Breaking News: Two Satellites Collide In Orbit

reply to post by ngchunter


Cheers NG,

Nice work finding out which Iridium and the dynamic map of cosmos 2251

I have some Cosmos 2251 passes starting in about 16 hours time which I am hoping to catch, but No Iridium 33 passes till March!

You know what grabs my attention about this article..

Presumed non-functioning Russian sat.

I read a ton of books, fiction and non fiction over the years which say that a satellite can be used as a kill vehicle of sorts against other satellites.

Now don't get me wrong. I know that there is ton's of derbies up there in orbit. Some say that the Gemini and Apollo boosters are still up there, quietly circling the planet.

BUT..imagine how big of a space low earth orbit really is. There is a lot of room to move out of the way of a threat. The ISS does it all the time as does the shuttle.

Is it really that far of a stretch that a couple of satellites, one a Russian bird, just happen to collide directly over Siberia??

I just wonder if this was an accident I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I can't really see any motive for doing this unless you were a 'terrorist'. Any nation with it's own satellites up there is risking damaging them by doing so.

Assuming it was the Russians, since it was their supposedly 'defunct' sat, I suppose it is possible that this could be a show of force from them, although if it could be proved that it was deliberate, it could be construed as an attack on the property of the West... I'm not sure they would want to push it that far, who knows though?!

IMO this was probably an accident (waiting to happen).

Perhaps there should be a "traffic control center" for orbiting spacecraft ? Sooner or later It's got to happen I guess!

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Yeah, the problem seems to be that with a lot of these old defunct satellites their orbital elements aren't always the most accurate. There's always a level of uncertainty when a possible collision is calculated. Perhaps Iridium was warned that their satellite was in danger, but that the calculations showed a near miss instead of a hit as the most likely possibility. If you're a terrorist, why strike an unimportant communications satellite when a backup is ready and waiting anyway? One is a coincidence, the place it was over when it occured isn't important. Even if you were trying to intentionally cause a collision you wouldn't need line of sight at the moment it occurs, you would have engineered the orbits to intersect at just the right moment well ahead of time - with satellites on orbital planes this different that's going to be a very small intersection, and the constraint on location is going to be very tightly dictated by the orbit of the target satellite. If this happened two or more times in quick succession, then you could say it has to be more than coincidence.

I may be wrong but isn't that ridiculously rare?

With all the space up there, what are the chances?

Doesn't seem like a conspiracy, just really odd and random frankly.

I was able to get an orbital element update for iridium-33 from here:
Orbitron:
Orbitron sat tracking software
screen shot:

I will be watching for any updates.
Good catch!

Peace

[edit on 11-2-2009 by Zeptepi]

[edit on 11-2-2009 by Zeptepi]

reply to post by ngchunter


Agreed.

Why strike an unimportant Iridium? I was thinking more in terms of the secondary damage that the debris itself caused, but yes, it doesn't make much sense to pick an unimportant satellite if that were the case.

Just exploring that possibility for the sake of ticking off all the possibilities, even if they are fairly remote.

With so many satellites/junk up there, it's a wonder that a major collision has not occurred before.

What does seem unusual is the height of the collision (788 km altitude), since the higher up you go, the greater the space between objects. Perhaps this is just a particularly busy 'altitude'?

Anyway, where's Zorgon? He must be slacking. I'm waiting for some pics of black/furry objects (AKA space-junk) on the ground

reply to post by Zeptepi


Thanks Zeptepi,

I was just about to ask if someone could point me to some tracking software!

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Glad to brother C.H.U.D.
I really don't think this was intentional. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Orbitron is very powerful (awesome) tracking software.

PS: Don't forget to send Sebastian a post card. That is all he asks from you in return for his
program.

Peace

reply to post by ngchunter

Unfortunately, I can't even view either of these until march due to the timing of their orbits. Anyone have a shot at seeing it sometime in the next couple days?

Yes, here is where Cosmos would be in appox. 12hours (2009-02-12-@13:52UTC)
As you know, this is based on the obital elements before the collision.
In this shot the sat (or debris ) will be heading north across North America.

DUCK!

Peace

Some interesting commentary from spacemart.com:

Both vehicles were traveling at about 16,800 MPH (26,800 KPH). Since they were in different orbital planes, their relative closing speed must have been at least several hundred miles per hour. One of Iridium's mobile telephony nodes instantly became a cloud of space junk, as did the Russian spacecraft.

The resulting debris field adds to the already vast quantity of space junk in low Earth orbit. Since the satellites collided at an altitude of 491 miles, this new debris will remain in orbit for decades, if not centuries.

