Slashdot Mirror
Satellites Collide In Orbit
DrEnter writes "According to this story on Yahoo, two communications satellites collided in orbit, resulting in two large clouds of debris. The new threat from these debris clouds hasn't been fully determined yet. From the article, 'The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. Each satellite weighed well over 1,000 pounds.' This is the fifth spacecraft/satellite collision to occur in space, but the other four were all fairly minor by comparison."
I'm just waiting for one of those things to crash through some suburban American family's house.
Satellite smoke. Don't breathe this.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
The satellites collide YOU!
IIRC from Driver's Ed, the vehicle to the right has the right of way.
Did Russia have Geico? 15% off public liability insurance for satellites...
Except in Oregon, where the first one to exhibit politeness in a manner consistent with their last four stops gets to wait on the other, regardless of left, right or weaponry. Chevy Suburbans are excluded, as usual, and get to go thru without stopping, signaling or giving a healthy shit.
Token MS reference: Investing in MS is risking having your own money used against you in the marketplace.
Nope. It's not a road.
The Russian Satellite should have been transmitting "starboard, you arsehole", or the robotic Russian equivalent.
"Space Chicken!"
IIRC from Driver's Ed, the vehicle to the right has the right of way.
The Russian satellite had lights and siren going, so the Iridium was supposed to pull over.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning.
It's a cover-up, Soviet nukes are falling from space, run for your lives!
Does anyone know what these particular satellites were each being tasked to do? (prior to one of them becoming a single-use kinetic energy space-based weapon system projectile)
Now, I do wear my tin-foil hat a lot, so I'll try to answer your question.
What are the chances that a satellite was launched in 1993 so that it would collide with a satellite launched in 1997, in 2009? As an attempt by Putin to test Obama?
I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd suggest that it might be more profitable to put your entire savings into Powerball tickets.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
They couldn't talk to each other because someone took out a communication satellite. Obviously.
Be relentless!
The question is, did anyone have any specific knowledge of the likelihood of this specific collision prior to the event?
Maybe they're like slashdot dupes. Everyone knows they're coming, they just can't be certain when.
James Bond has safely crashed that Iridium satellite into the Russian cold war doomsday device satellite somewhere over Siberia.
After that, he has as usual returned to having sex with female scientists that look like supermodels.
All is well with the world once more.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
These guys sell micrometers that can measure things as large as five feet across and ones that can only measure up to an inch across. It seems to me that something is the size of a micrometer is somewhat vague.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's time for MegaMaid. Get NASA started on that Spaceball-1 project STAT.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
"It could spur development to clean things up"
Are you vying for a part of the stimulus package?
Most likely the Russians would not object to American lawyers being sent to Siberia to file whatever they would like. Most Americans would probably even donate money for leasing jets to get them there, especially if they could be assured of no empty seats.
Hey, you got iridium in my K-2251 (22675)!
No, you got K-2251 (22675) in my iridium!
Time for a new tasty treat....
The US Air Force has posted the video evidence on YouTube. The Soviets are going to the World Court to seek damages for infringement of copyright of said video.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
It would have been way cool to observe the collision!
If a man sees a satellite collision in space and there is no woman there to witness it, is he still wrong?
Sounds good... Can I only buy it in outer space? Or will it be crashing and burning at stores near me?
As soon as I realized that one of the satellites was Russian, a flag went up.
Could it be worth $100 million to take out one of their satellites, then blame it on an "accident"? Maybe the Iridium was basically just what you said, a weapon, in disguise the whole time.
I wonder if tinfoil hats protect oneself from falling space debris as well...
if it collided with a $100,000 toolbag....
Now, I do wear my tin-foil hat a lot, so I'll try to answer your question.
Tinfoil won't work. It needs to be lead.
Not to troll or to dwell into politics here, But does anyone here know any numbers for the *actual* chances/probabilities that satellite A will collide with satellite B in orbit around the Earth?
Yes. The actual probability is 1.
...or the cloud could reflect sunlight back into space, which would slow down global warming...
How about building a REALLY big magnet on the ground?
A: "Change your couse"
B: "No. You change your course."
A: "We insist that you change your course."
B: "We must protest. Change your course."
A: "This is a warship. Change your course."
B: "This is a lighthouse. Your call."
I'm sure this exchange fits into this whole thing somewhere....
Not anymore.. Now it's just a pile of space junk.
We already have one of those.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
soon to be updated: ... a system of 64 active satellites which relay calls from portable phones
There was that NASA mission that captured micrometeorites in aerogel. Wonder how much it would cost to put together a giant 3000 cubic km aerogel sponge and hold it up there while everything orbited into it.
There you go. Collusion to commit insurance fraud.
Irridium: Um yeah, you know those $100 million satellites? Well two of them crashed. What you don't believe us? Ask the Russians.
Russia: Yeah, they crashed. What you don't believe us? Maybe you go up there and check.
It would cost an enormous amount of money, time, resources, and R&D to clear up a significant orbital debris field. All those resources would(with the exception of any spinoff tech) be squandered, spent just to get us back to where we were before.
Naw, we can just shoot a black hole from the large hadron collider into orbit. Problem solved.
And in Arkansas it is little old ladies in giant land boat 4 doors like Lincolns or Cadillacs. One quickly learns to get out of their way or be dragged REALLY SLOWLY for several miles. They are also immune to all honking or screams of agony due to their lack of hearing. But one can spot and thus avoid the danger by looking for the warning signs, which consist of a car being driven by only a pair of knuckles and a tuft of white hair.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Clearly, one of the satellites was texting while orbiting.
Even my non rocket science brain can take the TLEs and figure out that they were passing way too close to each other (I put it at about 500 meters with the latest elements).
I'd put it at about 0.000 meters actually. You can tell from the size of the debris field...
I can't work with these modern units. How far apart is that in feet?
No, they still have "weight", but gravitational attraction at those distances is quite weak. Those satellites' orbits - as well as the debris cloud's orbit - is the result of Earth, Moon & Satellites all falling towards each another. "Weightlessness" is an illusion of moving bodies (Freefall).
I tried to do a quick-calc on this - don't have the tools tho - to find the "weight" at MEO of 1000 pound satellites (Sea-level, Cape Kennedy FL USA) or the sea-level "weight" of 1000 pound satellites measured at MEO.
Scientists & Engineers are FAR FAR more ethical than Businessmen & Bankers, so if the press release was from NASA, then I'm comfortable weight can be assumed to be at sea level. However - if TARP bloated Banker CEOs put this out, then satellites the size of Aircraft Carriers collided.
I, for one, would welcome our new Satellite Colliding Overlords. Any chance this was the Battleship Yamato in a last-ditch effort to save Earth?