Possible Collision Between Cube-satellite and Old Space Junk 74
photonic writes "The BBC is reporting on a possible collision between Ecuador's first satellite (a small cubesat) and debris from an upper stage of an old Russian rocket. If confirmed, this might be the third case in recent years, after a high-speed collision of an Iridium satellite with a dead Russian satellite in 2009 and a collision earlier this year between a Russian laser reflector (which can be tracked very accurately) and a tiny piece of a debris from a Chinese weather satellite that was destroyed in a missile test."
Fiction begets reality (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it was only a matter of time before Planetes [wikipedia.org] became relevant.
what kinds of spikes do such comments cause? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if someone who watches /. but also monitors torrent/nzb index searchers, ever sees a correlation. Or if people who run indexes just think, "weird, lots of people suddenly searching for 'planetes' today. WTF?" and they never know why? Anyway, downloading the first few episodes right now...
So now there is more random trash up there (Score:2)
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Nukes?! I prefer to use Chinese Needle Snakes.
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That is entirely what will not happen. If you manage to "destroy" much of anything, you'll just end up with more smaller, faster moving, less predictable pieces of space junk.
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Really? How will that work, exactly? How does this "atomic fire" propagate through space? Especially the volume of space in which all the debris floats? Nuclear bombs are pretty devastating within an atmosphere, but somehow, I just can't picture much of a pressure wave or much of an "atomic fire" in a vacuum.
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It's easy, you just ignite the van Allen belts. I saw this great movie about it.
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It's been established by many reputable parties during the 50's - 70's or maybe even as late as the 80's (depending on whether you want to delve into conspiracy or not). That nuking our upper atmosphere is bad (TM).
I do not endorse it.
Van Allen Belts being #1 on the list. Power outages being #2. Those are not science fiction and do not require "Atomic Fire".
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If it has been broken into several pieces, or had any material chipped off of it, then the problem has gotten worse following this incident. If all of the orbitting mass was in one convenient lump, it would be easy to avoid.
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There was a Glad trash bag advertisement back in the 80's where astronauts were spacewalking to bag up floating space junk. I remember one part where the voiceover goes "...and even the neighbors' bulky junk" while the astronaut puts a comically-oversize bolt with the hammer & sickle stamped on the end into the Glad bag.
Whenever these stories appear I'm reminded of that commercial. Even moreso when two of the three examples of collisions are caused by Russian debris. I've been unsuccessful in locating i
Kessler Syndrome (Score:5, Informative)
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Why post that?
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Here's [therpgsite.com] a better version.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes [wikipedia.org]
Re:Kessler Syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely it's not Kessler syndrome until you have debris from one collision causing a further collision? In each of the incidents described above, an existing piece of debris not originating in a collision was the cause of the incident.
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Well, if the missile impact (a collision) with the Chinese satellite caused an impact with the Russian reflector, you could argue we've already seen that.
I find it hard to argue that the debris from the Chinese satellite wasn't from a collision -- it was just a planned one (and possibly a very dumb idea in the first place).
Re:Kessler Syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Kessler syndrome is a self-sustaining chain reaction, I really don't think that deliberate collisions count towards it.
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Not suggesting we're there yet, but we're moving there. Obviously we haven't reached some self-sustaining chain reaction yet.
Deliberate or not, this is having the effect of the debris from collisions causing more collisions. If it gets worse or we don't find a way to deal with it, we might end up there.
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It's not even a chain reaction yet, much less a self-sustaining one. When a piece of debris from a spontaneous collision causes another collision, then we'll have the first chain reaction event relevant to Kessler syndrom.
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A regular old collision between two objects in space is like a plutonium atom absorbing a stray thermal neutron and undergoing fission. You can have as many events as you want from as many atoms as you like, but so long as they're dilute, the events are independent and it's safe. That's what has happened in this instance.
A collision between an object in space and the debris from a previous collision is like a plutonium atom undergoing fission, then its neutron finding another plutonium atom and causing a fu
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"Then you're fucked."
For a period of time. Each collision changes velocities and some (most, actually) of those changes will act to lower orbits, reducing the amount of mass in orbit. I don't know what the half life is though.
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It'd be fun to run that simulation, actually. Maybe I can rustle up some computer time in the near future.
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Re:Kessler Syndrome (Score:5, Funny)
Surely it's not Kessler syndrome until you have debris from one collision causing a further collision? In each of the incidents described above, an existing piece of debris not originating in a collision was the cause of the incident.
