How many satellite would you say are presently orbiting the Earth ? A few hundred ? Maybe a thousand ? No : There are about3,700 satelliteshurtling through orbit above us — so when one of them “ breaks up , ” it ’s a big deal .
This week , Space.com reportedthat a Department of Defense satellite irrupt on February 3rd , creating a debris airfield of 43 objects . The satellite in question ? The 13th in a 1990s - geological era projection called theDefense Meteorological Satellite Program , design to give the Department of Defense weather data and atmospherical weather condition in fight geographical zone . For example , DMSP-13 relayed flight of steps conditions for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom , say Space.com .
grant to the Air Force , the satellite die of natural causa : “ a catastrophic consequence associate with a power system failure . ” After all , it was 20 years honest-to-god — though look at that the old satellite still orbit and intact is 57 , it was still a premature death . Meanwhile , Reuters saysthat while the satellite did see a “ spike in temperature ” before it burst , the investigation continues .
It ’s unclear if the Air Force would have really declare the death of the planet , since it was actually the hustler of a private site called CelesTrak that first noticed DMSP-13 was go away , week after the case take place .
TLEs suggest event occurred on Feb 3 at ~1715 UTC : pic.twitter.com / dpDnK058ze
— T.S. Kelso ( @TSKelso)February 26 , 2015
The Air Force later confirmed the geological fault up , sayingin a statement to Reutersthat “ while the initial response is consummate , ( Space Operations ) personnel will proceed to assess this event to watch more about what happened . ”
As far as space debris goes , the 43 pieces is n’t over-the-top at all . As io9’sMika McKinnon excuse last yr , collisions or breakups in space have create hundred or thousands of pieces of refuse birr through space at a speed of , oh , close to 17,500 mph . Each of those thousands of bit must be carefully chase after and avoided by any missionary post look to leave or enter the Earth ’s atmosphere .
It ’s a dangerous problem , and no one is quite certain how to handle with it ; NASA calculate that there are 20,000 bit of the hooey larger than a playground ball orb Earth mightily now .
Of course , there ’s a complex multi - national infrastructure pay to track what ’s happening in orbit around the Earth . An agency call theU.S. Joint Space Operations Center , which is headquartered in Vandenberg , California , is in charge , provide a centralized command center that can provide lively information about everything from launch safety to ruinous effect that pass off in orbit .
The USJSOC keep a comprehensive database of everything man - made that ’s whizzing around the Earth at any given time , and tracks the position of those objects , promise the Space Surveillance web — which dates all the elbow room back to the 1950s . According to the US Strategic Command , the meshing is tracking more than 16,000 objects orbiting Earth . “ About 5 percent of those being tracked are functioning payloads or artificial satellite , 8 per centum are rocket bodies , and about 87 per centum are detritus and/or inactive satellite , ” says Stratcom .
By diachronic monetary standard , the breakup of DMSP-13 is n’t a huge bargain . After all , 43 more piece of debris is soft touch modification look at that some of the biggest separation have spewed thousands of piece of music of debris into orbit , all of which the USJSOC must cautiously tail to insure a bigger chance event does n’t happen .
Still , as the orbital base of the early blank years set about to flow silent and fail — and as more and more individual companies plunge their own satellites — orbital traffic jamming are only going to get more complex . [ Space.com ]
Lead image : A picture by Paul Fjeld , thefamous space artist .
connect with the author at[email protected ] .
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