Category: Satellites

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A commercial Iridium communications satellite collided with a Russian satellite or satellite fragment, on Tuesday, creating a cloud of wreckage in low-Earth orbit, according to CBS News. A source quoted in the article said U.S. Space Command is tracking about 280 pieces of debris, most of it from a non-operational Russian satellite. It appears the International Space Station is not currently threatened by the debris, but it’s not yet clear whether the debris poses a risk to any other satellites in similar orbits. Iridium operates a constellation of approximately 66 satellites, along with orbital spares, to support satellite telephone operations around the world.

Neither NASA or Iridium Satellite LLC has officially released any information about the collision, and a spokesman for U.S. Space Command was not aware of the incident. But one NASA manager who asked not to be named, seemed to confirm the collision and said, “Everybody is saying the risk (of further collisions) is minimal to NASA assets.”
UPDATE: The Spaceflightnow.com article has been updated with quotes from a statement by Iridium and U.S. Strategic Command, that confirm the collision took place.

In an article on Spaceflightnow.com, Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, confirmed the collision. “They collided at an altitude of 790 kilometers (491 miles) over northern Siberia Tuesday about noon Washington time,” said “The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects.”

Johnson said the collision is unprecedented. “Nothing to this extent (has happened before),” he said. “We’ve had three other accidental collisions between what we call catalog objects, but they were all much smaller than this and always a moderate sized objects and a very small object. And these are two relatively big objects. So this is a first, unfortunately.”

Sources: CBS News, Spaceflightnow.com

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If you enjoy satellite spotting and are a fan of the social networking mini-feed Twitter here’s something just for you. Robert Simpson at Orbiting Frog has created a Twitter feed that reports upcoming visible transits of interesting objects orbiting over several cities in the world, such as Amsterdam, Belfast, Chicago, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Sydney, and Vancouver. And he is willing to take requests for creating feeds for cities all over the planet. Rob creates the feeds with data from the Heaven’s Above website to determine when the International Space Station (ISS) and Hubble will be visible in the relevant location. When an overhead pass approaches a certain location, an alert appears on the Twitter feed. You will get 30-45 minutes warning on the sighting opportunity. So, if you’re a Twitter-aholic like me, check out Orbiting Frog’s website.

What’s really great is that the Tweet alerts only appear when the weather in your location is good enough to allow the transit to be seen. The weather data comes from Yahoo! Weather. Each Tweet provides information on the magnitude and elevation of the orbiting object so you’ll know where to look (and how hard you have to squint to see it!)

Rob says if you live within 20 miles of one of these cities, the data in the feed will still be correct for your location. Within 50 miles of one of these cities then the data will still be only a minute out in most cases.

To make a request for adding a particular city, check out Orbiting Frog.

Rob also has info on how to subscribe to an RSS feed for the same info if you’re not into Twitter. But, personally, I think Twitter is going to take over the universe, and resistance is futile, so you might as well join in.

Once again, here’s the Orbiting Frog website page on Over Twitter. Enjoy!

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On September 6, 2003, the NOAA N-Prime satellite fell to floor of the factory where it was being assembled, and suffered significant damage. But now, over five years later, the satellite that perhaps should have the nickname of “Phoenix” is ready to head into polar orbit around the Earth to improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California is scheduled for early Wednesday morning (Feb. 4) at 2:22 a.m. PST (5:22 a.m. EST; 1022 GMT), on board a Delta 2 rocket. NOAA N-Prime will provide a continuity of service, as well as restoring degraded service from older weather forecasting satellites.

UPDATE: The launch of the NOAA-N Prime weather satellite was scrubbed early on Feb. 4 when a launch pad gaseous nitrogen pressurization system failed. This system maintains pressurization and purges to various systems of the Delta II rocket prior to launch. Immediate repair to this system is being undertaken.

The next launch attempt will be no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 5 at 2:22 a.m. PST., weather permitting.

“We put together a philosophy that, without question, if we had a spare part, we would swap it out. If we didn’t have a spare part, we would attempt to fix. If we couldn’t fix, then we would have to buy new,” Davis said.

About 75 percent of the craft’s components were replaced with new or spare hardware. Engineers recertified components they decided to keep on the spacecraft, and the company that built the satellite, Lockheed Martin, disassembled the satellite and conducted vibration and thermal tests on every part engineers planned to reuse.

NOAA-N Prime is the fifth and last in the current series of five polar-orbiting satellites with improved imaging and sounding capabilities.

Watch a video about NOAA N-Prime.

The satellite will collect meteorological data and transmit the information to NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service, which processes the data for input to the National Weather Service for its long-range weather and climate forecasts. Forecasters worldwide also will be able to access the satellite’s images and data.
NOAA-N Prime has sensors that will be used in the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System to monitor for distress signals around the world.

Watch the launch live on NASA TV, or follow the events on NASA’s Launch Blog.

Sources: NASA, Spaceflightnow.com