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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!
Pure case of state-controled media going on in Russia. They're not willing to admit they had a spy satellite in the first place, so they're not able to explain where the debris came from. That turns out to be something NASA is more than willing to do for the American side.
Aren't orbital trajectories pretty well known? How is there a 1 in 72 chance that the thing will make a sudden mile-long jog and hit the station?
in space so we could catch all the space junk? We just need to be careful that we don't catch any space stations by accident...
Considering who would be putting the net out there, what do you think the chances of accidently catching a space station (or satellite) are, hmm?
The Mothership
Would have to be a pretty tight net... small particles moving fast enough can rip a dangerous hole in spacecraft.
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!
space station dodge you
what about Mega Maid? she could vacuum up all of the space junk
You would think that the chances of space junk hitting the ISS from a mile away would be zero
Is there another kind of drag that needs to be reduced?
Yes, they had too many transvestites on board.
Blank until
Film will be interrupted for a recap of the story at 7
which is totally what she said
this post made me wonder. could they repurpose the nautilus anti missle laser system to knock the space junk that threatens the station out of the vacum of space. Or could it make things worse? (lots of tiny particles you can't avoid vs. a couple of big particles.
Depends on the error ellipse of the orbit determination for the junk, and it sounds like the uncertainty is a good fraction of a mile in size. But in any case, the miss distance is a mile after the course adjustment, not before.
in space so we could catch all the space junk? We just need to be careful that we don't catch any space stations by accident...
Think how fast that junk is traveling.
I record my sleeptalking
Time to call the Space Debris Section of Technora Corporation.... I wonder how far something like Planetes is off from reality at times. Excellent series. GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Not a net, but there will definetly a time when a janitor mission will be necessary.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Only if you know the secret code.....
SUCK.. SUCK.. SUCK..!
Any fans of the anime Planetes ?
So move the net at that speed - 2 km/h, big deal? ;D
They should attach large electromagnets to the ISS and collect all of the space junk it passes by for recycling. I wonder what payment the recycling depot would give for satellite parts.
I don't keep track of shuttle payloads, but I would imagine that there would be room for a satellite or two in the cargo bay on the return trip.
That's a heck of a close call, considering the ISS is traveling at 4.8 miles per second. That's little like a car at highway speed running a red light and missing another car by less than one car length.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Here's a graph of ISS altitude for the last year, if anyone is interested in hard data. (The steady downward slope is due to atmospheric drag, and the sharp increases are from firing maneuvering thrusters to maintain altitude. Presumably, the recent abrupt drop was the maneuver described in the article.)
Anyone here know how they calculate "impact probability" ? I mean, my poor man's logic seems to think you either hit something, or you don't. Bool 1, or Bool 0.
If you miss something by a mile, how does that wind up being a 1 in 72 probability ? No offense to the space buffs, of which I am not one, but that sounds like game show odds to me: "You're bound to lose, but let's all act excited anyway!"
-Billco, Fnarg.com
maybe they were just quoting the engineers who had built the satellite...
[intercom:] "(sszzkk) uh, we need a cleanup on mile 183... that's a satellite cleanup on mile 183."
And my hypothetical intersection doesn't have to be at right angles either.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
How big is your piece of sheet metal? Think about how small both the object you are trying to capture, and the tool you are using to do it with, compares to the amount of space you have to trawl through. Good luck on getting much of anything.
Ordinarily that might work, but as I recall: "She's gone from Suck to Blow!"
All kidding aside, the value of a pound of aluminum in LEO has to be thousands of dollars... I wonder if someday it might make sense for a larger, commercial space station to try to capture any random piece of matter that crosses its orbit, just for raw materials.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
> 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!
heh, I read what about Mega Raid? I couldn't figure out why you would use hard drives to collect space junk. I should wear my glasses and not drink beer when reading Slashdot.
Why not have two giant sheet magnets joined in a V shape, travelling point first? Debris will hit the metal at an angle and either bounce or slide along until friction slows it to the point where magnetism is stronger.
