakfast of tea and toast” ignorant of the crisis, according to Australian newspaper reports.

In fact, the furor was a day too late, and the plutonium was already at the bottom of the ocean, Russian space officials said Monday. By the time President Clinton called the Australian prime minister, and White House press secretary Michael McCurry and White House National Security Council official Robert Bell made public statements, the plutonium-bearing spacecraft apparently already had been deep under water for a day.

The craft re-entered the atmosphere between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. Sunday Moscow time (or late Saturday in the United States), the Russians said at a Moscow briefing Monday.

The Russians said they had evidence that the spacecraft had separated from the booster rocket and briefly fired its own small rockets.

What the U.S. Space Command had been tracking toward Australia was the 10-ton fourth stage of the Proton rocket that had carried the six-ton Mars ‘96 spacecraft into orbit, the Russians said. It contained no plutonium.

James Oberg, an expert on the Russian space program, said the discrepancies are most likely the result of confusion as the Russians scrambled to sort out the limited data they had.

“This is another sad fallout to this disaster. If the Russians had any doubts (about what was being tracked), they should have shared it with the president rather than having him go off on a crusade to save Australia from plutonium.”