Russian and US satellites collide

[minidog]

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.

The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7885051.stm

 

[rwill25]

Maybe a sign of things to come. :dunno:

 

[BlueBalls]

Oops!

There is so much crap up there that this was bound to happen one day, lets only hope they werent spy satellites and WW3 doesnt take place because of it.

 

[ballzano]

now for the important question........Did we win?

 

[Facetious]

^ Not Likely.

I thought "they" had all of this stuff worked out ahead of time, relative to the coordination of orbits (?) :dunno:

Is this an honest accident or space warfare ?


I'm sorry, I'm going with the latter. Of course the govt. public relations apparatus won't tell us the truth. :shocking: After all, we have nothing to fear ! Everybody love America ! Relaaaax We only hear the truth from our good press, you conspiracy goons !!

Russia is our friend ! They would never do such a thing to embarass u.s.

 

[jamrak]

just to point: keyword is defunct.

this "russian satellite" was not active for more than 10 years. only active system can be called "satellite".

I hate that reporters like flashy titles. it is much more cool for them to write in the title that it was something "russian vs. american" rather than dull collision with old and unused garbage.

time-expired satellites are not destroyed (in the majority of cases) and keep on flying in the space. as well as a lot of other garbage that people sent and lost in the space. it is a big problem. there are more than 12.000 of different garbage objects in the space already.

 

[gunslingingbird]

Must've been put into orbit by an elderly woman... Oh, I'm sorry, was that my outside voice I used? :o

 

[No_Man]

^ Not Likely.

I thought "they" had all of this stuff worked out ahead of time, relative to the coordination of orbits (?) :dunno:

Is this an honest accident or space warfare ?


I'm sorry, I'm going with the latter. Of course the govt. public relations apparatus won't tell us the truth. :shocking: After all, we have nothing to fear ! Everybody love America ! Relaaaax We only hear the truth from our good press, you conspiracy goons !!

Russia is our friend ! They would never do such a thing to embarass u.s.

I gotta admit, there's a lot for a conspiracy theorist to work with here...

A fully active U.S. "communications" satellite just happens to be flying over Russian territory when an expendable Russian satellite just happens to crash into it at the exact same time that the new U.S. Presidential administration just happens to be discussing renewed relations with Russian. A lot of coincidences building up there. It's not completely implausible to think that Russia keeps just enough communication capabilities and fuel on their defunct satellites to nudge them into collision orbits at just the right time to cause an "accident." It'd be a cheap, easy, effective way to maintain a covert orbital defense system.

Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist...

 

[Baill Inneraora]

Someone told mw once, ff you are not a conspiracy theorist, you must be a coincidence theorist. :dunno:

 

[D-rock]

I gotta admit, there's a lot for a conspiracy theorist to work with here...

A fully active U.S. "communications" satellite just happens to be flying over Russian territory when an expendable Russian satellite just happens to crash into it at the exact same time that the new U.S. Presidential administration just happens to be discussing renewed relations with Russian. A lot of coincidences building up there. It's not completely implausible to think that Russia keeps just enough communication capabilities and fuel on their defunct satellites to nudge them into collision orbits at just the right time to cause an "accident." It'd be a cheap, easy, effective way to maintain a covert orbital defense system.

Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist...

Ehh...if a country wanted to take out another's satellite they could just send up focused microwaves to wreck it's electronics.

 

[Embryoyo]

Looks as if the Russians bested America

They loose something they probably forgot about, we loose an expensive piece of functional equipment.

 

[Facetious]

Conspiracy notwithstanding, it's sensible policy, IMO, to at least be prepared for potential future
"run ins" .....so to speak.


Aside - Does anybody know why Mir was intentionally de - orbitted ?

According to some well known, highly accredited, members of the scientific community over at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Mir could have been used as a "defense" screen to shield the earth, in the event that an asteroid were to eventually wander into our orbit. :dunno:

Beats the hell out of me how that works.
Nifty Stuff, from the perspective of a laymen. :o


*Thanks For Th' Thread 'n recent rep, BTW, Mini D ! :bowdown:

Reciprocation will commence as the system allows ~

 

[calpoon]

I thought "they" had all of this stuff worked out ahead of time, relative to the coordination of orbits (?) :dunno:

If an object is at the key point between the gravity field of the earth and the moon then it will be held in place and rotate with the movement of the earth and always stay in the same spot. that location is considerably more than 500 miles away, I think it's around 100,000. Anything closer than that is going to fall toward the earth if it is not traveling at a speed greater than the gravitation pull. It's orbit around the earth will depend on whatever speed that it happens to be traveling at. so in other words, unless they were monitoring it, they don't really know where it will end up. As others have said space is littered with junk that is left there until it eventually falls to the earth and burns up in the atmosphere.

I assume that mir was never in geosynchronous orbit with the earth because it did not carry enough fuel to propel it to that point, and so it was just left alone to drift back to earth. It was pretty small anyway, and it wouldn't do much to stop 1 km+ asteroid or thousands of mile per hour speeding comet, assuming that they would even hit it in the first place, which is unlikely.

 

[calpoon]

PS. even in that special orbit, a satellite require rockets to occasionally reposition it back into place because it can be knocked out by solar wind/flares and because of the gravity field caused by the uneven shape of the moon (a bulge in the sphere that slightly shifts it's orbit around the earth every time it rotates. This phenomenon also makes it necessary for the occasional addition of a leap second to the clock to ensure accurate time readings.)

 

[tdomaster]

russia vs usa^^ the cold war has never ends in space

 

[methosecynk]

its the aliens.. MIB is real i tell you!!!

 

[maildude]

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-EWeUl8KE

 

[hedonis]

In space, no one can hear you say "Doh!"

 

[D-rock]

PS. even in that special orbit, a satellite require rockets to occasionally reposition it back into place because it can be knocked out by solar wind/flares and because of the gravity field caused by the uneven shape of the moon (a bulge in the sphere that slightly shifts it's orbit around the earth every time it rotates. This phenomenon also makes it necessary for the occasional addition of a leap second to the clock to ensure accurate time readings.)

One of the biggest reasons low orbit satellites need to boost their orbits every so often is because part of Earth's atmosphere extends a lot further than people think. The very outer parts is very sparse with little density, but it extends way out further than the part that is readily visible and is usually thought of. The molecules floating around up there while very thin do create a drag on objects that can slow them down in time, and when something in a stable orbit has it’s orbital velocity slowed down it's orbit decays and it gets pulled in.

 

[maanlest]

It was bound to happen.

Could also be a conspiracy.