Breaking News: Two Satellites Collide In Orbit

Originally posted by Derek01
Both the former Soviet Union as well as the United States have had and still maintain HK Sats. Known as Hunter Killers. These Sats were in wide production during the 80s under the Star Wars defence initiative.

The soviets HK tests were done by launching sats into very similar orbital planes before intercept:
www.svengrahn.pp.se...
That doesn't seem to match this profile at all, which involved a very high relative inclination.

Amazing how one of our supposedly private communications sats just happened to be destroyed over Siberia.

Trust me, iridiums ARE private communication sats. My wife worked for a company that lived and died based on how well those sats were working. They had to scramble every time one went offline. And as I mentioned before, the location of collision would have been constrained by the orbit of the target given that they were on very different planes with a tiny intercept point. Line of sight would not have been helpful or useful.

reply to post by ngchunter

That's really old news. I got a space-track account a long time ago so that I could access the TLEs whenever I want. It's not too difficult to get one if I can manage it.

Yes please do.
Post a screen shot if you can.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Suspicious to say the least. Several countries have been working on anti-satellite satellites or weapons of such. The debris will rain for a while, hope nothing hazardous was onboard.

Zeptepi,

I'm having trouble finding the Cosmos sat in Orbitron. I've updated the TLE (IIRC - I can't check now since Orbitron doesn't get on with my firewall ) files, and looked through them, but still can't see it. Any idea which TLE I need to load? Thanks!

Originally posted by spinkyboo
reply to post by C.H.U.D.

 

I would say - yes - it IS a little glimpse into the future.
We have never been responsible for where we throw our trash.
We bury it in the soil, throw it in the ocean and send it into space.
Plastic, nuclear waste - you name it - we try to hide it.
This species - not so smart.

Why do you say not so smart? Compared to what?

Is there a smarter technological species on this planet? If so I'd like to know so we can learn how they govern themselves.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


I think it was under "geo", but I can not find it now.
I cant remember which TLE it was under, but it is not on ANY of the lists now.

I have the track running on 33, as a screen saver now. I will try to get updated TLE's for that one, and see if it is still listed.

And when the Junk comes down, some Kid will put up a video on Youtube about Alien fighting each other, or some such nonsense.

reply to post by Zeptepi

Ok... You'll understand if i blank out my username on there...

If it's orbital information you're after, I posted a dynamically updated map of each sat back on page 1. Still seems to work.

[edit on 12-2-2009 by ngchunter]

Ok, just updated TLE's for iridium-33
Cant find Cosmos-2251 on their list anymore.
Here is the position for 33 @(1746 UTC)

Note: These orbital elements are highly suspect at this point.
a major collision would throw them off ALOT.
Peace

[edit on 12-2-2009 by Zeptepi]

Put on your tin hats everyone:

cryptogon.com...

So, an Iridium satellite just happened to collide with a defunct Russian military satellite…

You’re about to learn how the sausage gets made, and, before we begin, you should know that it’s not pretty.

I don’t know the whole story about Iridium, but it has got to be one of the spookiest tales of them all.

In November 1998, Motorola activated the Iridium communications network, a constellation of low-earth orbit satellites that provides wireless telecom and data services to any location on the planet. The cost to build the system? About $5 billion. By August 1999, unable to sign up enough customers—because of extremely high handset costs and per minute usage fees—Iridium was facing bankruptcy.Iridium executive Dan Colussy put together a group of “private investors” to buy the Iridium system. According to Iridium:

In December 2000, a group of private investors led by Dan Colussy organized Iridium Satellite LLC. Iridium Satellite LLC acquired the operating assets of the bankrupt Iridium LLC including the satellite constellation, the terrestrial network, Iridium real property and intellectual capital.

How much did this group of private investors pay for the system that cost about $5 billion to build?

$25 million.

... so much more at the link...



[edit on 12-2-2009 by Sergeant Stiletto]

One day Earth will have it's own rings! ..made entirely of trash.

Thanks Zeptepi, and NGC,

Not to worry. I was just hoping that I could track the Cosmos in the software. No big deal.