Surely it's not the Kessler syndrome until someone makes the run in less than 12 parsecs... or am I missing something?
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Thus far. But the number of unintentional collisions have increased significantly these past few years. And the number of maneuvers needed to avoid debris have also increased recently. Even the ISS had a hole punched in one of its solar panels recently by debris.
It'll only be a matter of time.
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Re:Butts and dicks (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you for your experience-based post.
It's probably as "confirmed" as it's going to get. (Score:1)
From the article: "The US-based Joint Space Operations Center, which monitors all artificial Earth-orbiting objects, said there had been no direct crash but that their "data indicated a lateral collision with particles" of the Soviet rocket."
This is about all the confirmation you can ever hope for in a situation like this.
We need to find a way to tidy up our SPACE JUNK! (Score:1)
http://geeksoulbrother.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SpaceballMaid.jpg
Here goes the Ecuadorian Space program (Score:2)
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Yep. Space technology is a resource. In fact, space tech is the ONLY technology that's capable of preventing the extinction of the Human Race. When it comes time to get some of our eggs out of this one basket, you're going to need some space savvy to ensure a few of them are Ecuadorian.
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Space tech is the ONLY technology that's capable of preventing the extinction of the "Human Race"? Uhm. I heard a phrase once. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If we're dumb enough for long enough we'll learn to live better on this planet, probably before we cause our own *total* annihilation. You obviously have zero confidence that there's any chance that we will survive for long enough to evolve away from our selfish, destructive behaviors. I hate to say it but, even Global Thermonuclear War wouldn
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And to be honest, I damn well hope we get it right on this marble before we start polluting everywhere else like the virus that we resemble.
What incentive is there to "get it right"? Earth is an easy place to live. Space is not. Space has the incentives to get things right that you feel we need.
The Russians... (Score:1)
...should really pickup after themselves!
It's not really a problem (Score:2)
Unless, of course, the Ecuadorean satellite's mission was to collect and sterilize soil samples from other planets.
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It could be worse, what if its mission was to probe soil samples 8-(
Balance convergence (Score:2)
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Collision leads to more objects, not less, due to fragmentation.
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A salient lesson that not everything proceeds towards equilibrium, and even then, the equilibria reached are not necessarily desirable.
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If by equilibrium you mean a higher state of entropy, then yes.
You are, however, sadly mistaken in your assumption that having passed a critical mass of orbiting objects means they will suddenly start rapidly falling out of the sky.
On the contrary, what will happen now is the present objects will become more and more likely to have collisions as more and more collisions occur, in a cascade effect.
Eventually there will be a more or less impenetrable field of small debris flying around, and no opportunity to
Maybe it was too annoying for LEO? (Score:5, Funny)
"Pegasus, a small cube weighing just 1.2kg (2.6lb), has been orbiting the Earth at a height of 650km (404 miles), transmitting pictures from space while playing recordings of the Ecuadorean national anthem."
Maybe all the other satellites in orbit were getting annoyed by this little guy and took him out.
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I'm probably just being daft, but wouldn't it be technically impossible to play music from a sattelite? Space being a vacuum and all?
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Think of it like Sputnik. It beams the anthem over and over to anyone who knows what frequency to listen on.
assange (Score:1)
it's all a huge conspiracy against the equatorians for supporting assange
(hey, KGB guys, i am just flamebaiting, dont come to my house, please)
undoing touchscreen auto-mod (Score:1)
Seriously, people pay money for these instruments of fail?
Sounds like a case for. (Score:3)
Geico. Space Insurance.
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Shhhhhh! Don't give them any ideas.
That's the next thing that will happen. Hobbyists and schools unable to experiment with those micro-satellites because suddenly you're required to get insurance for your satellite -- in case it goes off-orbit or otherwise and ends up damaging some expensive telecom satellite.
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Sorry, I just had to =/
Borg cube (Score:2)
collision between Ecuador's first satellite (a small cubesat) and debris from an upper stage of an old Russian rocket.
Borg cube assimilates space junk. Resistance is futile.
A whole bunch of small unmaneuverable satellites (Score:2)
Maybe shooting up a bunch of small unmaneuverable satellites wasn't such a good idea, it just makes the space junk problem worse.
Earth: a desolate ringed planet (Score:1)
In the distant future, when some space-faring race comes across this planetary system, they might wonder why this dessert planet will be surrounded by rings of particles consisting mostly of lightweight metals, plastic bits, fiberglass, silicon, etc.