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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."
I wonder if they can predict what the "catchment area" of the debris is going to be.. -keshto
Did NASA think they had to get hip to the 90's X-games obsession or something? Take ultraviolet measurements WHILE SNOWBOARDING!
...that some joker will have a piece of it up for auction on e-bay before the derbis has cooled.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
This is likely to become far more common. More and more old satellites are being shut down, and people tend to spend their satellite funding on running and using the satellite, not bringing it down safely. Maybe i should start selling insurance....
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
Crashing so soon?
What version of Windows was it running?
time to hit yahoo for some pillows!
;-}
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
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?
Karma: Non-Heinous
I missed out last time, I suggest this time that Taco Bell uses a target the size of Rhode Island. I really, really want a Taco.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Its one thing to continuously crash things into Mars, we all hate those damn Martian scum anyways... But now we are talking about Earth! Stop forgetting about your unit conversions or carrying the 1, or else someone might get hurt!
This is definitely *not* an "act of God." So I wonder if my insurance policy will cover if it comes down on my house, car, wife, dog (just kidding - I don't have a dog)
with the number of objects we've put into orbit around our planet at an all time high and increasing constantly this will become more and more common. logic dictates that ultimately these things will make land in someone's yard (living room, white house, etc.).
the real problem here is what to do about it...
i propose using defunct home Internet appliances as projectiles. it would be extremely inexpensive and, when fired from a railgun at speeds in excess of 30,000ft/sec, these little beauties could easily eliminate a chunk of space debris weighing 100 or more lbs.
Q: What costs millions of dollars to produce and is guaranteed to crash back to earth?
A: ABC's new Fall line-up...
Or do they mean no FUNCTIONAL onboard steering system? I don't know of many satellites that don't include manuvering thrusters. Orbits decay naturally and require slight adjustments over time.
Of course, it WAS described as defunct, so I suppose I can give them some leeway on that.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
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
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
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Actually, debris entering the atmosphere (man-made and not) is a common occurrence. Happens everyday on some scale. It isn't just everyday a 3.5 ton one comes down :)
I believe US Space Command/NASA/NORAD spends a ton of time tracking objects in close orbit, even very small ones the size of your finger.
After all, anything going 17500 miles per hour hitting something like the space shuttle or Hubble or any other satellite (GPS, communications, spy/defense) wouldn't be pretty.
Someone who worked for NASA at MSFC told me that they have actually had astronauts on the space shuttle change the shuttle's orbit slightly in order to avoid certain large pieces of debris.
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
OK.
:)
:)
If this DOES start to happen with higher frequency the Star Wars will save us... right?
We don't have anything to worry about because George W. is going to protect us from this stuff.
It would be a REALLY great scandal.
Bush and his defense contractor friends are not counting on anything actually happening. If something comes down and causes any damage this would put a BIG red mark on his face.
Kevin
I know there's not a whole lot we can do about it ... but couldn't the media have given us a bit more warning. It's less than 30 hours from the CNN article to the earliest estimated reentry time.
NASA's original press release was on the 16th Feb.
Even that is a bit worrying. Did NASA only discover 11 days ago that their 3.5 tonne satellite was going to crash? It's not like they behave erratically, is it?
From an engineering perspective (as in IAAES), I'd say that it makes sense to cut initial costs by designing the thing for a short lifespan. If it only needs to be in orbit for ten years, then why bother over-engineering it for more? The costs would go through the roof. Maintaining anything in space after that term is expensive enough on it's own. It's a better idea to build another one and send it up after a set time.
3.5 tons of material isn't much anyways, it will come back to Earth. Big deal. We could only hope that it would land in the backyard of a certain resident of Holland, MI.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
EUVE Home (UCal. Berkeley)
Info on satellite tracking here. Track the orbit, and place bets on where it will land. (note, the farthest north is someplace in florida.)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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.
Lasers Controlled Games!
If gravity is formed by areas of extreme density, I'm putting my money on it landing in Redmond.
Please hit our provincial government, please hit our provincial government, please hit our provincial government.
Amen.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Its okay guys..really. Bruce Willis and his buddies are training right now. There is no cause for worry!
I wonder when this sort of thing will start to be a more common event."
/my/ house, but since we can't really make sure everyone sticks around to deal with their space litter (hello USSR?), I'm not sure what other options are available.
Considering the amount of space junk in orbit and the clutter and risk it represents, it's nice to see that some of this stuff is finally exceeding its orbital lifespan and is reentering.
