William Atkins
Friday, 13 February 2009 21:42
Science -
Space
Page 3 of 6
Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist at the
Orbital Debris Office at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake City, Texas (just south of Houston), stated,
“Clearly debris from the event is going through the altitude that the Hubble flies, so we're going to be looking at what is the new risk to Hubble." [ABC News: “
Satellite Collision Puts Hubble at Risk”]
Dr. Johnson added,
“This is the first time we've ever had two intact spacecraft accidentally run into each other. It was a bad day for both of them." [Space.com: “
U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision”]
Besides putting the Hubble Space Telescope at risk, the fragments are likely to cause more concern for the mission planners to the Hubble Repair and Serving mission (
STS-125) set to be launched by NASA on May 12, 2009.
The space shuttle
Atlantis will take its seven-member crew up to the orbiting telescope where they will repair and service the famous orbiting observatory.
SpaceWeather.com reports that the U.S. Air Force's
Space Surveillance Radar (commonly called “Space Fence”), with operation’s headquarters in Dahlgren, Virginia, U.S.A., is monitoring both debris clouds from a transmitter location near Lake Kickapoo, Texas. A space expert is calling the two debris clouds
“clumpy rings” as they spread out over time from the impact site.
In addition, the
U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the U.S. Department of Defense’ Space Surveillance Network, has been tracking hundreds of fragments from the collision in the hours after the collision.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charlie Drey (a spokesperson for Strategic Command) stated,
"We're tracking more than 500 pieces of debris which pose an additional risk to satellites.” [Space.com]
And, the Associated Press reports that four previous collisions have occurred in orbit about the Earth, but each involved either small satellites or spent (discarded) rockets.
Page four makes comments from space experts on the growing space debris (junk) problem over the skies of Earth.
