The 1,234 satellites orbiting Earth

I stumbled across this graphic while news hounding this morning and thought I'd share it with ATS. Maybe some of this forums regulars could find it useful.


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What happens if those satellites happen to fall out of orbit???

a reply to: quercusrex

i wonder if there is a significance to that number or a cowinky dink.

funny it's 1 2 3 4

a reply to: quercusrex

Aren't there way more than "one-two-three-four" objects up there?

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

I wondered the same myself.

I also wonder how accurate that number is. Are there unknown (hidden) satellites out there ? I wouldn't think it would be possible for them to remain untracked.

originally posted by: McChillin
What happens if those satellites happen to fall out of orbit???

They usually burn up on reentry. But in all reality, just hope they burn up enough that something doesn't land on you.

I believe that there is a serious effort in developing a satellite retrieval system. As they are expensive, as well as the insurance claims if they do cause damage on reentry.

Really cool pic. I cant help but wonder when these satellites become defunct, and not fixable, what a disaster this could potentially create. With many being classified, and the bizarre nuclear thinking during the 1960's. I wouldnt doubt some of those satellites caring nuclear capabilities. Not to mention all the toxic chemicals they carry for fuel, and other processes. I remeber the satellite that had become unstable and was going to re-enter. It was a soviet sat, that was carrying some pretty harsh chemical, If i remember correctly they blew it up. Someone will need to be able to retrieve old sats, and either replace, or totally remove them, because they cant stay up there forever.

originally posted by: quercusrex
a reply to: hounddoghowlie

I wondered the same myself.

I also wonder how accurate that number is. Are there unknown (hidden) satellites out there ? I wouldn't think it would be possible for them to remain untracked.

Maybe just not displayed…

a reply to: intrptr

Interesting video. Kinda puts things in perspective and leaves me wondering how we could ever clean that mess up?

a reply to: intrptr

with all those Space Debris surrounding earth who needs chemtrails

There is definitely a lot of junk floating up there. But we get pummeled every day by asteroids.

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

You would think those satellites would be shredded by impacts.

a reply to: Glassbender777

It was a US satellite. One of the hydrazine tanks still had fuel but it hadn't reached a stable orbit on launch.

originally posted by: Glassbender777
Really cool pic. I cant help but wonder when these satellites become defunct, and not fixable, what a disaster this could potentially create. With many being classified, and the bizarre nuclear thinking during the 1960's. I wouldnt doubt some of those satellites caring nuclear capabilities. Not to mention all the toxic chemicals they carry for fuel, and other processes. I remeber the satellite that had become unstable and was going to re-enter. It was a soviet sat, that was carrying some pretty harsh chemical, If i remember correctly they blew it up. Someone will need to be able to retrieve old sats, and either replace, or totally remove them, because they cant stay up there forever.

All satellites have fault tolerant systems - they'll have two or three of everything - solar panels, power circuits, radiation hardened CPU's (there are multiple logic blocks that check each other, memory is checksummed). Ultimately,
they either get close to running out of the rocket fuel used to do orbit adjustments, or the technology just becomes out of date (analog vs digital). So those satellites end up having the last remaining fuel being used to put them in a parking orbit.

They might still be worth a bit in terms of rare earth elements, solar panels, and historical value.

a reply to: Zaphod58

So, Zaph, with you being the SME on flying thinga-ma-jigs how accurate is that # of 1,234?

a reply to: quercusrex

My SME is things with wings, but from what I've read it's pretty close when talking about active sats. Add in inactive sats and debris not even close.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
There is definitely a lot of junk floating up there. But we get pummeled every day by asteroids.

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

You would think those satellites would be shredded by impacts.

Space is really, really big. As a comparison, they can't find big jetliners on the Earths surface. Even though earths orbit "seems" cluttered (and it is), by traffic jam standards down here it is relatively "safe".

NASA

What grabbed my attention most about this graphic was the ratio of U.S. sats vs the rest of the countries. We out number them in all orbits it would seem.

a reply to: quercusrex

At least some of those are GPS. I forget the exact count but there are quite a few in the net.

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
There is definitely a lot of junk floating up there. But we get pummeled every day by asteroids.

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

You would think those satellites would be shredded by impacts.

Space is really, really big. As a comparison, they can't find big jetliners on the Earths surface. Even though earths orbit "seems" cluttered (and it is), by traffic jam standards down here it is relatively "safe".

NASA

Yeah I know.
Man made objects are pretty scattered but we are constantly getting sandblasted. That's the part that sprites me.

I once had the opportunity to discuss this with an European official that monitors Earth-orbiting things as part of his job. He mentioned that his agency receives regular updates for 2000-2500 objects from the U.S. However, using their own equipment they track almost twice that number. As mentioned by others, this number includes everything: active satellites, defunct ones, and orbiting debris.