News of the Imbalance

Best of the Blog - Space Junk, Satellite Failure & the escalating problem

Scientists Race to Prevent 'Catastrophic Disaster' in Space

"We really don't know the scale of the problem — we just know that we've already done serious damage to a zone of space that's essential to our security." Our fast-paced, hyperlinked world could not exist without orbital relays; everything from phone calls to GPS devices to banking transfers needs satellites to work. Even more damaging to satellites, and the enormous potential of the commercial development of space overall, could be a ground-based threat — crippling lawsuits over orbital-debris collisions. "Liability claims killed the private aviation industry," says Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, which sponsors contests and awards for private space ventures and innovation. "In space, we're going to be dealing with 'Your satellite killed my satellite' claims. It's going to be a mess." No ... it's a mess already." Fox News, 7th April 2009

Best of the Blog - Space Junk, Satellite Failure & the escalating problem

Huge, Mysteriously Silent Satellite Spotted by Another Spacecraft
Yahoo News, 21st April 2012

The massive European satellite the size of a school bus that has mysteriously stopped communicating with Earth has been spotted by another satellite in orbit.

The giant Envisat satellite, which is the world's largest imaging satellite for civilian use, was photographed in stunning detail by a French spacecraft that is also designed to snap high-resolution images of Earth, officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) said Friday (April 20).

The photo of Envisat in space reveals that the $2.9 billion spacecraft is intact and that its huge solar array is deployed. Envisat is a huge satellite that weighs about 17,600 pounds (8,000 kilograms). It is about 30 feet long (9 meters) and 16 feet wide (5 m), not counting the solar wing.

Comment: Hmmmm.... $2.9 billion spacecraft... I was worried when I updated my book so I refrained on the price tag of these satellites and only stated the military spacecraft were about a billion dollars, because I did not have much information to go on, and now it looks like I was too cautious...

Contact lost with flagship Envisat spacecraft
BBC News, 12th April 2012

Contact has been lost with the European Space Agency's (Esa) flagship Earth observation mission - Envisat. Controllers stopped receiving data from the eight-tonne spacecraft on Sunday, and have not as yet been able to re-establish communications.

Envisat was launched in 2002 and is already operating five years beyond its planned mission lifetime. Esa was expecting to turn off the spacecraft in 2014, once the first in a series of follow-ons had been launched.

Comment: Another one bites the dust.... cosmic dust.....

Envisat’s satellite failure launches mysteries
WUWT, 12th April 2012
The mystery is called crappy data.... NASA/NOAA satellites with screwed up data is an ongoing problem that very few are aware of...

This really is space junk: Russian space experts examine 200-kilo metal 'UFO dustbin lid' which fell from the sky in Siberi
Daily Mail, 20th March 2012

Space ball: UFO shocks Brazilians (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
RT News, 25th February 2012

An unidentified metal sphere has plunged from the sky on unsuspecting villagers in northern Brazil, causing an uproar. According to eyewitnesses, the UFO weighs about 50 kilograms and measures roughly one meter in diameter.

The sphere fell on Wednesday in a village of Riacho dos Poços in Brazilian Maranhão state. No casualties were reported apart from an unfortunate cashew tree that was severed by the object as it plunged to the ground, according to MR Notícias, a Mata Roma news site. [...]

In December 2011, a similar incident happened in Namibia, where a metal “Teletubby head” weighing 5.9 kilograms and measuring 35 centimeters in diameter hit the ground in the village of Omanatunga. Some Russian specialists believe the “head” was part of the third stage of the Soyuz-U rocket, launched on October 30. Mendes, 46, told police the sphere landed several meters from his house leaving a one-meter-deep hole in the yard.

Comment: More space junk falling out of the skies... The following is some related older space weather news.

Solar Activity & Space Debris
spaceweather.com, 19th January 2012
INCREASING SOLAR ACTIVITY CLEANS UP SAT-DEBRIS: Earth's atmosphere has been puffing up in response to increasing levels of UV radiation from sunspots. This is good news for satellite operators, because a puffed up atmosphere helps clean up low-Earth orbit. "The number of cataloged debris in Earth orbit actually decreased during 2011," reports Nick Johnson in NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly newsletter.

"Even though only 6% of the total 3218 cataloged debris from the ill-advised engagement had reentered by the end of 2011, half of these debris fell out of orbit in the past 12 months," he points out. "Likewise, many debris from the 2009 accidental collision of Cosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 are accelerating their departure from Earth orbit. In the absence of a new major satellite breakup, the overall orbital debris population should continue to decrease during 2012 and 2013."

Seriously, I have no idea what "ill-advised engagement" is referring too... Almost like a term that could be used for someone getting drunk at a party and doing something they can regret later...

