ISS Dodges Space Junk For First Time In Five Years 141
Kligat writes "For the first time since 2003, the International Space Station has utilized the rockets on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle to dodge leftover remnants of a defunct satellite. The Russian Cosmos-2421 was launched in June 2006 to track Western Navy vessels and is believed by NASA to have exploded — 'likely due to a self-destruct command issued by Russian officials' according to the article — leaving 500 pieces of space debris. Ordinarily, the rockets on the ATV are used to take the ISS away from Earth's atmosphere and reduce drag. In this case, the 5-minute firing caused the ISS to move downward because it was already near the top of its acceptable range. Estimated probability of impact was 1 in 72, and an avoidance maneuver is called for if the probability is greater than 1 in 10,000. The space junk was predicted to pass the ISS within just a mile."
Re:Can't we just span a huge net (Score:4, Insightful)
Would have to be a pretty tight net... small particles moving fast enough can rip a dangerous hole in spacecraft.
Re:A mile? (Score:5, Insightful)
An HTML entity shouldn't be required. It's 2008; we should be able to stick Unicode into these boxes.
Re:A mile? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when dealing with the vastness of space a mile is pretty damn close.
Re:In SOVIET RUSSIA.. (Score:2, Insightful)
while it seems like a waste cause the rocket fuel was used to cancel out a previous boost maneuver, keep in mind that the ISS needs to be within a certain altitude band to be reachable by the soyuz/shuttle. also, the humans on board necessitate resupply missions more often than boost manuevers are required anyway.
Re:A mile? (Score:5, Insightful)
While that's a valid point for some situations, radar systems tend to have problems tracking objects below a certain size. A marble moving at 36,000 miles an hour isn't likely to be picked up by any radar array that I've ever seen.
The other problem is that they suck up a lot of juice. An active radar dish blaring away 24/7 would be a significant drain on the electrical power available to the ISS. I can't say it's not possible since I don't know how much their solar arrays can generate, but I'm willing to wager that it'd be a problem.