To compound the situation the Iridium satellite was part of a constellation of over 66 identical spacecraft, all in near-polar orbits. Therefore, this single event dramatically increases the probability of further collisions among Iridium satellites and many other commercial and government spacecraft.

Visit the source for the full text: spacemart.com


reply to post by Zeptepi


Cheers Zeptepi. Will do

I can't wait to have a play with the software, but it's getting late here, and it'll have to wait!

[edit on 11-2-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Originally posted by wolf241e
Is it really that far of a stretch that a couple of satellites, one a Russian bird, just happen to collide directly over Siberia??

Ive been thinking about it, and that's a good point. Coincidence? Perhaps that was enough to give them "line of sight" using optical instruments from the ground? Thinking about it some more though, perhaps that's a bit far fetched.

If it was done on purpose, then I guess they would have had to have some kind of camera already on the sat that would give them line of sight (a 'cross hair' to place their target in). I can't see this being easy to do, unless this had been planned for, and even then it seem a very impractical/"hit and miss" way of doing things (since most of the time satellites never come close), although I suppose software could work out how to do it.

There could be a conspiracy angle to this story yet, although accident still seems the more plausible explanation IMHO.

Uh oh. here is where Iridium 33 will be in about an hour! (2009-02-12 @ 5:35UTC)

Right over Texas!
It is Unknown the current alt. or the rate of decent . I will try to get some further info from NORAD
This should give us a better idea as to when this will come down. Right now no one knows.
They have radar track on some 600 pieces so far.


Heads up

Peace

According to CHUD's post, it aint coming down any time soon.

Since the satellites collided at an altitude of 491 miles, this new debris will remain in orbit for decades, if not centuries.

This will result in many dangerous and most probably toxic/nuclear debris all over the world.

Check the last silly comment in the article:

BBC: Russian and US satellites collide

"It is hoped that most of the wreckage from the collision will burn up in the earth's atmosphere, our correspondent says. "

They hope... Well, we hope too!!

I think that the number one subscriber to the Iridium phone service is DOD. Also I think originally the two sats should have been on opposite sides of the planet when they collided. There is nothing subtle about this.

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 Iridium craft weighed 1,235 pounds (560 kilograms), and the Russian craft nearly a ton.

source

Hundreds of pieces of debris
The U.S. Strategic Command's Space Surveillance Network detected the two debris clouds created by Tuesday's collision. Julie Ziegenhorn, a spokeswoman for the Strategic Command, told msnbc.com that the collision left behind an estimated 600 pieces of debris, but she emphasized that the Pentagon's orbital watchdog had to do "still more characterization" of the collision's potential effect.
NASA's Matney said the count would likely be in the thousands if pieces of debris down to the scale of microns — about the size of a grain of sand — are included.

umm..... closed tracking site....
The lid is being slammed shut on this one.
Anybody seeing anything else about this on the MSM?
Space-Track
Space-Track

Due to existing National Security Restrictions pertaining to access of and use of U.S. Government-provided information and data, all users accessing this web site must be an approved registered user to access data on this site.

Yes these tons of debris may not re-enter for a long time.
But, they WILL come down.

Peace

Iridium was to be 77 now 47 or so LEO (Low Earth Orbit) at
600 miles or so altitude satellites until funding quite.

The high security communications are used by the government.

Globalstar was a competitor reportedly used by Bin Laden until
he got tipped off we could target him with the GPS system.
Then those satellite phones were banned by Osama.

However the Bin Laden's were thought to have invested in Iridium.


ED: Globalstar satellites reportedly had patented non fuel attitude
mechanism powered by solar cell electrical system. Collision
avoidance may have been unaccomplished with such a system.
The plasma thruster had the Tesla flat coil. The solar panel suffered
damage perhaps with this system and the patent now states the
gas less thruster is no longer used.


[edit on 2/12/2009 by TeslaandLyne]

reply to post by TeslaandLyne

Iridium was to be 77 now 47 or so LEO (Low Earth Orbit) at
600 miles or so altitude satellites until funding quite.

What is 77 now 47?
Yes, It is very odd, you are correct, it is a LEO. And in this case( and forgive me T&L, I rarely agree with you) these sats should not have been in same orbit?

The high security communications are used by the government.

No, these are not high security sats.

Globalstar was a competitor reportedly used by Bin Laden until
he got tipped off we could target him with the GPS system.
Then those satellite phones were banned by Osama.

Please provide some evidence or any corroborative information about your claim, please.

edit: tanks spleel ceck


[edit on 12-2-2009 by Zeptepi]

Nevermind, yew al rather see this...

If yew have tons of satellites orbitting yer planet,
...you jest mite be an Earthling!

than track em...
clear skies C.H.U.D.
Peace