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U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision
Space.com ^ | 11 February 2009 | Becky Iannotta and Tariq Malik

Posted on 02/12/2009 5:40:00 AM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; Russia
KEYWORDS: collision; cosmos2251; iridium; satellite
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To: All

Again from heavens-above.com:
http://heavens-above.com/

Satellite collision:

At 16:56 UTC on Feb. 10th, Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collided over northern Siberia.

Many hundreds of pieces of debris are expected to result, and many are already being tracked.

The threat to the ISS and Shuttle are minimal, but the danger to other satellites in higher orbits is still being assessed. Please follow these two links for 3-D graphic displays of the collision by Dan Deak.

View from above:
http://www.obsat.com/images/Ir33coll_top.gif

View from the side:
http://www.obsat.com/images/Ir33coll_side.gif


21 posted on 02/12/2009 6:04:20 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Freeport
The real concern is a cascading series (i.e. chain reaction) of collisions in low earth orbit which would not only disable valuable orbital assets, but would also create a band of space debris. This would create a risk to future manned and geostationary satellites transiting LEO. A NASA consultant, Don Kessler, wrote about this scenario AKA the "Kessler Syndrome".
22 posted on 02/12/2009 6:05:53 AM PST by Jonah Hex ("Never underestimate the hungover side of the Force.")
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To: bmwcyle

Rather remarkable we both linked to the same heavens-above.com page at nearly the same exact time. Mine was ahead of yours by a mere 10 seconds.


23 posted on 02/12/2009 6:06:48 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner
Go to the Gettysburg battlefield and there are several musket balls that collided, on display.

Given that it can happen, I share your pessimism that it did happen accidentally, especially in consideration of Russia's new belligerence and their use of cyber attacks against Georgia.

24 posted on 02/12/2009 6:08:15 AM PST by pfflier
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To: indcons
....was bailed out by the Feds and increasinly does a lot of its work for the US Govt.

Hopefully, the users are encrypting their voice and data. One of the big problems with Iridium is that it's transceivers are analog. It was obsolete well before the last of it's satellites were lofted and Motorola knew it....

25 posted on 02/12/2009 6:09:41 AM PST by Thermalseeker (Government is not the solution to the problem. Government IS the problem - Ronald Wilson Reagan)
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To: pfflier
Given that it can happen, I share your pessimism that it did happen accidentally

Also note where it happened: over northern Siberia

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2183962/posts?page=21#21

26 posted on 02/12/2009 6:16:04 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Freeport

I can’t possibly be the first:

OBAMA’S FAULT!


27 posted on 02/12/2009 6:16:20 AM PST by TheBattman (Pray for our country....)
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To: Freeport

Was this collision an accident or is Russian practicing or demonstrating anti-satellite capability?


28 posted on 02/12/2009 6:17:09 AM PST by arthurus ( H.L. Mencken said, "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.")
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To: 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?”

It's getting very crowded up there. Here's a graphic that shows just how crowded.

http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/satellite/4/4a/4a.1.html

29 posted on 02/12/2009 6:24:52 AM PST by monday
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To: pfflier
True, the odds are very remote but... There are something like 9000 to 14000 objects in orbit (depending on what size you go down to). There are only so many "good" orbital trajectories. eg. Lots of things in geosynch, a lot in relatively low inclination, and some in high inclination. Mix in circular vs elliptical, various altitudes and there are lots of opportunities for things to get close. There are also lots of opportunities for things to be moving at high velocities relative to each other.

So the thousands of objects up there are not evenly distributed at all, and it is getting crowded. The AF tracks everything, but probably only takes the time/computer power to do orbital predictions for its own satellites. (looking for potential collisions with others) It becomes a rather large combinatorial problem to check paths for intercept between any two arbitrary objects.

30 posted on 02/12/2009 6:25:22 AM PST by CodeMasterPhilzar (I love my Country, but I now genuinely fear my government.)
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To: Freeport
Photobucket
31 posted on 02/12/2009 6:29:36 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: pfflier

I actually live near the G-burg battlefield and have seen the fused Minie balls myself. The difference is that these collissions resulted from massed volleys of sub-sonic rounds fired directly at each other at relatively short range, thereby increasing the odds of collision. Satellites, on the other had, are pretty much solitary bodies, traveling in singluar orbits. The odds against an accidental collision are much, much greater.


