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North Korea's Satellite Is Out of Control
Koreantoast writes "After failing on numerous occasions, North Korea has finally put a satellite in orbit. But according to US officials, it is now 'tumbling out of control.' This is bad news, and more bad news, covered in a double layer of extra bad news. From the article: 'According to US officials, it appears that North Korea's new satellite has failed to achieve a stable orbit and is now "tumbling out of control." The greatest danger is the threat of it colliding with another satellite, adding to the growing debris field around the earth.' A separate Gizmodo article provides links for tracking the current location of the satellite."
Its unclear if the new min-shuttle has offensive capabilities.
...it can cover multiple orbital trajectories while imperialist pig Yankee capitalist satellites are only capable of a single orbit.
US launches secret space drone... NK satellite suddenly goes into an uncontrolled descent.
1 + 1 = ...
If you're in orbit, you're in orbit. If your orbit is too low then it's a decaying orbit but "tumbling out of control" is a bit of hyperbole from the press. It might be harder to predict the re-entry if the satellite is spinning and has no attitude control; maybe that's what they mean. I suppose it's possible that it could strike that atmosphere and bounce before re-entering, but will it bounce high enough to impact something in LEO? Details please. I bet this is a tempest in a teapot; not that I condone NK's actions or think they're particularly smart.
Seems like it's time for another anti-sat test.... you know, for our safety.
It may not be flat out stupidity. Perhaps it is a matter of not having the data required to make the appropriate calculations. We know everything in orbit, gravitational tug well beyond 20 decimal places on all faces of the earth. Just a couple of those missing variables could really make physics not work how you predict
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
And they wonder why the world doesn't want them to have nuclear weapons.
Looks like it is headed for S. Korea in about 10 minutes - this should be fun. Of course, it might have done that already and I just missed it; the orbit track only goes back about 1 orbit (~90 min).
The tracker just says "Connecting..."
That can't be good.
If it does end up damaging another satellite, what can anyone do about it? It's not like North Korea is going to nicely exchange insurance info with the aggrieved party or pay for damages. Hell, if it's a US company I doubt they'd even be allowed to accept funds from there legally if they were amenable. I could see several scenarios in which this leads to war with North Korea, and frankly I'm not really caring who takes them out at this point. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Not sure if there would be time to deploy the military shuttle thing... especially if this satellite starts dragging on the upper atmosphere.
The betting pool is now open as to where it'll re-enter. At 100kg or so, I'm not certain it'll survive the trip back down, but bits of it might.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
As in "North Korea is a Chinese satellite" that goes "out of control", often when it seems to suit Chinese interests.
I don't even know why the US bothers negotiating with North Korea. About the only two things the US can do to North Korea is
1. Bribe 'em - which really is a counterproductive way to prevent misbehavior, as it just encourages more misbehavior
2. Bomb 'em - just plain counterproductive
Serious.
Let Japan, South Korea, and to a lesser extent Taiwan and Russia work to make North Korea behave. Japan and Taiwan in particular can make the Chinese jerk North Korea to heel pretty quickly - just threaten to openly field nuclear weapons. You'd better believe the threat of a nuclear Taiwan would get Beijing knickers in a huge knot in about half a millisecond. Japan, not so much, but even so a nuclear Japan would do a lot to knock back Chinese influence in east Asia.
One has to wonder if the Air-Force's X-37B kinda gave it a nudge.
We can't shoot it down or destroy it without risking an international incident.
they might Need Another Seven Astronauts.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I checked. It doesn't look like it's tumbling now. False alarm, nothing to see here, move along ---
----aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!! What's that thing hurtling towards m
Maybe we should just call in something like this.
Maybe it's time for the nations of the world to pony up the cash and send a "hoover vacuum" satellite to clean up the loose debris. They should also send a cat satellite that would be terrified of the other satellite. Of course, some know it all would point out that space is already a vacuum.
No need. Dark Helmet is on his way right now to suck our atmosphere up. We can just have him clean up the debris in orbit while he's at it.
"Rejoice, for the Supreme Leader's weaponized satellite is close to striking a blow against western oppression."
