Satellites Collide In Orbit 456
DrEnter writes "According to this story on Yahoo, two communications satellites collided in orbit, resulting in two large clouds of debris. The new threat from these debris clouds hasn't been fully determined yet. From the article, 'The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. Each satellite weighed well over 1,000 pounds.' This is the fifth spacecraft/satellite collision to occur in space, but the other four were all fairly minor by comparison."
First collision (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
in Soviet Russia, your sentence ends YOU. With a full stop.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
That would probably be better than all the debris spreading out and remaining in orbit. That debris, now hundreds of individual pieces, is now able to cause trouble to anything trying to pass through its 'air space', including more satellites, etc.
Some say that the day we have combat/war in space is the last day we will enter space because the debris will block exit/entry.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you fire two shots from the ion cannon first to clear a lane!
Re:First collision (Score:4, Funny)
That's why you fire two shots from the ion cannon first to clear a lane!
"Gentlemen, let's plow the road!"
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you fire two shots from the ion cannon first to clear a lane!
Why use an ion cannon when Mega-Maid can easily clean up the whole debris cloud? ;)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First collision (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First collision (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the early proposals for satellite phones would have put enough in orbit that if any two had collided, the rest would have smashed into the debris field, again resulting in a complete block to launch.
Remember, one of the early space shuttles was hit by a fleck of paint in orbit. The impact nearly smashed a hole through the windshield. A fragment the size of a dried pea would not necessarily be visible from ground stations on Earth but might easily be expected to punch through any space vehicle in its path, along with anyone inside.
Re:First collision (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_shield/ [wikipedia.org]
Small things won't necessarily damage a spacecraft although there's a limit to how much you can protect it and protection does increase the mass.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a bit skeptical about this, but I did the math. A large grain of sand (0.03g) would have the same kinetic energy of a 9mm slug at roughly 5.8km/s.
Orbital velocity at 10K km is 4.93km/s, so it's a reasonable value - and the relative velocity could be doubled if the objects collided head-on.
Now, I'm sure the shuttle could take shots from a 9mm fine and that much of the energy wouldn't be deposited - it would vaporize the much less massive object, after all. Of course, all of the energy would be concentrated in a very small area and could do a lot of damage...
Really fascinating. I should be sleeping at 3am, however, rather than calculating orbital impact energies on the back of an envelope...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I vaguely remember a prediction with accompanying animation that at some point, there would be so many satellites that they would start to collide, creating a chain reaction that would damage or destroy many satellites. In the end you would have a sphere of debris that would make the particular orbit uninhabitable for new satellites. I doubt this will be the result from the current collision, but this is still worth thinking about.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
Who would have thought that simply discarding waste would ever become a problem?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though ... this might be the impetus to develop force shields a la Star Trek. It makes sense, when enough space junk builds up, deflector shields will be the only way to safely escape Earth orbit.
Well, there will have to be some major breakthroughs in physics for that to happen. Electromagnetics won't help much, because a lot of that junk is non-ferrous.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there will have to be some major breakthroughs in physics for that to happen. Electromagnetics won't help much, because a lot of that junk is non-ferrous.
If I punch you, the force of the blow will be transfered from my fist to your body by nothing else than electromagnetism. You don't need to be ferromagnetic for this to work. The outer electrons of the outer atoms of your body will be repelled by the outer electrons of the outer atoms of my fist.
Outside of atoms, there are no forces other than gravity and electromagnetism.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually, the four fundamental interactions are given as gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear interactions. At high enough energies, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear interaction turn out to be the same thing. At even higher energies, maybe the others will merge in as well.
Except gravity, these interactions have pretty well understood quantum field theoretic descriptions, motivated by particular symmetries (and their breaking sometimes), involving the exchange of momentum and other quantum numbers via various particles (the gauge bosons). The gauge boson responsible for the electromagnetic interaction is the well known photon.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Please run down to your local library and pick up a copy of John David Jackson's _Classical Electrodynamics_, and a copy of Peskin and Shroeder's _Quantum Field Theory_. These are the standard graduate textbooks for their respective fields, and will provide all the detail you might wish to find.
Also, in the future, please look these things up before spouting off what you remember from your "year 10 science" class. You probably don't remember it correctly, if today is any indication.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
I know they can FEEL endless when you're in them, but suburbs do not actually take up most of the earth's surface. The chances of that happening are fairly low.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
Unless they're in New Orleans.
