A privately owned U.S. communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite in the first such collision in space, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday.
The collision, which took place on Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved a spacecraft of privately owned Iridium Satellite LLC and a “non-operational” Russian communications satellite, said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Les Kodlick of the U.S. Strategic Command.
“We believe it’s the first time that two satellites have collided in orbit,” he said.
The command’s Joint Space Operations Center was tracking 500 to 600 new bits of debris, some as small as 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) across, in addition to the 18,000 or so other man-made objects it has catalogued in space, Kodlick said.
The collision occurred at roughly 780 kilometers (485 miles), an altitude used by satellites that monitor weather and carry telephone communications among other things, he said.
“It’s a very important orbit for a lot of satellites,” he said.
Uh-oh. This is something a lot of communications geeks have worried about for a long time. All those bits and pieces comprise a new and special danger to existing satellites.
And the PRIVATE sat has over 3000 USA gov sat phones USING it..LOL
Maybe the Earth will end up with metallic rings.
“defunct” RIGHT….
Wow, there was a defunct Russian satellite in LEO, Kosmos-2251, that wasn’t given a vector so as to burn up in the atmosphere when it’s life was over. That is interesting.
“Asked which satellite was at fault, Johnson said “they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don’t have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what’s coming in your direction.” (Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.) From Spaceflight Now.
Odd that U.S. Strategic Command and NASA had no idea which direction a defunct satellite was going. Did it just happen to automagically move it’s orbital path or was it really defunct?
somehow, the fact that it happened over Siberia
makes me raises an eyebrow..
-esp since its also used by the DoD/NSA…
maybe someone is being sent a message.. ;p
-s
Retaliate!
Sink one of their battleships!
Space Billiards. When can I guy the video game?
Broom please…
#1, the satellite is just one of over 60 satellites used by Iridium. While the loss of one may cause some outages in certain areas, it’s not a disaster that brings down the entire network. Besides, they’re going to replace it with one of their spares.
It may be just a matter of time before we are forced out of space by this sort of thing unless we can vaporize them with lasers or something and then you can only get the stuff you can detect.
Perhaps we should stick with low altitude dolphin friendly messenger pigeons…trade our Blackberrys in for a birdcage and a sack of peanuts(without the salmonella of course).
When China launched a sat, everyone laughed and said they are so far behind…maybe they’re playing catch up?
We track every lose bolt in low earth orbit…but they missed an entire defunct sat?
They should, at least, try to come up with better excuses!
Fish
a lot of them up there:
http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/3d/JTrack3D.html
c’mun l’s & g’s you’ve known it today ok yesterday
the truth which as u know sets u free is
THOSE F**G pads collided 7 to 8 years ago,
and NASA as always provided ANY explanation
bulsarah whyyyyyyyyyyyy
miss u jeejjagg-jokerfeicahh
#13, evolux,
Did you get enough Rush Limbaugh yesterday?
Pfff, the “defunct Russian satelite” line is BS.
This was the Chinese retaliation attack over that story about them faking their spacewalk.
What they need is a gigantic ball of rubber sticum, that the orbiting debris can get stuck in. And when the ball gets heavy enough, it will fall back to earth and burn up (we hope).
It’s a time of opportunity, I see it like the 70’s scifi sitcom Quark. We need a garbage man in space. Or at least a garbage robot. The industry of communications satellites has HUGE amounts of money tied up in hardware up there. If I had Bill Gates’s money I’d be getting busy.
#16,
Stuff in orbit develops a magnetic/electrostatic field over time, and that statment has super controverial bits in parts of the academic physics/astronomy community and will tend to clump its self together beyond the effects of gravity.
So while newtownian physics has the whole of lower earth orbit becoming a shooting gallery, it will eventually correct its self into a giant equatorial belt… Basically where the earths very substantial magnetic field influences it the least.
But don’t talk about it too much, for some reason that I dont understand, talking about why just about everything in the universe is oriented in those nicely formed planes is considered fringe in the astronomy community…
Greg, it’s because large field electromagnetism is a black, forbidden science in the US for some reason. One example I could give amongst many; we have a huge Telsa Coil on campus, four stories tall. It’s hidden behind a fence out in the woods in a large anonymous building, and they never publish anything in public. You can’t even get permission to go in and look at the thing, which is odd when you consider how most scientists are thrilled to show off the toys.
Ah, yes, the potential trigger for the cascade effect, something that has been predicted for quite some time.
http://newscientist.com/article/dn16584-satellite-collision-creates-copious-space-junk.html
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly… plus it’s unnecessary. – ed.]
Damn!
There is now one less Iridium Flare to see!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_flare
http://heavens-above.com/iridiumhelp.asp
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly… plus it’s unnecessary. – ed.]
One thing that I don’t understand is: these objects are tracked 24/7, and every time there’s a chance of a collision, evasive action is taken. Why in heavens couldn’t the Iridium sat be maneuvered out of the way?
Maybe its time to have missions to collect up space junk. Costly but possible.