Okay, so this is a space update, but it’s just so stupid, a “Space Update” headline wouldn’t do this story a justice.
Yesterday, February 10, the defunct Russian Cosmos 2251 spy satellite and a U.S. commercial Iridium satellite collided in orbit above Siberia in a first-of-its-kind collision. The Russian satellite was carrying a spent nuclear reactor.
The Pentagon and NASA, through their separate programs, the U.S. Space Surveillance Network and the Orbital Debris Program Office respectively, were both tracking the defunct Russian satellite. Neither of them sent a warning to the operators of the Iridium satellite that they might want to move theirs out of harms way.
It gets better: the satellites were orbiting 500 miles above the Earth. For those who may not know, the higher the orbit, the longer it is and the more space there is between satellites. The odds of this happening are next to nothing.
The two debris clouds formed from the collision represent the largest since the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon in 2007 which left around 2500 distinct pieces of debris in orbit.
NASA, however, had no problem in sending out an e-mail alert to operators of other satellites about the collision.
Both satellites were completely destroyed.
[duh]
We’re familiar with the moniker regarding the Russian space program named cleverly after their beleagured space station Mir (Many Incompetent Russians.)
Perhaps NASA stands for the Nincompoop Agency of Space Accidents?
Can I emphasize how stupid this is anymore? I think I can.
Over the last couple of weeks a string of satellite related incidents should have made NASA and the Pentagon more alert for satellite related trouble. Perhaps they were distracted (and I hope to God that’s what happened, because this is so absurd.) Let’s take a walk back in time:
15 January - the Astra 5A satellite suffers an onboard failure which causes it to drift out of its geostationary orbital slot. Satellite owners in its vicinity are notified of the problem and the satellite is put on a trajectory to send it to a graveyard orbit.
15 January - NASA releases a report on the breakup of the Russian Cosmos 1818 satellite on July 4 of last year. Cosmos 1818, also carrying an experimental nuclear reactor on board, is presumed to be leaking reactant fluid as the result of some sort of collision with that satellite. The nature of that collision is unknown.
28 January - Eutelsat W2M fails in orbit 5 weeks after being launched. It was a power subsystem failure and thus did not affect its position in orbit in the near future.
This is eerily reminiscent of the Mars Climate Orbiter failure when NASA scientists failed to communicate which system of measurement they were using in making calculations for the spacecraft, one team using metric and the other using the cumbersome English system.
And to think this is the field I want to get involved in… ~sigh~.