Of course, I'm not sure I'd want it ending up on
*scoove*
Crashing so soon?
What version of Linux w/Gnome is it running?
:-)
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The satellite is expected to land in Quassy, an uninhabited part of the Australian Outback.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
>Self-destruct mechanisms as a design feature for all sattelites...
/. in the past over deorbiting a still operational satellite. Well, WHY DO YOU THINK THEY DO IT? Purely to avoid this situation.
As afidel wrote above (I'd mod him up if I had any points now), you don't want to do this to a defunct satellite.
As you point out, it would have to pose no danger to other spacecraft. Well, the only practical way to do that is to ditch it in a controlled fashion. Any explosion involves a release of energy in pretty much all directions. Although some shaping of the charge can control the blast, you still blast some pieces in every direction. Each piece that does not hit the atmosphere enters its own orbit - risking collision with some other satellite.
The proper solution, employed by almost all responsible satellite designers, is to allow enough extra fuel to deorbit the satellite. Of course, this depends on having CONTROL of the satellite. To guarantee this requires more redundancy - and more weight and fuel and complexity, etc. At the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a pound for launch costs, the designers usually opt for mission-suitable redundancy, and hope (and pray) that all the systems don't fail before they DO deorbit. And if they do start failing unusually fast, they'll deorbit early to avoid this kind of fiasco.
Kind of ironic - I've seen some griping on
You can't have it both ways, folks!
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I find it somewhat disturbing that in the year 2002, after we've put men on other planets, taken photos of galaxies millions of light years away and split the atom, we cannot determine the path of a plummeting object.
CNN (and other sources including NASA) are reporting a 9 hour window on when it could fall. With all the scientific minds and all the great algorithms we have, we can't determine when something like this will happen? Or is it that unimportant to bother getting out the slide rule and doing some calculations? And then there's where. A 1000 mile path that nobody seems to have any clue where it might land. We can't figure out a simple trajectory?
Doesn't this disturb anyone that chunks of metal up to 100lbs is going to be dropping on our heads shortly? True, the chances of getting hit are probably a billion to one, but they say that about lightning as well. Well, it'll be a fun light show and we can always hope it lands in Redmond or somewhere insignifigant.
liB
... starlight, starbright, first star I see toni ... *thud*
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Yet space agency scientists said there is little risk because most of the doomed satellite will burn up in the atmosphere.
at least a little of the sattelite is going to end up hitting the earth, and it's going to be DAMN HOT!
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Here are some stats for comparison
Being killed in a car accident: one in 5,300
Being a drowning victim: one in 20,000
Choking to death: one in 68,000
Being killed in a bicycle accident: one in 75,000
Being killed by lightning: one in 2 million
Being killed by falling debris from a satellite: one in 4 million
Dying from a bee sting: one in 6 million
Winning the current Power Ball Jackpot of $10 million dollars: one in 80 million
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Can you tell me where a piece of paper dropped off a skyscraper will land?
The weather in low earth orbit is just as unpredictable as the weather at the ground, and just as variable. The density of the atmosphere around satellites (and thus the drag force on them) can vary by an order of magnitude. If the satellite loses orientation (which it is essentially certain to as drag forces overcome tidal or powered stabilization) then its coefficient of drag changes as well, and unpredictably when it rotates. It may not even have just drag acting on it; even in orbit an angled surface can produce just as much lift as drag, and when the satellite hits the atmosphere its shape could produce more lift than drag.
And of course, for every second by which the atmosphere delays reentry, the satellite has moved 5 miles in its orbit. 5 mi/s * 3600 s/hr * 9 hr gives a nice 160,000 mile strip of possible landing sites, crossing around and around the whole globe. If you'd like to gamble about the probability of something being hit by one of the chunks, though, I suggest placing your money on "no".
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.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Dude, it's freaking Skyfall Day! They actually had a block party for that sorta thing. I really wish some network would re-run the series again. it r00ld.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
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:
/ pe rseids_shower_sidebar_000809.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy
Could all of those people who built Y2K shelters have a chance at mocking those who didn't?
In no event shall the designers of the satellite be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption; destruction of cities, countries, continents; death of all humans) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this satellite, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
The International Space Station is at an altitude of 400 km. Geostationary orbits are more like 36000 km, which is far beyond the reach of the Space Shuttle, which would be the logical (i.e., only) choice for collecting space debris and transporting it to ISS.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
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.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
NASA's got a cool little Java applet you can play with to see the satellites and their orbits.
