US and Russian satellites crash in space

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A computer-generated image released by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows trackable objects in Low Earth Orbit (LOE). US and Russian satellites crashed in space, the first known major accident of its kind, creating two clouds of debris that were being tracked by experts. Photo:/AFP


Source Yahoo! News


WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Russian and a US satellite crashed into each other in an unprecedented collision creating clouds of space debris that pose a slight risk to the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

A disused Russian military satellite, Kosmos 2251, collided on Tuesday at 1655 GMT with a communications satellite owned by US-based Iridium Satellite LLC, Russian and US space officials said.

The accident took place about 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Siberia, said Russia's Major General Alexander Yakushin, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

The news raises concern over the growing swarms of hazardous debris orbiting the Earth, accumulated after more than five decades of human activity in space.

The magnitude of the two large debris clouds from the collision will not be known for at least several weeks, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.


"So far, NASA experts have determined that the risk to the space station is elevated. They estimate the risk to be very small and within acceptable limits," John Yembrick, a spokesman for the US space agency, told AFP.

The International Space Station (ISS) orbits about 220 miles (354 kilometers) above the Earth, far below the point of collision.


But NASA's Earth observation satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope travel at higher orbits and could face a greater risk of damage.


"NASA's Earth-observing satellites orbit at an altitude of approximately 439 miles (707 kilometers), which is not far from the 491-mile (790-kilometer) altitude of the collision. They are of the highest concern as NASA learns more about the newly-created debris field," Yembrick said.


Although "all satellites operating in or passing through low-Earth orbit potentially are at risk of being impacted, including at least 20 NASA satellites, the risk is considered very low," he added.


The Pentagon meanwhile acknowledged it had not anticipated the accident.

"We did not predict this collision," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, citing "limits" on the ability to track the thousands of man-made objects orbiting the Earth.


The debris from the defunct 1,984-pound (900-kilogram) Russian satellite launched in 1993, and its 1,235-pound (560-kilogram) US counterpart could be significant.


"We are looking at around more than 500 pieces of debris," said Navy Lieutenant Charlie Drey, a spokesman with US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), whose Joint Space Operations Center tracks and catalogs over 18,000 man-made objects orbiting the Earth.


"Anytime you have something like this happen, there is a concern about other objects that are in orbit. Now that you have all this debris there, it does pose a risk to satellites," he told AFP.


Analysts are plotting the coordinates of each of the debris pieces, which will later be posted on the website space-track.org.


In a statement, Iridium called the crash an "extremely unusual, very low-probability event," adding it has 66 communication satellites in orbit and rejecting any fault for the accident.


NASA said the launch of its space shuttle Discovery to the ISS due February 22 at the earliest would not be at risk.

"At this time, there is no danger to the scheduled launch," William Jeffs, a NASA spokesman based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, told AFP.

Before the latest incident, there were over 300,000 orbital objects measuring between 0.4 and four inches (one and 10 centimeters) in diameter and "billions" of smaller pieces, according to a 2008 report by the Space Security Index, a international monitoring group.

Traveling at speeds that can reach many thousands of miles (kilometers) per hour, the tiniest debris can damage or destroy a spacecraft.

In June 1983, the windscreen of the US space shuttle Challenger had to be replaced after it was chipped by a fleck of paint measuring 0.01 of an inch (0.3 millimeters) that impacted at 2.5 miles (four kilometers) per second.
Some 6,000 satellites have been sent into space since the Soviet Union launched the first man-made orbiter, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Approximately 800 satellites remain in operation, according to STRATCOM. NASA's World Book says there are about 3,000 "useful" satellites, without providing details.


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