On-orbit Satellite Collision |
On-orbit Satellite Collision |
Feb 11 2009, 09:35 PM
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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 13 2009, 04:58 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 89 Joined: 27-August 05 From: Eccentric Mars orbit Member No.: 477 |
From the http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2009/index.html SeeSat-L list: Closest predicted approach of the two objects was 800m plus or minus whatever the error in a two-line element is. There are six predicted close approaches within 100m in the next five days. Closest one is something like 52m. http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/top10minrange.asp . Probably none of them will collide. One of the guys on SeeSat says that these two didn't even make the top 10 hazard list.
You pays your money and you takes your chance. Just because something bad happened doesn't mean that someone is at fault. If you are running Iridium, maybe you have a conjunction like this once every couple of days with one of your satellites. You have to maneuver to dodge, and maneuver again to get back into the proper slot. Do that enough and you will run out of gas a lot faster than just doing nothing. And, I highly recommend SeeSat. It is for Earth orbiters what UMSF is for the rovers. |
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