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space junk

How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War

May 1, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter As a space telescope scientist or satellite operator, the last thing you want to hear is that your expensive and possibly one-of-a kind — maybe irreplaceable — spacecraft is in danger of colliding with a piece of space junk. On March [...]

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Exploded Rocket Fragments Could Endanger ISS and Future Missions

October 25, 2012

The International Space Station will have to look out for new debris from an exploded Russian rocket (NASA image) Traveling through low-Earth orbit just got a little more dangerous; a drifting Russian Breeze M (Briz-M) rocket stage that failed to execute its final burns back on August 6 has recently exploded, sending hundreds of shattered [...]

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Space Debris Threat May Require Avoidance Maneuver for Space Station

September 26, 2012

UPDATE (9/27/2012, 13:00 UTC) NASA now says that with additional tracking, they have determined the two pieces of space debris do not pose a threat to the ISS, and a debris avoidance maneuver scheduled for Thursday morning was cancelled by the flight control team at Mission Control. The ATV undocking time on Friday is still [...]

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Space Junk: Ideas for Cleaning up Earth Orbit

July 12, 2012

Caption: Artist’s impression of debris in low earth orbit Credit: ESA Space may be big — vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big — but the space around Earth is beginning to get cluttered with space junk. This poses a threat, not only to other satellites, space stations and missions, but to us here on Earth as well. [...]

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Radar Prototype Begins Tracking Down Space Junk

March 8, 2012

Several times a year, the International Space Station needs to perform Debris Avoidance Maneuvers to dodge the ever-growing amount of space junk hurtling around in Earth orbit. Additionally, our increased dependence on satellites for communications and navigation is threatened by the risk of potential collisions with space debris. The existing system for finding and tracking [...]

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