It's a simulation based on posted data, I gather, rather than any kind of tracker, and I'm sure there are dozens of black satellites not listed, but it's still very neat. You can zoom in/out and around the earth, pick specific satellites from categories, changes the time speed, etc. There's also all the favourites such as the shuttle (when it's up), the ISS, Mir, Hubble, COBE, etc. You can also load a web page with more info about any given satellite, such as when it was launched, what it carries, and so on.
Enjoy!
I agree. However, this is extremely hard to enforce. What would the US government do if a foreign (Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, you name it) satellite does not have this capability? 'Express their concerns' via diplomatic channels, or something less effective, I think. Clearly an international treaty would be required.
Many satellites are used for military purposes, and a reliable re-entry system would require reductions in the satellite payload and efficiency or increase the cost. I doubt most nations are not willing to let some international treaty to compromise their military interests. Considering the fate of the ABM treaty, it is pretty clear that United States is not one of them. Enforcing such a treaty efficiently would also require pre-launch inspections of all satellites, including the military ones. How many nations with space capabilities would allow this?
Due to orbital mechanics, it would take about 15tons of gas to move this 3.5 ton spacecraft into geosync orbit. Any when you get it there, it becomes like all those 5.25" floppy drives in your closet - i.e. obsolete, worn out and useless. i.e, the wrong sort of stuff. 3.5 tons of rocket propellent in GEO would be worth more than than the metal - many communication satellites up there eventually are retired due to running out of gas, even though the electronics has a few years life left in it. Remember, commsats are the only thing really making decent $$$ in space.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
I always found it funny seeing insurance contracts that covered impact by 'air and land vehicles, and spacecraft'. I guess the insurance companies aren't too worried about a satellite hit - the damage could be great, but the odds are rather slim.
:)
Anything which survives from a satellite doing an uncontrolled reentry isn't going to be much different from a regular meteorite. Also a sizable object hitting the ground is more likely to have fallen off an aircraft than be space junk anyway.
Then again, they *do* exclude nuclear attack, so who knows
Insurance companies also tend to exclude being bombed, whatever the type of munitions. They also tend to consider "terrorism" as being exempt unless specifically covered.
I'm sure they probably count on the odds that they crash over water, or some unpopulated area, and not notify anyone beforehand. Or if it does get hit something, they'll attribute it to some plane part falling off... :)
The difference is that a bit of a plane would be a recognisable man made object, most likely people would have a tough time telling the difference between a bit of space junk and a natural meteorite.
If a peice of this sat actually causes damage say to a house, can NASA be held responsible? Can they be sued or have any official preceedings brought against them?
How do you prove it was space junk. There are considerably more natural than man made meteorites... Even if you can convince the judge that it was man made how do you prove it came from a NASA craft?
The highlight of the celebration was that each of the networks and others would intentionally down their retired satalites on the same night each year, producing an intentional light show of shooting stars (as seen from earth).
Silliness abound (inspired by the Skylab incident) about people walking around with metalic umbrellas and the like...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Extreme Ultraviolent Explorer, and all sorts of images started to form in my head, mostly related to Alex and his old droogs in combination with a (in)famous browser.
I'm pretty happy I read it wrong. Although Microsoft never seem to hesitate to give us "some of the old in-out-in-out" whenever we dare to walk in the wrong parts of town.
5. Aircraft, including self-propelled missiles and spacecraft.
Who knows, maybe my insurance company would go after the spacecraft designers/operators/whoever -- or, more likely, after their insurance agency.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
here is when it happend here is when the satalit re-entered, did any other satallite re-enter at the same time? no? well now we know whose it is, don't we?
personally, I'd sue the company who owned it. considering the entire population of the earth could fit into Rhode Island, I don't think it will be an issue for me, thank goodness.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe i should start selling insurance
When SkyLab fell back in 1979, this was the first of this kind of incident. People were concerned. The news said that if you check your homeowner's policy it usually has coverage for falling spacecraft.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I suppose if the thing had enough energy it could stay up there by pointing an enormous laser beam downward and taking advantage of the momentum of light, but first of all, we don't have the technology to collect that much energy, and second... think about where that big old laser beam is pointing. Down, right?
I wonder when this sort of thing will start to be a more common event.
I forget which Max Headroom episode it was, started off with bits of deorbited satellites coming down. In a celebration of some sort.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!