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Re:First collision (Score:5, Informative)
Rocks the size of these satellites enter earth's atmosphere all the time. Fortunately, we have an atmosphere that does a pretty good job of destroying most smaller objects that enter it. And humans only inhabit a tiny fraction of the earth's surface, so whatever does make it through the atmosphere usually lands in the ocean, or uninhabited areas.
Re:First collision (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, there was a case a few years back where a meteorite smashed into some Australian guy's house and demolished the sofa he'd only just got up from.
Why it had to pick on him, rather than Haliburton, I don't know.
Re:First collision (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First collision (Score:4, Funny)
*begs forgiveness for confusing Australia and New Zealand. I know how much the two countries hate it, and I really don't want the All Blacks scrunching me up and using me for a practice rugger ball in retaliation*
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The irony will be that all the pollution you are campaigning against will actually cushion the planet from such impacts and any resulting fragment will be no bigger than a chihuahua's head!
Re:First collision (Score:5, Insightful)
Not for much longer, if we have anything to do with it!
It composition may become not very useful to us but its not going to escape the gravity well anytime soon.
This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Informative)
These satellites were Iridium33 (24946) and K-2251 (22675). Now they are pieces of debris from bowling ball sized pieces to vapor.
A nice little animation of the collision is placed here:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2vbk75z.gif [tinypic.com]
This was bound to happen and will happen again. The interesting question is how come they didn't maneuver one of them out of the way. I don't know if 22675 is an active payload that still has power but Iridium33 certainly has the capability of moving. This one was avoidable. Even my non rocket science brain can take the TLEs and figure out that they were passing way too close to each other (I put it at about 500 meters with the latest elements).
Unfortunately, this didn't create 2 'clouds' of debris. This created one huge field of debris that will continue to expand over time. Many of the pieces will be tracked but the very small pieces cannot be.
It would have been way cool to observe the collision!
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
Except in Oregon, where the first one to exhibit politeness in a manner consistent with their last four stops gets to wait on the other, regardless of left, right or weaponry. Chevy Suburbans are excluded, as usual, and get to go thru without stopping, signaling or giving a healthy shit.
Token MS reference: Investing in MS is risking having your own money used against you in the marketplace.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:4, Funny)
Nope. It's not a road.
The Russian Satellite should have been transmitting "starboard, you arsehole", or the robotic Russian equivalent.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
IIRC from Driver's Ed, the vehicle to the right has the right of way.
The Russian satellite had lights and siren going, so the Iridium was supposed to pull over.
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
A: "Change your couse"
B: "No. You change your course."
A: "We insist that you change your course."
B: "We must protest. Change your course."
A: "This is a warship. Change your course."
B: "This is a lighthouse. Your call."
I'm sure this exchange fits into this whole thing somewhere....
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp [snopes.com]
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
"Space Chicken!"
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
They couldn't talk to each other because someone took out a communication satellite. Obviously.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Russian Sat was not functioning.
Metre vs Meter. (Score:5, Funny)
These guys [starrett.com] sell micrometers that can measure things as large as five feet across and ones that can only measure up to an inch across. It seems to me that something is the size of a micrometer is somewhat vague.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why using the European spelling makes it easier to differentiate.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the SI unit is spelled metre, not meter.
Micrometre [google.com.au] / Micrometer [google.com.au].
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you got iridium in my K-2251 (22675)!
No, you got K-2251 (22675) in my iridium!
Time for a new tasty treat....
Re: "... very small pieces cannot be" tracked (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, any piece large enough to pose a threat to anything we care about can be tracked, and by what counts as ancient technology: the AN/FPS-85 phased array spacetrack radar [globalsecurity.org], for example.
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are not the Iridium (and I will assume the Russian satellite as well) very low-orbiting satellites? This would mean the orbits will decay rather rapidly making this really not that big of a deal over the long term?
Some of the pieces will have gained orbital momentum and go higher, but really most of it should be getting some atmospheric drag and decay quickly.
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One big satellite has relatively little drag-to-weight ratio. Many small pieces have a much larger drag-to-weight ratio because the surface area has greatly increased, but the total mass is still the same.
therefore, it will come down faster than when there was no crash. In any case, within the foreseeable future.
Re:This was bound to happen. (Score:5, Funny)
Even my non rocket science brain can take the TLEs and figure out that they were passing way too close to each other (I put it at about 500 meters with the latest elements).
I'd put it at about 0.000 meters actually. You can tell from the size of the debris field...
Paranoid fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only on Slashdot could something so paranoid, full of speculation and even illogical when you take the facts into account get modded insightful, not once, but twice.
I'm not even sure what's so difficult to believe about two satellites colliding when there's so many up there. Even two relatively highly maneuverable manned planes collided in the UK a day or two ago, so it doesn't seem that difficult to think that two much less maneuverable, one of which no longer even active and working, unmanned objects might be able to collide.
Putin has spent the last few years selling himself in martial arts videos, showing off his ability to shoot tigers, flexing his muscles whilst fishing and many other such show off type things. Don't you think he'd jump at the chance to say "Hey, by the way, Russia just show down a satellite too?". Even if they realised they screwed up by somehow hitting a commercial satellite too don't you think the commercial satellite owners would say something? don't you think the US, China and millions of other people capable of tracking such events would scream at the chance to say "Russia just flung something into space and taken out a civilian satellite"?
I don't even see what's so coincidental about the timing, what's so special that now, over 2 years after China did it would be a good time for Russia to have a pop at it again too? Is there something special about around 2 years and 3 weeks later that allows it to be defined as coincidental?
But there's a bigger problem with your theory, ASAT technology isn't even new, the Russians built ASAT kit back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the US has had F15 launchable ASAT missiles since at least the 80s, possibly the 70s. In fact, looking at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon#USSR.2FRussia) it states Russia has pulled off 23 test launches and has had an operaitonal ASAT system since 1973.
If anyone's going to show off ASAT capability next it'll be somewhere like Iran or India most likely. I like people who think outside the box and come up with new ideas but come on if we're going to have conspiracy theories and mod them insightful let's at least have them consist of some degree of plausibility and at least make some sense please?
Why no the other way round? (Score:3, Insightful)
Paranoid folks in Russia on the other hand might argue that the US satellite, having power, was directed into the Russian satellite to prove that the USA has the capacity to take out Russian military satellites as and when it wishes, and that it chose to do so in a less confrontational way by taking out a no longer functional satellite. Using a functional commercial satellite clearly shows that the US government and can turn any US company assets to its use so Russia better beware, the US power is greater t
Satellite smoke (Score:5, Funny)
Satellite smoke. Don't breathe this.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It should be pretty though. Iridium comes from the greek word for rainbow, iris [wikipedia.org]: think of all the pretty shiny bits strewn across the sky.
It's a shame it was Iridium-33 that got pummelled. If it were Iridium-192, it would have decayed into platinum [ornl.gov] and made that rainbow so much more beautiful.
Re:Satellite smoke (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, here: http://www.willitblend.com/ [willitblend.com]
When Satellites Collide! (Score:5, Interesting)
YES, they are! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, of course, [celestrak.com] they certainly ARE watching all satellites! You see, these birds cost something in the order of $100 million each, don't you think someone is being paid to take care of them?
Well, of course, if it's something between a broken satellite that never reached its intended orbit, and a satellite from a bankrupt company that never had any profit, that's different. It's not as if they were true operating satellites, is it?
Re:YES, they are! (Score:5, Informative)
The Iridium satellites most certainly are operating satellites, and they no longer belong to the original company.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not anymore.. Now it's just a pile of space junk.
Re:YES, they are! (Score:5, Informative)
The Iridium constellation consists of 66 satellites plus spares, one of which will be moved into position to replace this one. They've lost satellites before.
Expanding debris cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Expanding debris cloud (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second here:
What if it isn't a bad thing? What if the debris cloud does start some sort of slow chain reaction that knocks out a lot of satellites in orbit and rings earth with debris?
Although it would be expensive to clean up it would definitely put peoples' minds back on space technology if they suddenly couldn't get tv, phone, internet, gps, or other critical services. It could spur development to clean things up, avoid the problem in the future, and get more nations/people/viable technology in space.
In our "convenience at any cost" age, perhaps this sort of inconvenience is the kind of thing to slap some sense into us.
Re:Expanding debris cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I suspect that such an outcome would be as likely to spur regression as it would expansion. Space is extremely useful, for satellite mapping, GPS, astronomy, and the like; but it isn't necessary. If the costs of exploiting it rise, as they would, drastically, if satellites were constantly knocked out by debris fields; you'd likely see a scaling back of space exploration. Military surveillance and location stuff would probably make the cut; but you could forget about "nonessentials" like orbital telescopes, cheap satellite photography, and the like.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully the wreckage from this one doesn't end up causing any unpleasant chain reactions. Not only are satellites really expensive, we currently have no especially good way of ridding ourselves of orbital debris.