32 posted on 02/12/2009 6:34:11 AM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner (Sarah Palin is a smart missile aimed at the heart of the left!)
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To: arthurus
Was this collision an accident or is Russian practicing or demonstrating anti-satellite capability?

There was a recent statement out of Russia, to the effect that "...we had a laser cannon before the Americans."

33 posted on 02/12/2009 6:35:02 AM PST by Charles Martel ("Endeavor to persevere...")
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To: All
Here's the view from the side...

Photobucket

34 posted on 02/12/2009 6:39:12 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: CodeMasterPhilzar
“There are something like 9000 to 14000 objects in orbit..”

14,000 was the figure before the Chinese tested their antisatellite capability by blowing up one of their satellites a year or so ago. The total now is estimated to be above 22,000! With this collision, it may be over 30,000.

We had better soon develop some kind of shielding for our craft or it won't be long before spaceflight becomes way too dangerous.

35 posted on 02/12/2009 6:45:54 AM PST by ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY ( The Constitution needs No interpreting, only APPLICATION!)
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To: Freeport
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).

Had the Russian satellite made any orbital changes for a while? Ignoring the chance that the Russians did this on purpose, the Iridium still did have some maneuvering capability and was responsible for not running into a known non-maneuvering satellite. The statement I quoted would be like me explaining to a cop how a parked car slammed into my car while I was driving.

36 posted on 02/12/2009 6:51:55 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: Charles Martel

Assuming they had the capability, all the Russians had to do was either raise or lower the orbit of their Cosmos 2215. They might have chosen this particular satellite because its orbit happened to be intersecting with the U.S. Iridium’s orbit directly over Siberia where they could perhaps better monitor the collision. See my post #34 for the graphic.

IRIDIUM 33:
Epoch (UTC): 03:48:05, Thursday, February 12, 2009
Eccentricity: 0.0010587
Inclination: 86.391°
Perigee height: 776 km
Apogee height: 791 km
Right Ascension of ascending node: 120.6806°
Argument of perigee: 81.0572°
Revolutions per day: 14.32479644
Mean anomaly at epoch: 279.1894°
Orbit number at epoch: 59767
http://heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=24946&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET
______________________________________________

COSMOS 2215:
Epoch (UTC): 02:00:40, Thursday, February 12, 2009
Eccentricity: 0.0024852
Inclination: 74.0399°
Perigee height: 767 km
Apogee height: 803 km
Right Ascension of ascending node: 14.7272°
Argument of perigee: 157.0294°
Revolutions per day: 14.32047327
Mean anomaly at epoch: 203.2039°
Orbit number at epoch: 81778
http://heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET&satid=22675


37 posted on 02/12/2009 6:55:32 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Freeport
IMHO, this is no accident... my question is... was it our weapon system that was tested, or theirs?

LLS

38 posted on 02/12/2009 6:58:55 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (Speak the evil)
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To: SampleMan
The old "Monkey + Typewriter + Time = A perfect copy of Shakespeare" formula.

...which is demonstrably false.

39 posted on 02/12/2009 7:02:19 AM PST by TChris (So many useful idiots...)
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To: CodeMasterPhilzar

True, the odds are very remote but... There are something like 9000 to 14000 objects in orbit (depending on what size you go down to). There are only so many “good” orbital trajectories.


OK, let’s do a “Fermi” (imagination) problem on this.

Imagine all those satellites distributed over the earth’s surface. The earth is 510 million square kilometers, and the lower 48 is 8 million, which is 1.57% of the earth’s surface. 1.57% of the satellite population (high end of your range) is 220 satellites of the lower 48. If those were airplanes, it would be a tiny fraction of the number we have. But aircraft tend to concentrate (and crash) near airports, and are limited to a thin band of a couple of miles of altitude. Midair collisions away form airports do happen, as in Brazil a few years back. But that was tow aircraft on exactly the same GPS controlled altitude and path.

No, this just doesn’t pass the smell test, and I think they’re hiding the truth on this. If it were a satellite taken out by a small debris, I’d be far less skeptical.


40 posted on 02/12/2009 7:04:44 AM PST by Atlas Sneezed
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