February 12, 2009—Ground controllers in the
A one ton Russian military satellite called Cosmos 2251 and an American communication satellite called Iridium is little more than pieces the size of your fist. The two reportedly smashed into each other leaving a shower of space junk in Earth orbit. Space junk is anything left over from launches that are under no one’s control. Examples can include anything from spent booster rockets to bolts to flecks of paint. The concern is when debris hits a manned spacecraft, since each object is travelling at around 17,000 miles per hour. No Space Shuttle has been seriously damaged by space junk, but they return from orbit with the windows around the cockpit routinely nicked by something.
Perhaps the worst “close call” of this type was in 1962. The space race was underway, and the Russians launched an unmanned probe to the planet Mars on October 24th, 1962. The date was eventful since the Cuban missile crisis was at its height. The spacecraft, known simply as 2MV-4, exploded over the North Pole. The blast and the cloud of debris reportedly caught the attention of the Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, or BMEWS, in
NASA is watching the debris from the two satellite collision. No threat is expected to the International Space Station. The agency will meet tomorrow to discuss the fuel valve problem on Discovery. Launch is still targeted for February 22nd, at the earliest.
On the book front, I’ll be at the |
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