There is a scifi story by Ken MacLeod where the orbit around earth is filled with so many satellites that when a war erupts and some of them get destroyed, it starts a chain reaction that ends up shredding all the equipment in orbit and creating a high speed debris belt that prevents space travel for several centuries.
I've always wondered if that scenario is realistic, but from a physics point of view it sounds like it could be.
Re:Expanding debris cloud (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Expanding debris cloud (Score:5, Informative)
we currently have no especially good way of ridding ourselves of orbital debris.
Gravity? Granted its slow, but it works. Everything in orbit now will be gone in, ooh, a century or so.
No. Everything low enough to exprience atmospheric drag will be gone in a century. Anything above 1000km will last thousands of years in orbit. Objects in geosynchronous orbit will last indefinitely because they can slide into valleys in the Earths gravitational field and stay there. Arthur C Clarke liked to point out that one of these places is right above Sri Lanka.
Better get Geico (Score:4, Funny)
Did Russia have Geico? 15% off public liability insurance for satellites...
Was this really bound to happen? (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I kinda wrote about this in my song "Starblazer [cdbaby.com]"...
earthlings, knee deep in things
in orbit there's garbage rings
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One of the Sat.s was a non funtioning sat. When the whole thing fails, you can't really deorbit it..cause it failed.
Re:Was this really bound to happen? (Score:5, Informative)
When a satellite fails, often it cannot be de-orbited. Several failure modes will cause this - the most common is the malfunction of the controller, communications unit, or onboard power system. When any of these fail, there's no way to command the retro-rocket to fire.
Then, too, you need the satellite to be pointed in the correct direction (meaning that its stationkeeping rockets are working), and for it to have enough hydrazine (or whatever) to be deorbited. Near the end of a spacecraft's life, consumables are limited.
And, of course, it takes a lot of energy to de-orbit many satellites. A geostationary comsat needs one heck of a kick motor to get it down. Usually they are not brought down to burnup in the atmosphere. Instead, they are moved a few dozen (hundred?) kilometers inwards from their geostationary slot. This puts 'em well away from the main circle of geostationary satellites.
It's like consumer goods ... manufacturers work to make them last long enough to complete their mission; few think about how to get rid of 'em once their purpose has expired.
Re:Was this really bound to happen? (Score:5, Informative)
Informative post but just one correction, at end of life the birds in geo RAISE their orbit. Decay takes so long that the graveyard orbits are stable over pretty much everyone's planning horizon (centuries+). If collisions occur up there then relative velocities are hopefully small enough to limit the debris field.
Re:Was this really bound to happen? (Score:5, Interesting)
Typically, when it comes to right of way, the less maneuverable vehicle has the right of way (for example, a balloon has the right of way over a glider, which has the right of way over an airship, which has the right of way over an airplane. Similar rules apply to seaborne vessels.) Taking at face value the summary's statement that the Russian satellite was non-functional, it was clearly the duty of the operators of the Iridium satellite to take action. If you want to talk claims/liability, I'd say that the Iridium folks are on the hook for huge damages--through negligence they've created a massive hazard to navigation that will be a problem for... what, centuries?
Re:Was this really bound to happen? (Score:4, Interesting)
Try fleshing out the analogy so it actually makes sense next time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was your job to track satellites, because you were part of the department that launched the satellite that fell on your car.. then YES, it would be your fault that you did not move your car out of the way.
Now, since the people who owned the Iridium Satellite were ALSO in charge of maintaining it... which includes knowing it's position in the sky... they were responsible for making sure that it did not collide with anything. In a perfect world (or above it) there would have been people closely monitor
Haven't you ever seen Space Cowboys? (Score:3, Funny)
a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning.
It's a cover-up, Soviet nukes are falling from space, run for your lives!
Don't worry... (Score:4, Funny)
James Bond has safely crashed that Iridium satellite into the Russian cold war doomsday device satellite somewhere over Siberia.
After that, he has as usual returned to having sex with female scientists that look like supermodels.
All is well with the world once more.
A good question.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The question is, did anyone have any specific knowledge of the likelihood of this specific collision prior to the event?
I'm assuming just now there wasn't orbital information of sufficient precision to predict this.
Re:A good question.... (Score:5, Funny)
The question is, did anyone have any specific knowledge of the likelihood of this specific collision prior to the event?
