Russian Military and Iridium Satellites Collided on Tuesday

[Hokie]

I predict this could be a huge story in a few weeks:

Scientists at NASA are keeping close tabs on two clouds of debris from Tuesday collision between U.S. and Russian satellites to determine how much of a risk they pose to the agency's Earth-watching spacecraft and, possibly, the Hubble Space Telescope.

The rare collision between a U.S. Iridium 33 communications satellite and the defunct Russian military communications satellite Cosmos 2251 is unprecedented, marking the first time two intact satellites orbiting Earth have accidentally crashed into and obliterated one another, NASA officials said. Their smash-up created two large clouds of space debris that are currently being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.

The debris poses a greater risk to science satellites than to the International Space Station, which is currently home to two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, since the collision occurred 490 miles (790 km) above Siberia. The space station flies in an orbit about 220 miles (354 km) above Earth.
....

http://www.space.com/news/090212-satellite-collision-update.html

[phantom power]

1. I wonder how accidental that really was.

The military has become the primary user of Iridium.

[Bearware]

2. It's going to turn out to be Corporate Cost cutting or outsourcing

The experienced engineers at Boeing who were in a position to prevent this will have probably been laid off and replaced with cheaper H1B's or fresh out of school new hires. The new hires would have been given a week to find the bathroom, get badges and go to orientation. If they were lucky they would also have had part of a week to find out everything the laid off engineers learned in preceding decades.:banghead:

This is far more serious than the Challenger disaster. If Kessler Syndrome takes hold we could lose almost everything in orbit and not be able to put anything back up for many decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_Syndrome

Getting blinded by the loss of all of our satellite sensors while we are trying to reverse runaway Global Warming could be catastrophic. Having no weather satellites for early warning at a time when hurricanes are getting stronger is just one example.

When they finally get around to creating the new criminal category of Crimes Against the Planet, this one should be in the top ten. :mad: