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Astronomers believe the seven-hour bombardment from the comet debris, due later next year, could strike orbiting spacecraft and wreck their electronics
Nasa said the storm, which crosses the Earth's orbit around the sun every October, comes from a meteor shower called the Draconids
Nasa scientists admitted this week they were unclear how serious the storm will be, but spacecraft operators were already being notified to develop defensive mechanisms
As a result, Nasa is currently investigating reorienting the international space station and Hubble space telescope to ensure vulnerable areas are turned away from the incoming sandblast
Spacewalks could also be banned until the threat from the river of rock particles has passed
Apart from the physical danger from a direct strike, electrostatic discharges can fry their vital electronics
But satellites, including those providing vital services such as communications, satnav and television, will weather the storm
Dr William Cooke, from the Meteoroid Environment Office at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama, said contingency plans were already being developed to avoid problems when the storm is expected to hit
His computer predictions concluded that several hundred meteors an hour could be visible from the earth on October 8 next year
Most years rates are fairly low, but can dramatically increase about every 13 years as the Earth travels through the densest part of the stream of particles
November 12, 1998
The Russian space station Mir will be turned so that the smallest surface possible is exposed to the threat of the Leonid meteor storm. To be safe, however, the two cosmonauts will board the Soyuz escape capsule when the shower reaches its peak.
www.xs4all.nl...
Current meteor forecast models project a strong Draconid outburst, possibly a full-blown storm, on Oct. 8, 2011, according to William Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala
while no spacecraft electrical problems were reported during the strong Draconid outbursts of 1985 and 1998, he said that the lack of past anomalies should not be taken as carte blanche for satellite operators to ignore in 2011
"I have no concerns about the space station. Even if the Draconids were a full-scale meteor storm I would be confident that the space station program would take the right steps to mitigate the risk," Cooke said
Originally posted by grantbeed
...Seems like the Telegraph story was hyping things up as it says here -
"I have no concerns about the space station. Even if the Draconids were a full-scale meteor storm I would be confident that the space station program would take the right steps to mitigate the risk," Cooke said