Slashdot Mirror
NASA's Fermi Spacecraft Dodged a Defunct Russian Satellite
g01d4 writes "On March 29, 2012, NASA scientists learned that the space agency's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was headed for a potential conjunction (close approach) with Cosmos 1805, a defunct Russian satellite from the Cold War era. The team knew that the only way to move Fermi would be to fire thrusters designed to move the spacecraft out of orbit at the end of its operating life. On April 3rd, shortly after noon EDT, the space agency fired all thrusters for one second. When it was over, everyone involved 'just sighed with relief that it all went well.' By 1 p.m., the spacecraft had returned to its mission."
this is clearly a premeditated act of war by the russians. I propose we attack Uzbekistan.
From TFA:
Though Fermi was expected to miss Cosmos by several-hundred feet, NASA scientists knew from experience that forecasting spacecraft positions a week in advance isn’t an exact science. For example, Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collided in 2009 even though they were predicted to miss each other by approximately 1,900 feet. This was the first known satellite-to-satellite collision.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
If there was any debris from the Cosmos (either directly from it, or from interactions with other junk or such) could be within that area.
Our radar is not good enough to make it safe enough to pass by that closely.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
700' is ridiculously close when you're going miles per second and the Earth's atmosphere is constantly changing, changing each object's orbits by similar amounts regularly due to drag.
Heck, if the RADAR producing the data has a couple of microseconds of jitter in it's clock, the propagation estimates could be off by that amount....Basically, 700' is pretty close to the noise of our estimations for orbital objects like this, and it's just better to be safe than sorry. Not to mention, who knows what small pieces could have broken off of that satellite and be orbiting nearby it....
Oh man, where do you start with this?
In LEO, orbiting debris are a self limiting problem. They will eventually deorbit on their own. So I guess that's not an issue for you.
In Geosynchronous orbit, every object is going to be pretty much moving in exactly the same direction anyway so the relative velocity is really small. The risk of collision is pretty small and the debris created would be minimal at low collision energies.
Outside these two areas, collecting orbiting debris, which vary in size from a few tons down to a few grams is a daunting task at best. How do one would imagine this could be done is the stuff of science fiction at best. Any collection system would by definition need to collect varying sized objects passing though a huge (by human standards) volume. This means there will need to be some pretty large structures launched, flown in space, survive the impact of collecting the desired objects and dispose of the collected mass. All this will need to happen without adding to the problem....
I just don't see how we are going to do this.
Personally, mankind would be better off if we took a debris mitigation strategy that required all launched hardware be mindful of not creating debris in orbits that would not naturally reenter within 5 years or so. We do this kind of thing now, at least the responsible people throwing most of the stuff in to space do, no telling what DPRK does.
Other than that, we might want to start thinking about building "space tugs" that can capture the junk that's collecting in geosynchronous orbit, tug it to less popular locations and work on ways to recycle parts of it. It sure doesn't seem worth the effort to deorbit the stuff that is that high up.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If you want to be pedantic, no. "Geosynchronous" means that it has a 1-day orbital period but does not specify the inclination or eccentricity of that orbit. The correct term for what you're talking about is "geostationary".
Because no one is willing to pay a gazillion dollars to provide bonuses to aerospace executives. Once the C-suite execs find a sponsor you'll suddenly hear what a high priority clearing out orbital debris has become.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. Not to mention that it's already in orbit.
Nice idea... simple solution... but if we take this seriously (sorry, too early in the morning for my sense of humour to have woken up yet) the only problem with it is that any explosive method of dealing with orbiting debris just creates lots of small and tiny pieces of shrapnel, and traveling through a field of that crap at orbital velocities is not going to be the highlight of your day. Not a problem if you are in an M1 Abrams battle tank, but satellites do not have armour, except for shielding against the sun's radiation, and things like solar panels do not work very well after being hit a few times by orbital debris.
What we REALLY need is a small version of Mega Maid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VptOUWC-Itc) to go up there and hoover up all the junk, preferably while leaving all the viable stuff alone.