Dead Russian satellite and discarded Chinese rocket are at 'very high risk' of colliding at 33,000mph tonight - and could smash into thousands of pieces increasing space junk by up to a FIFTH

[Matrix]

• The defunct Russian Kosmos-2004 satellite and the dead Chinese Chang Zheng 4C rocket are floating in orbit
• The two are on separate paths but may meet in a dramatic collision late Thursday evening (1:56am BST Friday)
• The impact could add up to 20 per cent more space debris the 170 million pieces currently floating in orbit

 

An out-of-commission Russian satellite and a discarded Chinese rocket orbiting the Earth more than 600 miles above the surface have a ‘very high risk’ of colliding tonight.

 

LeoLabs, a firm that tracks space debris, reveals these objects are likely to pass less than 40 feet from each other, and shared a model that shows a 10 per cent chance of the two smashing into each other at 20:56 ET on Thursday (01:56 BST Friday) just above Antarctica.

 

The objects have a combined mass of 2.8 metric tons, and the impact would add thousands of pieces of space junk – anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent more debris – to the 170 million currently floating in orbit. 

 

The speed of the collision between the Russian Kosmos-2004 satellite and the Chinese Chang Zheng 4C rocket would be around 14.7km per second (32,882 miles per hour), LeoLabs estimates. 

 

Although there is no threat to people on Earth, the man-made materials would pose a significant risk to functioning satellites in orbit.

 

An out of commission Russian satellite (Kosmos-2004) and a discarded Chinese rocket (Chang Zheng 4C) floating in orbit more than 600 miles above Earth’s surface are at risk of colliding. Image shows the two trajectories and where they'd hit, just above Antarctica. Russian Kosmos-2004 is moving towards the southern poles and the Chinese satellite is heading north

 

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'This event continues to be very high risk and will likely stay this way through the time of closest approach,' LeoLabs said in a tweet.

 

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell weighed in on the event with a model prediction.

 

The image shows the Russian Kosmos-2004 moving towards the southern poles and the Chinese Chang Zheng 4C heading north over the Falklands.

 

The predicted paths also suggest the two could eventually meet head on over Antarctica.

 

 

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell weighed in on the event with a model prediction. The image shows the Russian Kosmos-2004 moving towards the southern poles above Earth and the Chinese Chang Zheng 4C is heading north over the Falklands

 

 

LeoLabs image shows the out of commission Russian satellite (marked as COSMOS 2004) and the discarded Chinese rocket (marked as CZ-4C R/B) at the point of impact

 

 

LeoLabs , a firm that tracks space debris, reveals these objects will pass less than 82 feet apart and shared a model that shows a 20 percent chance of the two smashing into each other

 

McDowell also notes that the two items breaking apart during impact will add 10 to 20 percent more space junk into orbit. 

 

Auckland University physics professor Richard Easther told Stuff that the collision would leave 'lots and lots of uncontrollable pieces of debris'.  

 

'It's going to leave a mess... any resulting debris would continue travelling in orbit at high speed,' he said. 

 

The pieces would be moving at speeds of around 17,000 miles an hour (28,000 km an hour), which is faster than a bullet, he added. 

 

However, the Aerospace Corporation, based in California, calculated a much lower chance of collision – one in 250,000 million.

 

'I don't mean to throw any shade whatsoever on [LeoLabs'] process or their sensors or anything else,' Ted Muelhaupt at the Aerospace Corporation told Business Insider. 

 

'But the sensors, the data we have access to says we're pretty confident [the satellites] are not going to hit.' 

 

 

A Chang Zheng 4C carrier rocket, like the one on the collision course, blasts off from the launch pad at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, in October 2014

A report released in May shows Russia is responsible for the majority of space junk floating in orbit – accounting for some 14,403 pieces in total. 

 

These include the upper stage of a type of rocket known as a space tug, called Fregat-SB, which was used to launch a scientific radio telescope, called Spektr-R, into space in 2011.

 

Fregat-SB was left floating after it delivered Spektr-R, and broke apart on May 8 somewhere above the Indian Ocean after nine years in orbit, leaving dozens of pieces of debris around Earth, according to Roscosmos.

 

Spektr-R stopped responding to ground control last year and was declared dead in May 2019.  

 

 

An expert notes that the two breaking apart during impact will add 10 to 20 percent more space junk into orbit. These pieces can destroy satellites, telescopes, spacecraft

 

These pieces can destroy satellites, telescopes and spacecraft, and one NASA scientist fears they could eventually create the 'Kessler syndrome'.

 

This is a theoretical scenario, proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, in which the density of objects in low-Earth orbit is high enough that collisions between objects cause a cascade, in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions

 

It could even reach the point that it is dangerous for humans to venture off the planet.

 

A recent study has proposed a way to limit the number of satellites in space to help decrease the growing space debris problem.

 

Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder say an international agreement would be needed in order to charge operators 'orbital use fees' for every device launched into orbit.

 

The amount charged would increase each year to 2040 up to $235,000, according to the team, who say the orbit becomes clearer each year, reducing the risk costs.

 

Source

 

[cosy]

They are still using Windows 95 on board 😁😄

No wonder, when one has got to "copy and paste"

[Arachnoid]

Maybe they should take a leaf from Mars and collate all the debris into rings.

[flash13]

Pieces of orbiting space junk 'avoid collision'

There is growing concern about the potential for more collisions in space (Artwork image)

 

Two items of space junk expected to pass close to one another have avoided collision, said a company which uses radar to track

 

objects in orbit.

 

LeoLabs had said a defunct Russian satellite and a discarded Chinese rocket segment were likely to come within 25m of each other.

 

It said there were no signs of debris over Antarctica on Friday morning.

 

Other experts thought Kosmos-2004 and the ChangZheng rocket stage would pass with a far greater separation.

 

With the objects having a combined mass of more than 2.5 tonnes and relative velocity of 14.66km/s (32,800mph), any collision would

 

have been catastrophic and produced a shower of debris.

 

And given the altitude of almost 1,000km, the resulting fragments would have stayed around for an extremely long time, posing a threat to

 

operational satellites.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Dr Moriba Jah, an astrodynamicist at the University of Texas at Austin, worked out the miss distance to be about 70m.

 

And the Aerospace Corporation, a highly respected consultancy, came to a similar conclusion.

 

With more and more satellites being launched, there is growing concern about the potential for collisions.

 

The big worry is the burgeoning population of redundant hardware in orbit - some 900,000 objects larger than 1cm by some counts - and

 

all of it capable of doing immense damage to, or even destroying, an operational spacecraft in a high-velocity encounter.

 

This week, the European Space Agency released its annual State of the Space Environment report, which highlighted the ongoing problem

 

of fragmentation events.

 

These include explosions in orbit caused by left-over energy - in fuel and batteries - aboard old spacecraft and rockets.

 

On average over the last two decades, 12 accidental fragmentations have occurred in space every year - "and this trend is unfortunately

 

increasing", the agency said.

 

Also this week, at the online International Astronautical Congress, a group of experts listed what they regarded as the 50 most concerning

 

derelict objects in orbit.

 

A large proportion of them were old Russian, or Soviet-era, Zenit rocket stages.

 

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