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ISS Dodges Space Junk For First Time In Five Years
Kligat writes "For the first time since 2003, the International Space Station has utilized the rockets on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle to dodge leftover remnants of a defunct satellite. The Russian Cosmos-2421 was launched in June 2006 to track Western Navy vessels and is believed by NASA to have exploded — 'likely due to a self-destruct command issued by Russian officials' according to the article — leaving 500 pieces of space debris. Ordinarily, the rockets on the ATV are used to take the ISS away from Earth's atmosphere and reduce drag. In this case, the 5-minute firing caused the ISS to move downward because it was already near the top of its acceptable range. Estimated probability of impact was 1 in 72, and an avoidance maneuver is called for if the probability is greater than 1 in 10,000. The space junk was predicted to pass the ISS within just a mile."
You watch out for spy satellites!
Russian news avoids mentioning the Russian satellite and just refers to the ISS dodging a "cluster of garbage."
I'm not a rocket scientist. Is there another kind of drag that needs to be reduced?
The drag of being stuck in a space station! It's pretty much like being in prison, but when you stick some rockets on it, suddenly you feel like a supervillain!
Or could it make things worse? (lots of tiny particles you can't avoid vs. a couple of big particles.
well, what we need then is a linux admin who has mastered that Asteroids game
maybe they were just quoting the engineers who had built the satellite...
> ISS Dodges Space Junk For First Time In Five Years
It must be really banged up after 5 years of hitting space junk.
Admit it! You thought it too!