What is orbiting above our heads? Someone is keeping track of all of the stuff we launch into outer space, right? And we must have a plan to safely navigate around space junk and dispose of it? The surprising answers to these questions, this week on our Space Debris episode of Giant Leap. With guest astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
Featuring:
Jonathan McDowell
Taylor Wilson
Joey Lovato
February 10th, 2009, a communications satellite called Iridium 33 hurdles through space at 26,000 miles per hour, orbiting Earth. The 1,200 pound hunk of metal had been in space for Twelve years, part of a constellation of Satellite phone infrastructure.
As Iridium 33 silently speeds through low earth orbit, on the horizon appears an object approaching at an incredible speed. Kosmos 2251 was a dead Russian satellite – space debris – weighing over 200 pounds, once used for military communications, but now completely deactivated without any means to maneuver or change course. Observers on the ground expect a conjunction, not a collision, estimating a near miss of about 2,000 feet.
But the calculation is incorrect, and high above Siberia, the two behemoth satellites silently collide.
The wreckage is immense, sending thousands of pieces in every direction, posing new threats to every other satellite near-by. Suddenly their orbit is littered with chunks of metal debris. Two years later, the International Space Station is forced to perform an avoidance maneuver to miss the cloud of junk, and astronauts are forced to shelter in their escape spacecraft, Though some shards have since burnt up in the atmosphere, or hurdled toward earth, hundreds of pieces are still up there: just part of the growing ring of space debris that fills the sky above our heads.
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