On-orbit Satellite Collision |
On-orbit Satellite Collision |
Feb 11 2009, 09:35 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Two satellites collide in orbit
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD Posted: February 11, 2009 In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a presumably defunct Russian Cosmos satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today. Iridium satellite An artist's concept of an Iridium satellite orbiting the Earth. Photo: Iridium The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it's not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites. "They collided at an altitude of 790 kilometers (491 miles) over northern Siberia Tuesday about noon Washington time," said Nicholas Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects." MORE..... http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0902/11iridium/ -------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Feb 12 2009, 01:52 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 593 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 279 |
There's a trillion cubic kilometres of space in LEO, up to 2000km. Less than ten thousand objects above 10cm across.
A miss is as good as a mile in vacuum: I'm utterly stunned that this could occur. Paint flakes and the like, impacting in lower orbits, yes - but to quote Harry Hill... "What are the chances of that happening?" |
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Feb 12 2009, 05:40 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1598 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
There's a trillion cubic kilometres of space in LEO, up to 2000km. Less than ten thousand objects above 10cm across. "What are the chances of that happening?" I'm curious, too. But if you expand your timescale to infinity, perhaps the chance is pretty close to one. What are the chances in any given year? Any given decade? And given the choice of orbits, is the space being considered really so large? |
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Feb 12 2009, 08:51 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 593 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 279 |
...But if you expand your timescale to infinity, perhaps the chance is pretty close to one. What are the chances in any given year? Any given decade? A decade is infinitesimally smaller than infinity. Which would suggest the chance is 0. As to "who's to blame", the answer, as Mr Newton would have to say, is "both of them". Andy |
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