Space junk orbiting Earth threatens satellites, space exploration
Salt Lake Tribune, 6th February 2012

Nighttime sky gazers looking for shooting stars sometimes catch a glimpse of a slower, brighter object streaking across the sky.

It’s usually not a meteor, but rather a bolt or a paint chip that is part of the tons of debris floating in Earth’s orbit, posing real dangers to space exploration. A new film opening at Clark Planetarium on Friday called Space Junk 3D highlights some of those risks. [...] Don Kessler, retired NASA senior scientist for Orbital Debris and star of the film, wrote a paper in 1978 predicting what will happen as more space junk filled Earth’s orbit.

"I was trying to understand ... how long would it take before we had to worry about manmade objects colliding with one another," Kessler told The Tribune. The answer: Right about now.

Comment: I note that over at SOTT.net this was designated 'A Propaganda Alert', but I will give them the benefit of the doubt because maybe they sniffed that space exploration is being used as a poor excuse for cleaning up the mess in space. As I have been highlighting for quite some time, there is a serious issue of the possibility of the world's satellite communication system crumbling with a major impact on modern society. There is a risk of a domino effect of things getting worse and worse very quickly. If scientists do nothing things are just going to get bad anyway, but any more major crashes and then there is real danger. The European Space Agency have done some videos projecting what could happen, see links below. I am interested because space weather and some bad geomagnetic storms when hundreds of satellites drop out of their orbits at once in a completely uncontrollable manner, provides a major wild card for disaster. For more info: Best of the Blog: Space Junk & The Escalating Problem

Why monitor objects in orbit?
European Space Agency, 31st May 2010

Space debris spotlight
ESA Focus, 28 September 2007
I think the ESA have done a few videos highlighting the growing problem of space junk. This animation is new to me and I believe there are more available but I can't find the links. This is out of date because there was a big smash up in 2009, but it gets the point across...

Cosmic rays blamed for Phobos-Grunt fiasco
Space probe apparently not built to fly in space The Register, 1st February 2012

Russian space boffins have come up with a new reason to explain why duff Martian probe Phobos-Grunt fell out of the sky - cosmic rays.

The head of space agency Roscosmos said that an investigation into the short-lived spacecraft had discovered that radiation caused a glitch in the onboard computer system, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

"Two components of the onboard computer system were spontaneously rebooted and it switched into a standby mode," Vladimir Popovkin said. "The most likely reason [for this] is the impact of heavy charged space particles."

Comment: I am finding this version of the news from Russia hard to believe and so do others! The assumption is that the "impact of heavy charged space particles" means cosmic rays... Well, it does not matter, this was a spacecraft on the way to Mars through the Van Allen Belts and it could not even get out of Earth orbit due to space radiation... Hmmm.....

Space Radiation Doomed Russian Mars Probe That Crashed
Space.com, 31st January 2012

Space radiation most likely caused the demise of a Russian Mars probe that got stuck in Earth orbit shortly after launch and ultimately crashed back to the surface earlier this month, Russia's Federal Space Agency chief said today (Jan. 31), according to media reports.

Russian space chief Vladimir Popovkin said that an investigation pointed to cosmic radiation as the likely culprit in the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission, but also suggested that an imported spacecraft component may not have been adequately hardened for the harsh radiation environment in space, reported the Associated Press.

Comment: Well, that did not take long for my beliefs about what happened to Phobos-Grunt to be confirmed. I originally said too much cosmic dust and then later I said it might even be put down to an electrical discharge, so I call this news a major hit... Why was I right? Well, this is the same rocket that has been in operation since the 1960s so it is obvious that something must have changed in the environment. Space Weather is the only sensible answer because there has been a massive influx of charged dusty plasma and this is not a secret! I have re-linked a relevant link and some of my previous comments made at the same time.

Man Escapes Death As Satellite Fragment Crashes Through His Roof
Gizmodo News, 25th December 2011
"It's a weird accident not only because of this Christmas miracle: the Soyuz has an excellent track record. It's a tried-and-true vehicle with hundreds of successful missions since the 1960s, when it was designed by OKB-1 and manufactured at State Aviation Plant No. 1 in Samara, Russia. Its first flight was in 1966. The variant that launched today only has had one failure and one partial failure. [NDTV]
Well, since these rockets have such a good safety record, then something about the environment must have changed and I suspect it is related to space weather and too much cosmic dust being sucked up into the engines and causing damage.

Russia hints at U.S. radar role in Mars probe’s crash
The Washington Post, 17th January 2012

MOSCOW — Russian space officials are speculating that American radar may have zapped the failed Mars moon probe that fell into the ocean Sunday, a prominent Russian newspaper said Tuesday. In Washington, NASA rejected the theory.

