The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility: Where Spacecraft Go To Die (bbc.com)

dryriver writes: Whether you launch a satellite into space or an entire space station like the Russian Mir, the Chinese Tiangong-1 or the International Space Station, what goes up must eventually come down -- re-enter earth's atmosphere. The greater the mass of what is in space -- Mir weighed 120 tons, the ISS weighs 450 tons and will be decommissioned in a decade -- the greater the likelihood that larger parts will not burn up completely during re-entry and crash to earth at high velocity. So there is a need for a place on earth where things falling back from space are least likely to cause damage or human casualties. The Oceanic Pole Of Inaccessibility is one of two such places.

The place furthest away from land -- it lies in the South Pacific some 2,700km (1,680 miles) south of the Pitcairn Islands -- somewhere in the no-man's land, or rather no-man's-sea, between Australia, New Zealand and South America, has become a favorite crash site for returning space equipment. "Scattered over an area of approximately 1,500 sq km (580 sq miles) on the ocean floor of this region is a graveyard of satellites. At last count there were more than 260 of them, mostly Russian," reports the BBC. "The wreckage of the Space Station Mir also lies there... Many times a year the supply module that goes to the International Space Station burns up in this region incinerating the station's waste." The International Space Station will also be carefully brought down in this region when its mission ends. No one is in any danger because of this controlled re-entry into our atmosphere. The region is not fished because oceanic currents avoid the area and do not bring nutrients to it, making marine life scarce.

Comments

Re:WHY?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who is infuriated by this? The ISS is our only viable space platform for anything and these short sighted dip $hits think it's a disposable research toy.

Do you really think NASA are a bunch of short-sighted dipshits who put billions in hardware into space, kept it continuously occupied for 16 years and 354 days since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000, and spent millions on its upkeep, tracking, re-supply missions so they can treat it as a disposable research toy?????

No, the more likely answer is you're a fucking idiot, and have no concept of just how hard it is to get there, but that like all machines it has a useful lifespan and will eventually wear out or need replacing?

If idiotic politicians don't kill funding, with luck a replacement will be in place before they de-orbit the damned thing. But don't make the childish mistake of thinking these guys don't plan on milking everything they can from it.

You may be an idiot, but they sure aren't.

This is hard shit. But nothing humans makes lasts forever.

Re: WHY?!?

[Dutch Gun]

Bullshit. The ISS costs *nothing* to keep up since it is positioned at exactly the point where Earth's gravity equals the moon's gravity, so it just hangs there. The only reason it's being decommissioned is so that they can launch another one that was designed by women and people of color.

No, it's in low earth orbit. You're thinking of a Lagrange point, which is much further out. There's actually atmospheric drag on the ISS such that, without periodic corrections, will drag it down out of orbit. That's true of ANY low earth orbit satellite, of course.

At it's current altitude, the ISS orbit decays about 100m per day. And the lower it dips into the upper atmosphere, the faster the rate of decay becomes. Without correctional boosts, the ISS would probably fall from they sky relatively quickly. I've seen estimations of approximately six months or so.

Reasons for ISS low earth orbit

[knorthern knight]

Why 254 miles above the earth's surface, where there's still some atmospheric drag, you ask?

1) Minor reason... to keep down fuel costs of sending people+supplies up to it. The trade-off is fuel costs of constant burns to keep ISS in orbit.

2) Major reason... the lower Van Allen radiation belt begins approx 500 km (approx 300 miles) above the earth's surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... A moon mission (or beyond) would pass through the belts in a matter of hours; ditto for re-entry returning to earth. With sufficient shielding, you get the equivalant of a few whole-body X-rays. A 6-month mission inside the belts (i.e. above 300 miles) would probably be fatal.

Note that the belts trap charged particles, which would require shielding once you get beyond the belts. The Apollo lunar missions needed that extra sheilding. And that only sufficed for ordinary conditions. Had the sun had shot out a major solar flare pointed toward us during an Apollo mission, the astronauts would've been dead, no ifs, ands, ors, buts.

Re:Reasons for ISS low earth orbit

[4wdloop]

Thanks, that explains LEO and constant falling down. But since it costs so much to bring anything up, would it still be very valuable to keep it flying with fueling it?

I suspect the maintenance is more than just fuel. The heat/cool, air, seals, power all require machinery that breaks so there is a constant need of attention. I used to have a sailboat, it too kept dissolving even if not used.

Entirely the point

[DrYak]

There's actually atmospheric drag on the ISS such that, without periodic corrections, will drag it down out of orbit. That's true of ANY low earth orbit satellite, of course.

At it's current altitude, the ISS orbit decays about 100m per day. And the lower it dips into the upper atmosphere, the faster the rate of decay becomes. Without correctional boosts, the ISS would probably fall from they sky relatively quickly. I've seen estimations of approximately six months or so.

Which is entirely the point of using that orbit.
Anything else beside the ISS (i.e.: debris) will lack said boost and will eventually fall from the sky rather quickly, which means that such low orbit are relatively clean and only contain the few man-made object that can actually boost and nothing else: this means a lot less risks of debris/micro-meteorite impact and a lot less necessary collision-avoidance corrections.