First Space Collision in History, Two Satellites Collide
In some off market news history was made yesterday as two satellites collided while in orbit around the earth. One was active and the other deactivated. The first orbital space collision is now raising concern of the probability for further collisions down the road.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Pentagon currently track more than 10,000 pieces of high-speed debris in space.
From today’s WSJ:
A commercial satellite owned by a U.S. company was destroyed in a collision with a defunct Russian military satellite in what NASA said was the first such accident in orbit, raising new concerns about the dangers of space debris.
The crash, which happened Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved one of the satellites owned by closely held Iridium Satellite LLC and a crippled Russian military satellite that apparently stopped functioning years ago, according to U.S. government and satellite-industry officials.
The collision created two large clouds of debris floating roughly 480 miles above Siberia, and prompted space scientists and engineers to assess the likelihood of further collisions.
The accident could have implications for U.S. space budgets and policy, partly because it comes amid a Pentagon campaign to increase spending on systems to protect U.S. high-tech space hardware by keeping better track of the thousands of pieces of debris and other satellites circling the Earth.
As more and more satellites are blasted into orbit, the challenges of keeping them from hitting debris or each other are growing. Military planners also worry about enemies jamming, disabling or potentially even ramming U.S. satellites.
I can’t imagine the day where the battles are no longer on the ground but in space with satellites ramming and blowing one another up with lasers or something similar.
As far Iridium Satellite LLC, we send our condolences for your $100 million+ loss. Hope you had a good space insurance policy.
Image below released by the European Space Agency depicting what Earth looks like with 12,000 pieces of debris and satellites orbiting around it (image from Getty Images):
Source:
Satellites Destroyed in Orbital Collision
Andy Pasztor
WSJ, February 12th, 2009