I wonder if I could extract the original TLEs that came with Orbitron. The Cosmos should still be there, although I suspect the data would be near useless now?

Looking like it'll be too cloudy here to spot anything tonight

Here's an animation of the collision:

reply to post by Sergeant Stiletto


Thanks for that link!

Very interesting. So, T&L could be on to somthing.

Wow, just wow. Glad I checked it. That has the makings of some kind of conspiracy.
Left me speechless

Folks.....check out Sergeant Stiletto's link.

Star for you sir/ma'm

I guess no one has given those satellites one of the backup systems for SUVs where it beeps if they are about to hit something.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


I must apologize.
I thought that a bit strange as well C.H.U.D. ,not being able to get my original data for 2251.
So I went back to check my screen shot pic of Cosmos-2251 and I had loaded the wrong sat.(embarrassed emoticon here)
I downloaded and posted Cosmos-2151. Clearly the wrong sat.
I cannot go back to edit that post.
And yes the Data would be fairly useless for meaningful tracking at this point in time.
Again, I am sorry for the mix-up

Cool sim video
Cheers

Originally posted by spinkyboo
reply to post by C.H.U.D.

 

I would say - yes - it IS a little glimpse into the future.
We have never been responsible for where we throw our trash.
We bury it in the soil, throw it in the ocean and send it into space.
Plastic, nuclear waste - you name it - we try to hide it.
This species - not so smart.

I would say there is not one thing we could do to this planet or the solar system that would not even itself out.

I mean, have you ever seen the layers of earth. Do you understand how many civilizations have stood up and fell down.

Plastic is what the upper mantle is. We can not make something unless it already exists in our eco system.

What do you suggest we do with all of our garbage. Can't simply wish it away. Only thing we can do is make products that break down faster, otherwise earth will take care of it at the next layering.

Peace

reply to post by Zeptepi


Sorry, I'm just not seeing a conspiracy here. Iridium fell flat on its face and sold itself off to investor for pennies, good for them. My wife worked closely with both Iridium and Globalstar, the former isn't any more "evil" than the latter. Sat phones have strict useage limitations not present in cell phones, they're far more expensive, so they're not as in demand as the original investors would have hoped. The satellites were in place long before the "evil DoD" gave them any contract. They're comm sats, that's all.

reply to post by ngchunter


Ya know, Put in that perspective, you are probably right.
With your Wife's close knowledge of the operations and your well thought
out explanation. I must concur with you.
I have no knowledge of how the DoD works.

Peace

reply to post by Zeptepi


It's ok, satellite phones are not well understood by most people, even people who use them. My wife used to have to field complaints all day long some days; "it isn't working in doors, it isn't working in my car, I didn't know minutes would cost that much..." Then of course there were days when a satellite was offline and interfering with service... not fun. It's easier when you can blame the user. Little side note trivia, she helped rent out phones to the producers of the new Miami Vice remake, which were heavily featured in the film (being used incorrectly much of the time). That's really all this DoD contract comes down to, only they use them correctly, and they encrypt their calls. People who were probably drug dealers liked to rent them out as well, since they're "clean" and can be rapidly swapped - ironically that actually fits in with the Miami Vice movie.

[edit on 12-2-2009 by ngchunter]

Apologies if this has been posted:


U.S. to release update regarding satellite debris in 72 hours

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Strategic Command will publish an update regarding satellite debris on the command's public website for other governments' reference in 48 to 72 hours after a U.S. satellite collided with a Russian satellite over Siberia on Tuesday, an officer told Xinhua on Thursday.

The Joint Space Operation Center at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has been assessing the impact of the debris following Tuesday's incident. The center estimates on Thursday morning (US EST) that there are 500-600 pieces of debris. It will assess follow-on impact to other satellites.

Air Force Major Regina Winchester from the Strategic Command's Public Affairs Office said the Strategic Command is characterizing and cataloguing all the debris pieces and their potential danger to other satellites, the International Space Station and manned-flights. ...

Source