Problem solved.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
Taiwan = China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT
Mostly random stuff.
I'm kind of wondering whey we don't use one of the NSA space shuttles ... pardon me, "test" vehicles that don't exist ... to capture it and bring it safely down to Earth.
Or would I be breaking Super Secret Double Probation by admitting the vehicles we launched do exist?
Cause if the death satellite crashes on Seattle or Vancouver or NYC there's going to be a lot of fired NSA people.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
from the article after someone makes a prediction of it crashing somewhere.
One of the follow-ups: " I predict it will crash into a Mayan temple in 9 days "
You guys have a tough bar to reach in comments this time :)
Figures, Best Korea would launch a satellite with a bad attitude.
Pity, Japan's having pitching a fit over NK's poor angle of attack, but y'all just need to get over it - NK clearly has no inclination to just roll over and take it!
I read in the thread about the launch how development of tech like the launch rocket are the only way for the Norks to keep the US from fucking with them.
Commenter never specified whether it was through fear or from being doubled over in laughter.
Except North Korea's dangerous attempts at spaceflight endanger China's interests in space just as much as they damage the US'. Massive amounts of debris in orbit aren't good for anybody.
Maybe it will land in China and inspire them to do something a little more drastic about North Korea.
In the original space race, when the Soviets launched a satellite, it was seen in the west as a proxy for an ICBM - the (correct) theory being, that a nation firing a sub-orbital rocket was "interesting", while a nation launching an orbital craft meant they could, potentially, hit "anywhere" (subject to orbital inclination and other similar factors)
Now that the Soviet Union has fallen, to be replaced by "friendly" (yeah, right) Russia, other nations can launch satellites with impunity (China, India etc). Most of them are, if not "friendly" to the west, are at least "not complete and utter fruitbats" (that's a technical term BTW).
North Korea (DPRK), though, is still transitioning from the "complete and utter fruitbat" of Kim Jong-Il to Kim Jong-Un, so that, at this stage, it is hard to say whether the new Dear Leader's plans for satellites are peaceful or not.
Assumption 1: it is peaceful, so an out of control satellite is, as USA, Russia and several others have found out, merely an expensive mistake
Assumption 2: it is deliberately provocative, (we launch a satellite, so an ICBM is easier), so an out of control satellite is... well what, exactly?
Let's not forget that part of DPRK's posturing is directed inwards - their recent "nuclear accident" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanggang_explosion) - to quote wiki "No neighboring nations have claimed any detection of radioactive isotopes characteristic of a nuclear explosion.", even though their news media hinted it as such, means that even an unsuccessful satellite will still be seen as a "we are a major power" - when broadcast to those in DPRK
So... where from here? DPRK joins the space race. That is still a concern. Does it matter that the satellite failed? Only if it was intended to be "just a satellite" If it was a "proof of concept" for an ICBM, then a wonky orbit is still an orbit
"She's furniture with a pulse"
All right, calling the rocket launch a "weapon test" was not totally uncalled for, because we all know that space rocket technology is dual use by nature, and can result in the development of ballistic missiles.
But this...
The satellite is just a small spacecraft on a polar low earth orbit. It seems its attitude control system has failed, this is why it tumbles around. It's not the first example of a failed satellite on low earth orbit... and it's not because it is tumbling that its trajectory has become unpredictable. It will just decay in the atmosphere and burn before reaching the ground, as most low earth orbit satellites do at the end of their life. Controlled re-entries are rare, except for massive objects such as the Mir space station.
Wrong
Probably more in the line of this
Turn right now!
Calibrating.....
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
What if we had a reuseable spacecraft with a large enough cargo area and crew capacity to go up there and grab the thing before it causes havoc, stick it in its cargo bay and fly it back and see what it actually is...
Wouldn't something like that be dead handy?
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
I love how the yellow line on the satellite-tracker here crosses within a few yards of my house on full zoom.
Having a satellite crash into my home would not make my day. Having a North Korean satellite crash into my home would not make the North Koreans' day, once Washington got involved. Hopefully it'll just splash down into the ocean or burn up on reentry.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
I was just thinking the onboard computer is probably using a version of Windows Mobile...