Maybe they're like slashdot dupes. Everyone knows they're coming, they just can't be certain when.
High Perigees LEOs Should be Reserved (Score:4, Interesting)
Low perigee orbits, orbits that dip into upper atmosphere, naturally decay to reentry. If collisions occur, the pieces will naturally decay to reentry.
Rotovators are highly valuable and actually need to operate in LEO to throw things out of LEO, both up and down -- and Rotovators are quite vulnerable to debris.
500 mile perigee is way to high. It is a nighmare orbit for debris proliferation.
Re:High Perigees LEOs Should be Reserved (Score:4, Informative)
Rotovators are highly valuable and actually need to operate in LEO to throw things out of LEO, both up and down -- and Rotovators are quite vulnerable to debris.
Blah, blah, blah. Rotovators [wikipedia.org] are "valuable" the same way unicorns and genies are "valuable", which is to say they are valuable in theory, but since we don't have any nor do we have any prospect of acquiring any anytime soon, it would be completely ridiculous to make expensive financial concessions based on this imaginary "value".
Risk adjusted net present value (Score:5, Interesting)
So a fair comparison has to compare the economies of a HASTOL rotovator, adjusted for the technological risk, to the difference between current high perigee LEO applications and modification of those applications to have perigees low enough to naturally reenter at about the same time the satellite is at the end of its projected useful life.
The trade-off is not nearly as clear as you make it out to be, and with the value of getting things to and from space being essentially "halfway to anywhere", it is pretty clear that you've got a lot weaker case than you apparently think.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How about building a REALLY big magnet on the ground?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
5th collision?? (Score:5, Informative)
I know of 3 previous collisions.
1991-12-23 COSMOS vs. COSMOS DEB (discovered in 2005)
1996-07-24 CERISE vs. Ariane R/B
2005-01-17 Thor Burner vs. CZ-4 DEB
What's the 4th previous??
Re:5th collision?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Planetes (Score:5, Interesting)
Planetes is a japenese cartoon about this very subject [wikipedia.org], and other unpleasant realities of space travel including space-radiation induced cancer, the birth problems of people living on the moon, and the long delay involved in inter-planetary travel.
The main character, 'Hachimaki', is basically a space garbage collector.
Re:Planetes (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As much as you think it is, Planetes is a rather on-topic example for this story. It's not like he said, "Oh, remember that scene in Wall-E that was like this?" or some other vaguely-linked show, movie, or book.
That settles it..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That settles it..... (Score:5, Funny)
It's time for MegaMaid. Get NASA started on that Spaceball-1 project STAT.
This thread just went from suck to blow.
What would be the odds (Score:5, Funny)
Ablation Cascade: This is how it starts (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one way the theoretical Ablation Cascade [wikipedia.org] could start. At least then we wouldn't have to worry about getting to the Moon. We couldn't.
Bummer if it happens before the Webb Space Telescope launches...
Re:In Soviet Outer Space (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Outer Space (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obama's first test from Putin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not preventable, the Russian one was inactive so they couldn't communicate with it and I don't know if the Iridium one has any maneuvering capabilities. Furthermore there's only so far in advance you can predict collisions before the random fluctuations become to great. Iridium knew the risk when they put the satellite up their and they have redundancy in their system
Re:Obama's first test from Putin? (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone know what these particular satellites were each being tasked to do? (prior to one of them becoming a single-use kinetic energy space-based weapon system projectile)
Now, I do wear my tin-foil hat a lot, so I'll try to answer your question.
What are the chances that a satellite was launched in 1993 so that it would collide with a satellite launched in 1997, in 2009? As an attempt by Putin to test Obama?
I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd suggest that it might be more profitable to put your entire savings into Powerball tickets.
Re:Obama's first test from Putin? (Score:4, Funny)
Now, I do wear my tin-foil hat a lot, so I'll try to answer your question.
Tinfoil won't work. It needs to be lead.
Re:Obama's first test from Putin? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As soon as I realized that one of the satellites was Russian, a flag went up.
Could it be worth $100 million to take out one of their satellites, then blame it on an "accident"? Maybe the Iridium was basically just what you said, a weapon, in disguise the whole time.
I wonder if tinfoil hats protect oneself from falling space debris as well...
Re:Obama's first test from Putin? (Score:5, Funny)
Not to troll or to dwell into politics here, But does anyone here know any numbers for the *actual* chances/probabilities that satellite A will collide with satellite B in orbit around the Earth?
Yes. The actual probability is 1.