U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision

Space.com ^ | 11 February 2009 | Becky Iannotta and Tariq Malik

[Freeport]

WASHINGTON - Iridium Satellite LLC confirmed today that one of its satellites was destroyed Tuesday in an unprecedented collision with a spent Russian satellite and that the incident could result in limited disruptions of service.

According to an e-mail alert issued by NASA today, Russia's Cosmos 2251 satellite slammed into the Iridium craft at 11:55 a.m. EST (0455 GMT) over Siberia at an altitude of 490 miles (790 km). The incident was observed by the U.S. Defense Department's Space Surveillance Network, which later was tracking two large clouds of debris.

"This is the first time we've ever had two intact spacecraft accidentally run into each other," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was a bad day for both of them."

The collision appears to be the worst space debris event since China intentionally destroyed one of its aging weather satellites during a 2007 anti-satellite test, Johnson told SPACE.com. That 2007 event has since left about 2,500 pieces of debris in Earth orbit, but more time is needed to pin down the extent of Tuesday's satellite collision, he added.

[Freeport]

Wow.. Not a good day in space. So where was the orbital tracking warning? The article doesn't say if it was known that the two would pass very close to each other.

And the repercussions; since the Iridium was in a circular orbit, does any one know if the cosmos orbit was elliptical?

Anyway, as that debris comes down, I see a shooting gallery at a multitude of LEO objects including Hubble, the ISS and a plethora of other satellites. This could get very messy yet.

[The_Victor]

Accident?

[Eyes Unclouded]

Only if you think the Chinese spy plane thing at the start of W’s first administration was also an accident.

[Perdogg]

"Excellent"

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

One relatively puny satellite slamming into another relatively puny satellite while zipping around the earth in orbit is akin to a high-powered bullet accidentially slamming into another high-powered bullet.

So what are the odds of that happening accidentally?

[relictele]

Any chance it was a comms bird that carried feeds for the MSM?

[bmwcyle]

[bert]

Iridium is one, what was the second?

[The Louiswu]

"So what are the odds of that happening accidentally?"

With a long enough time line, the odds of anything/everything happening become 1 to 1 - given the amount of junk in low earth orbit, this was just an event waiting to happen.

[edcoil]

“a spent Russian satellite”

Generally spent indicates nuclear. The russians have a lot of old nuc powered sat’s up there.

[Freeport]

That’s why I asked the question. But if the Iridium controllers still had control of their craft up until the impact, and they new the encounter would be close, then they could have maneuvered the satellite to a different orbit until the cosmos went by.

Since they are going to shift a spare into position, the satellites in the system clearly has sufficient orbital change capability to get out of the way of a wayward object if it’s known in advance that it’s going to come close.

Someone in the observation community dropped the ball on this one.

[Freeport]

Cosmos 2251 per the article.

[crz]

Anyone ever see what happens when a bit of space debris the size of a grain of sand does to the space shuttles window?

There is an example in Huntsville AL.

[Liberty Valance]

[DouglasKC]

"This is the first time we've ever had two intact spacecraft accidentally run into each other," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was a bad day for both of them."

"Accidentally". Riiiiggggtt..

[ETL]

From Heavens-Above.com...

Cosmos 2251- Information:

Identification
USSPACECOM Catalog No.: 22675
International Designation Code: 1993-036-A

Satellite Details
Orbit: 767 x 803 km, 74.0°
Intrinsic brightness (Mag): 6.3 (at 1000km distance, 50% illuminated)
Maximum brightness (Mag): 5.1 (at perigee, 100% illuminated)

Launch
Date (UTC): June 16, 1993

Cosmos 2251 orbit:
http://heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=22675&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

Heavens-Above.com | Cosmos 2251:
http://heavens-above.com/satinfo.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET&SatID=22675

Iridium satellites and “Iridium Flares”:
http://heavens-above.com/iridiumhelp.asp?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET

Heavens-Above.com Home:
http://heavens-above.com/

[bmwcyle]

Cosmos 2251- Information

Identification USSPACECOM Catalog No.: 22675
International Designation Code: 1993-036-A

Satellite Details Orbit: 767 x 803 km, 74.0°
Intrinsic brightness (Mag): 6.3 (at 1000km distance, 50% illuminated)
Maximum brightness (Mag): 5.1 (at perigee, 100% illuminated)

Launch Date (UTC): June 16, 1993

[SampleMan]

With a long enough time line, the odds of anything/everything happening become 1 to 1..

The old "Monkey + Typewriter + Time = A perfect copy of Shakespeare" formula.

[biff]

Ha, ha. I was just wondering if some enterprising outfit will come up with the first “Space Junk Retreival Corp.” with their “You blast em, we trash em” advertising campaign?

[indcons]

The rumors on one of the tech news aggregators was that the Rusians deliberately sabotaged the Iridium satellite that was in the process of transferring voice files to “official” circles in the US.

Iridium, after the collapse of its mobile technology and defeat by GSM, was bailed out by the Feds and increasinly does a lot of its work for the US Govt.