"Tumbling" means they lack attitude control. It is still in a predictable polar orbit. And while any addition to the amount of junk in orbit is undesireable it is not "very dangerous".
Though North Korea is governed by scumbags, I congratulate the engineers who did this on the achievement of orbiting a satellite with such limited resources and commiserate with them over the loss of attitude control. They have as much right to put things in orbit as anyone else. Fuck the UN.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why don't we just nudge it into a stable orbit, then use it as political capital to help foster 'peaceful' relations with NK, so that Murdoch will be able to legally use NK labor to produce entertainment for his umbrella of media endeavors? :)
Nah, let's just nudge it so it crashes on Murdoch instead.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So in another year or two Apple will launch one with a sexy monochrome, art deco design and a splashy ad campaign that will do basically the same thing, but look cool while doing it, and in a few months time everyone will remember that it came first?
An interesting idea.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Only if he knows the password!
You're way behind the times. The current accepted dis is that "It's running the new iOS 6 maps app"
North Korea first strike = loser North Korea
You mean that the isolated nation of North Korea doesn't have a network of tracking stations that can keep the contact with the satellite over its orbital path? I am shocked...
By the way, I dislike NK as much as anyone here, maybe a bit more as I have relatives in Japan, but nothing would ne more dangerous than underestimating them. Their second attempt at a 3 stage rocket put a satellite into orbit. If I am not mistaken, this is one of the cleanest record of any space power. Losing just one rocket is incredible.
Building satellites is hard and the objective of this launch is unknown (unless you are willing to believe the weather-satellite-on-a-perfect-spy-orbit fable). The lack of details makes it hard to know how much of a failure this really is. If they fear it becomes a durable debris, it means it is not currently on an unstable orbit.
NK has about 50 nukes and satellite launching abilities. It is not a laughing stock. It is a major problem for the world. Just laughing is silly. This kind of news seems to say "Haha, what clowns, we can't do anything about them so let's just mock them"
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
North Korean succeeds again, our new satellite is able to spin faster than any imperialist satellites and is expected to make a triumphant return any second now.
So if this crashes into my house, would that be an act of war?
I was hoping for Dec 21.
Have gnu, will travel.
I have to point out that:
1. No one in US has any way to determine if that satellite is or is not on intended orbit, unless orbit deteriorates (and then no one would care).
2. The source is mentioned as unnamed "US officials", what can just as well mean "CIA propaganda writers" (well, they are US officials... formally).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
reflects the personality of N.K. leadership
Table-ized A.I.
Most countries' early launches are to the east since you get free energy from the Earth's rotation if you launch in that direction.
You've just given the enemy key technical information that will allow them to succeed the next time.
Have gnu, will travel.
It looks like it will stay up just long enough to fall on .....
Pyonyang.
Have gnu, will travel.
Their entire country is out of control.
If this thing takes out Santa, my kid's gonna be pissed!
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
North Korea is far from being the biggest contributor to massive amounts of debris. But the two others countries in your comment...
Not only that but this is probably the only instance where Canada was better armed than the US.
"As part of its mission goals, the X-37 was designed to rendezvous with friendly satellites to refuel them, or to replace failed solar arrays using a robotic arm. Its payload could also support Space Control (Defensive Counter-Space, Offensive Counter-Space), Force Enhancement and Force Application systems.[10] An early requirement for the spacecraft called for a delta-v of 7,000 mph (3.1 km/s) to change its orbit.[11]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
....Gangnam Style!
New Economic Perspectives
If the debris is in a stable orbit, it heads everywhere, spreading out and increasing the chance of impact on Chinese satellites and spacecraft just as much as American.
If it weren't for the Chinese, the US would have wiped out the North Korean government and installed our own kinder and gentler dictatorship (really!) back in the 50s. Oil or no oil.
