Tag: Space Debris
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NASA: Tracking CubeSats is easy, but many stay in orbit too long
Two shoebox-sized Planet Labs satellites deploy from a dispenser aboard the International Space Station in this image from August 2014. Credit: NASA U.S. military radars have little trouble tracking the flux of CubeSats filling orbital traffic lanes, diminishing worries that new commercial CubeSat constellations could generate collision hazards in space, according to a report issued…
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DMSP satellite debris expected to remain in orbit for decades
This rendering shows the spreading of the DMSP F13 fragmentation cloud to form a band of debris. The debris is represented in exaggerated size. Credit: University of Southampton Satellite shards scattered by the explosion of an aging U.S. military weather spacecraft in February will remain in orbit for many decades, according to researchers who specialize…
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Power system failure likely cause of military satellite explosion
Artist’s concept of a DMSP weather satellite in orbit. Credit: U.S. Air Force The U.S. Air Force says a temperature spike in the power system of a nearly 20-year-old weather satellite may have led to the spacecraft’s explosion in orbit, scattering more than 40 fragments of debris that could be flying around Earth for decades.…
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Did two more Iridium satellites collide with space debris?
An Iridium satellite on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Credit: Image by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution Two mystifying incidents last year involving separate Iridium communications satellites have experts wondering whether the spacecraft collided with tiny fragments of space junk. Both satellites kept…