Posted on 10/03/2012 7:22:38 AM PDT by Evil Slayer
MOSCOW - The Russian space program's Mission Control Center says it will move the International Space Station into a different orbit to avoid possible collision with a fragment of debris.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxdc.com ...
So even in space, you have to move when the neighborhood gets trashy.
Why would we move it? Something headed our way? Nothing like scaring people right before Dec, 2012.
The space station performs evasive maneuvers when the likelihood of a collision exceeds one in 10,000.
NASA estimates that more than 21,000 fragments of orbital debris larger than 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) are stuck in earth's orbit, and experts worry that orbiting junk is becoming a growing problem for the space industry.
There are six astronauts -- three Russians, two Americans and one from Japan -- onboard the orbiting laboratory.
Seems to me that trash capture technology should be a priority considering how often the station encounters the stuff.
Someone is working on the problem, anyway.
/johnny
so the russians run the international space station?
Its gotta be done.
'Commence "Operation Vacu-Suck!"'
Will they Transmit to Vladimir where the station is moved to?
Good thing the Russians are running things.
If it were NASA, the reply to the crew would be “Inshallah”...
They’ll tell Vlad they’ll move the ISS after the election, when there’s more flexibility...
what... no phasers?
Comrade on right: Naaaa, weees ares ok-ka-doky. Donts gets so uptighs, just drunk some more vodka, not to worry. Its onlys a bottle of Cognac. hic, hic, hic....
Brings me back to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSmggU0UOYY
The interesting thing is that the Iridium program manager said that they always maneuvor if they are predicted to come within 5 km of an other object, but when one propagated the unclassified and freely available NORAD orbital elements ahead they come within 70 meters of each other using the recommended NORAD software, also freely available. NORAD also took the unprecedented step of re-issuing the OES for these two objects with the exact same OES, just a new, and repeated release, after the collision. NORAD’s policy is not to update OES until the predicted position disagrees with the last measurements by more than 5 km. Here they had no new information, but just reissued the old OES after the collision.
There are actually companies that monitor satellite orbits and provide collision warnings, and Iridium was a subscriber to one. The Cosmos (Kosmos) satellite was defunct, so it was just a massive piece of space junk. Somebody fell down on the job (imho.)
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