I do not see anything that would make this satellite different from the thousands of other defunct satellites - there is far worse stuff up there, such as satellites containing nuclear reactors (!) or plutonium RTGs. Furthermore, TFA, especially the Gizmo article, contains statements or implications which are simply wrong. The /. summary picks them up, as well as most of the commenters. And they should be technically adept people...
However, a failure (or complete lack?) of attitude control does in no way mean the satellite's orbit is 'unstable', 'unpredictable' or 'changing'. The satellite is and stays where it was placed by its rocket, and if it was placed in LEO, declines (as every other object in LEO, such as the ISS) within a fairly predictable timeframe until it disintegrates in the atmosphere.
(Hopefully) nobody would be as stupid to give their satellite active propulsion and program it to 'fire its engines randomly when tumbling out of control'. Anyway, I highly doubt the satellite has any attitude control or even propulsion built-in at all - just take a look at the Sputnik and Explorer missions, which did not even have an energy source; they just started 'tumbling out of control by design', and transmitted data until their batteries ran out.
However, of course the statement that the satellite was thought for earth monitoring, which is basically confirmed by the fact it was launched into (and will stay in) sun-synchronous orbit would imply it has some sort of attitude control, since it would require some sort of CCD chip to be earth-faced.
There's no such thing as the 21st month.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Actually, NK developed their own GNU/Linux distributions. http://rt.com/news/north-korea-cyber-weapon/?fullstory Please don't be irritated by the sensational title - that's a real problem with news sites these days, even here on slashdot. For example, see this article.
The tracking app linked from the Gizmodo site isn't responding at the moment. Perhaps the NK satellite landed on their data center.
Have gnu, will travel.
yup.
There is a big dose of FUD here. There are thousands of defunct satellites, and pieces thereof, up there. The chances of something out of control hitting something is very small. Now, it would be bad if it blew up, turning into thousands of pieces, but just by itself it is no big deal.
Based on my calculations, it'll start coming down North East off Greenland at around 8:20am Eastern Standard Time this morning... It should be at about 50km altitude at which point the atmosphere will cause it to start burning up, so it'll probably fall in the Greenland sea.
I don't understand what the problem is? Shooting satellites into space and keeping them in orbit has been a solved problem for decades.
North Korea should be able to do this. Rocket and satellite tech isn't that secret anymore. It's only a matter of engineering and money. They surely have the engineers and they have shown they can scrape together the money at the expense of their own people.
20 minutes into the future
If it was still losing altitude, which it isn't anymore. Been stable at around 500km for the best part of 10 minutes.
Depends on who you ask. Taiwan happily will not provoke China in any further way. What this could lead to would make Tibet look like a Sunday afternoon picknick.
Diplomacy with NK only works via China. Best pick diplomats who can actually negotiate with them.
20 minutes into the future
And there's no such thing as multiple date formats worldwide. Least of which is seeing an American format date on a US-centric web site.
Yeah when I was watching it, it was in a steady decline over 10 mins, then it started going up when reaching 500.. I suppose I shouldn't be so quick to trust western media, haha.
The satellite appears to be in a stable, nearly circular orbit. Perigee 505.3 km, apogee: 588.3 km. That's higher than the ISS. It's not going to re-enter any time soon. Good launch. Some idiot seems to have looked at a tracking site, saw that the altitude was decreasing, which happens for about half of each orbit, and made a big deal out of this.
It's not clear that the satellite is out of control. Many satellites tumble during their early orbits, until attitude stabilization is commanded and achieved. Since North Korea doesn't have a worldwide network of tracking stations, they can only send commands when the satellite passes over their country. They may choose to let it orbit for a while and collect some telemetry data before trying to stabilize it. Assuming it's equipped for attitude stabilization. Early US and USSR satellites were not stabilized.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
So you are Canadian?
Anti-Canadian Canadian?
Eh? *sarcasm
Lighten up, dude.
It was an appropriately On-topic comment in reply to the shuttle being armed.
It was humour, really.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
With the current rate of decay and solar flux, the A & B object will decay about 2-3 months from now.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
They've repeatedly demonstrated just this ability to do so.
