3.5 Ton Satellite to Crash Back to Earth

DeadBugs writes "CNN is reporting that the NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer could crash back to earth in a matter of days. It's estimated that up to 9 large pieces (4-100 lbs.) of the Satellite could survive re-entry. Unlike the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory that was guided in, this Satellite will be uncontrolled. The EUVE has only been up there since 1992.... I wonder when this sort of thing will start to be a more common event."

Comments

first post

[keshto]

I wonder if they can predict what the "catchment area" of the debris is going to be.. -keshto

The *what* Ultraviolet Explorer?

[Have Blue]

Did NASA think they had to get hip to the 90's X-games obsession or something? Take ultraviolet measurements WHILE SNOWBOARDING!

Meanwhile, on board...

[ebbomega]

Gir exclaims Yayyyyyyy! We're doomed!

This is amusing in that car-wreck sort of way. Who wants to bet that when this crashes on Mrs. Tingle's Rose Garden in Bummsville, Idaho and there's a lot of media attention, that the government is gonna spend lots of money to go up there and give these things emergency navigation systems so that they can easily fall on unsuspecting sea mammals instead of J. Random Human?

Auto destruct sequence?

[josquint]

OK... so these things have a fairly limited and predictable life span. And there's thousands of good sized objects up there that WILL fall(what goes up must come down, unless you put it waaaay up there)

There REALLY should be a way to contoll the destruction better, instead of just letting it drop. Granted making it drop might be better, but this thing will still have some pretty good chunks hitting the ground. Why not design them to break up or be broken up more thoroughly. Somewhat similar to what an Indy Car does when hitting a wall.

Putting explosives and the like would be somewhat risky, and designing weaknesses into the stucture might weaken it. But, having a 200lb chunk nail my house at mach 6 wouldn't be the best either :)

Re:Auto destruct sequence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that self-destructing a satellite would create more problems than it would solve.

A particle the size of a pea colliding with an object in orbit (e.g. the International Space Station) would release a *huge* amount of energy - enough to destroy it.

If you exploded a satellite you would create thousands or millions of such particles with absolutely no control over their direction. Sure, some would be propelled into the earth where hopefully they should burn up, and others would hopefully be propelled out of orbit, but the remainder would end up in ever-decreasing elliptical orbits around the earth and would one day come back to haunt Space Agencies everywhere.

The only real solution is that the satellites get designed to burn up better upon re-entry, using a combination of deliberately weakened structures, and possibly explosive bolts (similar to those on jet fighters' canopies) that allow the satellite to disintegrate into smaller pieces before burn up.

Re:Insurance?

[Leven Valera]

My homeowner's insurance actually covers impact by falling equipment, meaning telephone poles usually, but I guess satellites could be covered.

LV

Food for thought

[Boiling_point_]

Self-destruct mechanisms as a design feature for all sattelites...

Could you design a sattelite in such a way that it could be destroyed remotely, ie. blown into small chunks that pose no danger to other spacecraft (are "blasted" towards Earth and therefore certain disintegration), while maintaining stability during launch/operation and not adding too much to the total weight?

Devil's advocate:

Who'd enforce it? Corporations won't pay extra for a very unlikely liability problem (until such a time that we're lobbing dozens of big things into space daily)

What circumstances (other than system failure) would cause you to push the button - and if it had failed, who's to say it's pointed the right way and you won't shoot your comsat into the ISS?
Sorry - just thinking out loud...IANARS

Re:Considering there are 7000 objects in orbit

[interiot]

The article mentions that this satellite was designed to be decommisioned this way-- no steering mechanism was included. Is this a common occurance? Can't the designers be held liable if damage occurs?

They should make a law!

[John Harrison]

Any satellites put into orbit should be required to have the capability of being brought down safely. Maybe this doesn't need to become a requirement for all satellites. Little ones that will burn up totally aren't a problem. However, satellites that have parts that aren't going to burn up nicely on re-entry need to be able to be redirected to the oceans. Imagine the amount of energy the 100 lb. chunck of flaming hot iron from this satellite is packing.

If they could control this thing and bring it down when and where they wanted they could potentially do some interesting stuff. Like having it streak over the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. Or if the had REALLY fine control they could light the olynpic calderon with it instead of using the torch. That would be even better than the flaming arrow. Or they could drop it on Bin Laden's head. Ok, now I am getting silly.

ps I am bitter because I submitted this exact article and had it rejected several hours before it appeared.

Re:Considering there are 7000 objects in orbit

[Cruciform]

Or one of these people?

In November 1954 a housewife in Alabama was struck by a 3-lb (1.4 kg) meteor that smashed through her roof, bounced off some furniture, and struck her in the hip as she lay sleeping. She received a large bruise but no other harm.

In October 1992 a 26-lb (12 kg) meteor punched clear through the trunk of an automobile in Peekskill, New York, wrecking the aged Chevrolet (but also turning it into an instant collector's item that sold for over $20,000).

In June 1994 a man driving near Madrid, Spain suffered a broken finger when a 3-lb (1.4 kg) meteor crashed through his car's windshield and smashed the steering wheel, ending up in the back seat.

or here.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the link to the central park jogger that got nailed a few years ago. Although all it did was bounce off him. It made many major newspapers though. Anyone got a reference?

Ya know, it's too bad they can't just harvest it

[PsiPsiStar]

Considering how much it costs to send a pound of anything into space, it's too bad they couldn't just send it into geostationary orbit maneuver it to where a space station could get at it so they'd at least have the spare parts/metal up there.

Of course, my closet is full of old computer parts, so you see how I think.

This already is common.

[Performer Guy]

Space junk deorbits all the time. It just doesn't get the same publicity, some of the junk includes upper stage boosters including tons of fuel and a payload. The amount of rock naturally falling out of the sky is still more than the deorbiting garbage but nobody seems to worry about that, despite it destroying the occasional roof or car like these incidents:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/ pe rseids_shower_sidebar_000809.html

Some perspective

[lexcyber]

Did you know that just about all countries send
up thousands and thousands of weatherbaloons
in the sky, every day. And you dont hear them
killing people left and right?

That is metal intstruments that weights a few
pounds. Hitting the ground in 200-300km/h
that is more then enough to kill a man or
destroy a car etc. etc.

So, I guess it wont be such a big problem.
Now, or in the future.

afaik. there has been one or two incidents in
30 years in sweden of thoose landing in urban
areas.

Re:Odds

[saider]

These probabilities are usually the computed from an analysis of death reports. As such these odds indicate that more people are killed every year by satellite debris than win the lottery. If twenty or so people win the lottery annually, then how many people die from satellite debris each year? This seems to be a more newsworthy event, but yet I never seem to hear about it.