Two satellites collide

[riddler 0]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212/ap_on_sc/satellite_collision

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Scientists are keeping a close eye on orbital debris created when two communications satellites — one American, the other Russian — smashed into each other hundreds of miles above the Earth.

NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the unprecedented crash and whether any other satellites or even the Hubble Space Telescope are threatened.

The collision, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday, was the first high-speed impact between two intact spacecraft, NASA officials said.

"We knew this was going to happen eventually," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the international space station and its three astronauts is low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course.

A spokesman for the Russian civilian space agency Roscosmos, Alexander Vorobyev, said on state-controlled Channel I television that "for the international space station, at this time and in the near future, there's no threat."

There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Houston space center, said the risk of damage from Tuesday's collision is greater for the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites, which are in higher orbit and nearer the debris field.

The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. The Russian satellite was out of control, Matney said.

The Iridium craft weighed 1,235 pounds, and the Russian craft nearly a ton. No one has any idea yet how many pieces were generated or how big they might be.

"Right now, they're definitely counting dozens," Matney said. "I would suspect that they'll be counting hundreds when the counting is done."

There have been four other cases in which space objects have collided accidentally in orbit, NASA said. But those were considered minor and involved parts of spent rockets or small satellites.

At the beginning of this year there were roughly 17,000 pieces of manmade debris orbiting Earth, Johnson said. The items, at least 4 inches in size, are being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, which is operated by the military. The network detected the two debris clouds created Tuesday.

Litter in orbit has increased in recent years, in part because of the deliberate breakups of old satellites. It's gotten so bad that orbital debris is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight, surpassing the dangers of liftoff and return to Earth. NASA is in regular touch with the Space Surveillance Network, to keep the space station a safe distance from any encroaching objects, and shuttles, too, when they're flying.

"The collisions are going to be becoming more and more important in the coming decades," Matney said.

Iridium Holdings LLC has a system of 65 active satellites that relay calls from portable phones that are about twice the size of a regular mobile phone. It has more than 300,000 subscribers. The U.S. Department of Defense is one of its largest customers.

The company said the loss of the satellite was causing brief, occasional outages in its service and that it expected to have the problem fixed by Friday.

Iridium also said it expected to replace the lost satellite with one of its eight in-orbit spares within 30 days.

"The Iridium constellation is healthy, and this event is not the result of a failure on the part of Iridium or its technology," the company said in a statement.

Initially launched by Motorola Inc. in the 1990s, Iridium plunged into bankruptcy in 1999. Private investors relaunched service in 2001.

Iridium satellites are unusual because their orbit is so low and they move so fast. Most communications satellites are in much higher orbits and don't move relative to each other, which means collisions are rare.

Iridium Holdings LLC, is owned by New York-based investment firm Greenhill & Co. through a subsidiary, GHL Acquisition Corp., which is listed on the American Stock Exchange.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[shropshire 0]

Crap flying by NASA

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Peej 0]

17000 pieces of debris? So now that we've completely fucked our planet we're just gonna dirty up space too, awesome.

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

[normiss 622]

NASA is in charge of out of control Russian spacecraft?


I think it's a conspiracy to cover up Iran taking out 2 super powers spy birds.

[Halfpastniner 0]

Looks like they buy into the "Big sky theory"

BASE 1384

[shropshire 0]

agh ... who crashed into who? .... I think it's a knock for knock insurance claim, if there were no witnesses.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[normiss 622]

lol!

You're outta control! NO! You're outta control!!!

[riddler 0]

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17000 pieces of debris? So now that we've completely fucked our planet we're just gonna dirty up space too, awesome.

Well, I posted this story because it's such a rare occurrence. In fact, it's the only one that I know of. There have been other collisions between satellites and debris, but I don't know of two full satellites ramming into each other.

LEO is much more of a problem with debris - the higher orbits are quite a bit less crowded. But even at LEO, a collision is rare. As my former boss at LMA used to say "there's a lot of space in space".

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Amazon 7]

Oh great more space litter... there was a big hubub... over the Chinese blowing up an orbiter with a weapon not so long ago... that really put a lot of crap into LEO.... eventually people are going to die because of that crap...

