Satellite Collision Debris May Hamper Space Launch

Matt_dk writes "The debris from a recent collision involving two communications satellites could pose a serious threat for future launches of spacecraft into a geostationary orbit, a Russian scientist said on Friday. Future launches will have to be adjusted with regard to the fact that the debris [from the collision] has spread over an 800-km area and will gather at a common orbit in 5-6 years."

Geostationairy?

[im_thatoneguy]

Wait a second. I thought the collision was at like 300mi altitude. Now they'r saying this causes problems at Geosynchronous orbit? I thought GEO was at like 30,000 miles above the earth. Also... I didn't think the shuttle planned on traveling that high anyway.

What am I missing?

Re:Does Anyone Remember the Star Wars Defence Prog

[John Hasler]

Vaporizing the crap is not feasible, nor is putting extremely large lasers in orbit. Fortunately, neither is necessary. You build a very high peak-power pulse laser on the ground and use it to hit the bits of debris with femtosecond pulses that vaporize a few micrograms off each of them. The vapor acts like a rocket engine, its reaction force slightly changing the orbit. Hit each bit again every time it comes around and soon it is in a decaying orbit. Space Broom [wikipedia.org]

Pedantic

[MushMouth]

They are actually called Canada Geese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_goose [wikipedia.org]

Why did the sats collide ?

[SlashV]

I don't understand why these satellites collided in the first place. I understand NASA tracks pretty much all objects larger than a bolt in orbit. Why wasn't the collisision predicted and prevented ? The Iridium satellite was still active as I understand it, so it must have had some capability still to avoid the collision. Can someone enlighten me here ?

800 Km area?

[stoicio]

There appears to be some 2 dimensional thinking going on here.
The statement '8 Km area' would lead one to believe that the debris has
spread out over a flat plane.

Obviously, when things collide in space, there is more of a
cloud of debris than a pool table of debris.

What is th actual **VOLUME** and 3 dimensional scale of the problem
and where is it located in 3 dimensional space?

The debris is also not static. It will continue to move and expand
in orbit.