The OTP ought to cut severely in the hyperbole. There is very little (read: no) "bad news" in all of this. Most of what is brought up is FUD aimed at fooling people to think the North Koreans "failed" again (as crazy commies should). Truth is: this time they didn't.
1) Tumbling does not increase the changes of a collision at all. It is completely irrelevant for the collision danger whether a satellite tumbles or not;
2) Tumbling does not really influence the orbit (only in the final stages of decay it does). Indeed, it is completely unclear what is meant by a "stable orbit" here. ALL satellite orbits decay over time, so NONE of them is "stable". Probably, it is meant to imply that the Korean satellite has no reboosting capability. That is probably part of the design (many simpler satellites have no reboosting capability).
Yes, maybe the Koreans have no control over the attitude of the object. But that doesn't matter much: nothwithstanding Korean claims of it being a "weather satellite" this was probably never meant to be a truely functioning satellite.
The fact is that the North Koreans managed to successfully bring an object into earth orbit this time, and that in itself is an achievement. Whether you like them or not (and I don't like the North Koreans), those are the facts. No amount of spin and hyperbole about "danger" and "bad news" can take away that fact. This is all simply FUD.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Could this be part of North Korea's strategy? To put a satellite into an orbit, tumbling/apparently out of control, and conveniently in the path of something they want to destroy? It'd be difficult to calculate an orbit that would intersect with something (especially since North Korea probably still uses TRS-80's) but it'd be genius.
In any case, I bet it's just tumbling in a FUBARed orbit due to lack of skills with launching and deploying stuff.
Dear Leader's 100% accurate forecast for the week of December 13th, 2012:
.5 meters in South Korea
High of 200C dropping to an occasional low of -200C in the shade
Clear skies, good visibility, with an imaging resolution of
35% chance of fatal orbital collision with nearby orbital bodies, with some minor nausea, vertigo, and spatial disorientation as we move into the evening.
This has been another installment of Dear Leader's 100% Accurate Forecasts - remember, if it's not spot-on, then the round-eye imperialist Yankee pigs have sent their weather planes over our wonderful Best Korean homeland to change the skies and discredit Dear Leader!
Unlikely. Best Korea is a serious problem for China, and I doubt they'd want to be riling them up. While maintaining a nice bulwark between China and the American influenced South Korea, it's a powder key right on their doorstep.
China does not need the consequences of a collapse or military intervention. Imagine China and NK at college, doing whacky things and getting drunk every night. Fast forward to a China that now holds down a steady job, stuck with his college buddy who still thinks that shitting on the toilet lid is funny. China will sometimes giggle, but not when his girlfriend is due any minute.
And that's my well sourced geopolitical analysis. Any think tanks looking to hire me to get paid for pulling stuff out of my arse?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Being in low orbit, it will definitely drift downwards quite quickly due to atmospheric drag (you need lots of fuel and manoeuvres to maintain low earth orbiting sats [LEO], contrary to the geostationary ones that OTOH "never fall").
The issue here is rather that it'll piss off other users, that sometimes will be obliged to perform collision avoidance manoeuvres based on the (well-known) orbital parameters permanently updated by NORAD et al.*
On each modern LEO sat there has been a fuel provision for this, for years, so even this isn't a great deal. It's just another burden for the ground control centres**...
The only critical thing I see is what'll happen if the NK sat contains heavy and compact elements that may reach the ground while all the rest just burns.
(*) When a dead russian sat killed a Globalstar two years ago, it was the accounting for this warning info that had misfunctioned
(**) and even, I already see the guys coming back home: 'you know what? last night I had to perform a special manoeuvre to avoid the Mad Norrrrth Korrrean Satellite! Aren't you proud of your mate!'
Herve S.
There's no way we could have possibly manufactured such a modern marvel as that here in the US.
Correct - while you might have the technical capacity for some reason you lacked the will to do so. For example the US could have build the Superconducting Supercollider but chose not to leaving Europe to build the LHC. Having the capability to do a thing is only half the story, you also need the will to do it as well. Other countries like Canada and the EU have both the capability and the will to do these things so don't be surprised when we take the opportunities which the US is unwilling to seize itself.
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