[AggieDave 6]

I don't think that the Soviet device was fully functioning or even responding to control inputs. So it was basically a big piece of space junk that they failed to remove or get its orbit to decay.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[riddler 0]

Correct - it failed two years after launch, so it was adrift. But it was still in one piece, so I would count it as full satellite collision.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[AggieDave 6]

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Correct - it failed two years after launch, so it was adrift. But it was still in one piece, so I would count it as full satellite collision.

Think about how bad this is going to get with the commercialization of space! I don't think its a bad thing, but I think it will eventually create a serious problem for us on the planet.

Like that scene in Wall-E where the scout ship leaves Earth to go back to the mother ship. It blows through a huge blanket of space crap still in orbit.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[riddler 0]

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the commercialization of space

People talk a lot about this, but I don't see commercialization as a problem for the foreseeable future. Sure, some people will want to go into space just to experience it, but there aren't many that can afford that.

Commercialization won't be a problem until we find something really good out there to exploit. Maybe gold in asteroids, or diamonds on the moon. Until then, it's just a novelty, and I don't see a whole lot of people doing it (unless the price gets down to $500).

Funny that you mention Wall-E. I haven't seen it yet, but I should be getting it in the mail from Netflix today

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[AggieDave 6]

I really enjoyed it! Then again, I really enjoy most Pixar movies. Google about Wall-E easter eggs and in other Pixar movies. The character has been in a number of old Pixar movies.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[JohnMitchell 14]

Just as people worry about recycling garbage and being "green" down here on planet Earth, aerospace engineers need to consider the effects of their designs in regard to space debris. Many things orbited over the years have panels, bolts, shields, straps, etc. that are shed in orbit. Designs or procedures can be changed to reduce this orbital garbage. Maybe each object orbited should have fuel allocated for de-orbiting it when it's lost its usefulness.

From LOE, the debris from this last collision would decay faster. From 500 miles up, it will take way, way longer.

[godfrog 2]

nothing like an armor peircing bolt moving at 17,000 miles per hour!

Experience is a difficult teacher, she gives you the test first and the lesson afterward

[wmw999 2,129]

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there's a lot of space in space

At one time, there was a lot of land for us to throw stuff away, and a lot of ocean for ships to jettison stuff.

Maybe it's better to think about and mitigate downstream effects when it's cheap, so that our kids or grandkids don't have to do so when it's expensive.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[hangdiver 1]

This is just the beginning of this type of event.

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"The chance the debris will collide with other spacecraft is still unclear. The International Space Station, which orbits at an altitude of some 350 kilometres, does not seem to be at immediate risk of colliding with the debris, Johnson says.

But the detritus could potentially hit a number of Earth observation, communication, and scientific satellites. If that happened, the satellite it struck could itself break up, creating ever more space junk in a cascade effect."

Great...

"Mans got to know his limitations"
Harry Callahan

[theonlyski 3]

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The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997

bout f*ing time they changed one of those out, call quality was really starting to suck!

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[stitch 0]

I opened this thread thinking, "2 rednecks musta been playing chicken with Plymouths."

"No cookies for you"- GFD
"I don't think I like the sound of that" ~ MB65
Don't be a "Racer Hater"

[MikeJD 0]

I hear NASA have now banned satellite hook turns.

[mrwrong 0]

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I hear NASA have now banned satellite hook turns.

“The sum of intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.” - George Bernard Shaw
He who dies with the most toys, wins.....
dudeist skydiver # 19515
Buy quality and cry once!

[CSpenceFLY 1]

I agree that alot of thought needs to go into this problem BUT Just wait till some politician gets the idea that WE need to clean up space. The dollar figure attached to this will make the stimulus package look like a 4 year old piggy bank.

[EXTremeWade 0]

OMG!!! Dirty Space!!! Oh No!! Hey, now that a democrat is on office, maybe he will fix it! Who the fuck cares!!! I would rather hear about global fucking warming from AL Gayness than this! The OP was good to go...then ofcourse we have to listen to the liberals here on this site...bad day!!!

[CSpenceFLY 1]

I hope your not refering to me as a liberal. I'm usually a non-violent person.