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
Its correct because the mods had no idea.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
The central ISS modules (Zarya, Zvezda) are Russian. Actually, the docking port the ATV is using is also Russian, using the "probe and drogue" technique. I would call their contribution quite remarkable.
...and the thousands of satellites in orbit.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Here's an idea I had some time back, don't know it it would work but here goes. Why not fly a big lightweight coil - say 1 or 2km diameter - with a current running through it. Angle the coil at a few degrees from vertical, and make it moveable. It could be manouevered so piece of space junk moving at very high velocity goes through the middle. Minute eddy currents generated in the object would slow it down or deflect it downwards, eventually losing orbit. The ring would have ion thrusters to counteract the upwards force. After a few decades of operation it might clear up LEO.... perhaps?
I don't know much physics but isn't the speed problem just a frame of reference problem?
Thats why it'd be easier just going with the flow and coming about from behind.
Yeah, I imagine some of the top-secret nuclear waste some of them might be recovering is totally worth a lot of money!!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
And this is why ALL space-stations need at least one death ray.
> And that's why, ladies and gentlemen, the US plans to rely on Russian launches for our entire ISS mission programme.
Don't panic: those very clever Europeans can save the day (again): you can have a ride in the ATV :-)
We can worry about that when it's too late.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Not all the junk is orbiting at the same inclination you know...
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Don't panic: those very clever Europeans can save the day (again): you can have a ride in the ATV :-)
Which isn't currently capable of transporting humans to orbit, and whilst ESA have made comments about doing so they don't seem to have much intention of it.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
You're talking about (to a small angle approximation for the popular geosynchronous orbit) pushing a broom across 8.625 billion square miles. Take into account three dimensions in order to sweep a range of orbits and uncertainty and non-circular orbits....
You would never be able to remove as much debris as you added through malfunctions, fuel discharge, maneuvering jets, et cetera.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
Zarya was funded and is owned by the US, though we paid Russia quite a lot to build it. Even thought Zvezda was really built mainly by the Soviets in the 1980s for their old programme, it was delayed quite a lot (delaying the entire ISS deployment), launched without backup or insurance (causing extra NASA expenses and still more delays), and has broken down a lot (more delays). Russia basically cut back funding its ISS commitments (though the $1M Pizza Hut logo on Zvezda helped out). Meanwhile Russia has funded its other projects quite handsomely, what with $150 oil barrels and a quite "remarkable" natural gas and oil export industry.
"Remarkable" doesn't always mean "good".
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make install -not war
+ Informative adds to karma while + Funny does not. "Helpful" mods have been rating comedy posts as Informative to give the poster better karma. This practice fucks up the karma system and needs to stop. Unfortunately, stopping this probably won't be easy.
Then again, maybe I should lighten up and not care so much about this.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
The ISS is actually still in the earth's atmosphere, as is the junk. The orbits are all going to decay back into the earth's atmosphere at some point, anyway.
mysql> SELECT * FROM `places` WHERE `place` LIKE 'home`; Empty set (0.00 sec)
Russia launched this hunk two years ago and already self-destructed it? And that's excusable somehow? Does the DoD do the same? Who's going to clean that shit up? First time one of Sir Richard's space deckers looses passengers and crew - what's he going to do - sue somebody?
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only SchrÃdinger's Cat knows for sure. :-/
Dead cats are funny. Talking cats are *more* funny. Which one we get when we open that box will determine how this comment gets modded.
One of those lasers they claim can destroy missiles should easily be able to zap a bit of space junk.
No sig today...
There is an anime/manga called Planetes that is entirely about a group who collect dangerous space debris to make Earth orbit safe for commerce. It's actually has an authentic ring to it in terms of the problems, technology and techniques.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating through a satellite debris field is approximately 72 to 1!
It's time for Roger Wilco?
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Doesn't help if you're also forced to watch bad movies.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Also remarkable: a business model that goes like this:
You'll notice the "???" and "Profit!" steps are all thoroughly pre-mixed in with all the other steps, for your Slashdotting convenience.
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It's a space worker's paradise over there.
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make install -not war