On Tuesday, the authoritative Kommersant newspaper, quoting an unnamed individual, said a commission investigating the failure was considering whether the spacecraft was damaged by flying through powerful radar signals from a U.S. installation in the Marshall Islands that was alleged to be tracking an asteroid.

“There is a possibility that the station accidentally entered the area covered by the radar, which resulted in a failure of its electronics caused by a megawatt impulse,” an individual with the space industry said, according to Kommersant. “After that, it could no longer give a command to switch on the Phobos propelling system.”

Comment: This is just an interesting article creating some ambiguity as to what went wrong... It almost sounds like there was two problems, 1. engines failed 2. electronics failed. This is just about the problem with electronics and amusing that there are conflicting reports telling us some very different version of events. A megawatt impulse sounds like an electrical discharge event but even if it was true, I agree that there would be many more satellites falling out of the skies if the cause was radar. Today, very powerful radar are now being routinely used to track asteroids that can only be detected in the infra-red due to Earth now being in an interstellar debris field, another major space weather problem for the inhabitants of planet Earth.

US joins EU effort to develop space 'code of conduct'
Refreshing News, 17th January 2012
"The United States has pledged to join an EU-led effort to develop a space "code of conduct" that would set out rules for orbiting spacecraft and for mitigating the growing problem of debris."
Things are very bad... and I think it's too late...

Complete Coverage: The Fall of Russia's Mars Probe Phobos-Grunt
Space.com, 14th January 2012

Latest update (Jan. 14):

Russian space officials now estimate that Phobos-Grunt may fall to Earth beetween Jan. 15 and 16, with a center on Jan. 15 at 4:51 p.m. EST (2151 GMT). A map released by Russia's Federal Space Agency shows the potential crash zone in the southern Pacific Ocean, just off the southwestern coast of Chile. Phobos-Grunt will definitely come down somewhere between 51 degrees north and 51 degress south latitude.

Comment: Another game of watch the highly radioactive satellite falling before there is a complete media blackout of where it actually lands.

The Watchers - Phobos-Grunt reentry - A quick guide for skywatchers
The Watchers, 14th January 2012

Spacecraft Could Crash Land On M4 Corridor
Sky News, 14th January 2012
This headline is almost as bad as the US military saying the Phobos Grunt satellite would land in Afghanistan for some strange reason....

Space flight 101 Phobos Grunt Tracking Info

Russian space chief claims space failures may be sabotage
Talking about Phobos-Grunt, Roscosmos leader's comments imply U.S. involved
MSNBC News, 10th January 2012

Some recent Russian satellite failures may have been the result of sabotage by foreign forces, Russia's space chief said Tuesday, in comments apparently aimed at the United States.

Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin stopped short of accusing any specific country of disabling Russian satellites, but in an interview in the daily Izvestia he noted that some Russian craft had suffered "unexplained" malfunctions while flying over another side of the globe beyond the reach of his nation's tracking facilities.

Popovkin spoke when asked about the failure of the $170 million unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe, which was to explore one of Mars' two moons, Phobos, but became stranded while orbiting Earth after its Nov. 9 launch. Engineers in Russia and the European Space Agency have failed to propel the spacecraft toward Mars, and it is expected to fall back to Earth around Jan. 15.

Comment: The opinion given here is that the Russians are trying to save face and I agree... Well, I still think the sabotage is due to space weather as the ultimate "powerful means to influence spacecraft...." I think some point in the future there will be a revelation about cosmic dust or even spacecraft being disabled by electrical discharges. Please note: you heard it here first.

Rocket Debris Re-entry - Munich, Germany 24th December 2011
Spaceweather.com, 25th December 2011

RUSSIAN RE-ENTRY: The body of a Russian rocket that propelled a Soyuz spacecraft toward the International Space Station on Dec. 21st fell back to Earth on Christmas Eve. Roman Breisch sends this picture of the re-entry from Erdweg, 20 miles west of Munich, Germany:

"This is what the Christmas star looks like in the 21st century," says Breisch. " The decaying rocket was spectacular look as it wove over the night sky from West to the East, getting brighter and brighter and splitting up into hundreds of shiny pieces."

Comment: There are claims this was seen over Germany and Switzerland, the video link below is certainly impressive, but check out the earlier video dated the 23rd, I am sure they are both of the same event.

Man Escapes Death As Satellite Fragment Crashes Through His Roof
Gizmodo News, 25th December 2011
"It's a weird accident not only because of this Christmas miracle: the Soyuz has an excellent track record. It's a tried-and-true vehicle with hundreds of successful missions since the 1960s, when it was designed by OKB-1 and manufactured at State Aviation Plant No. 1 in Samara, Russia. Its first flight was in 1966. The variant that launched today only has had one failure and one partial failure. [NDTV]
Well, since these rockets have such a good safety record, then something about the environment must have changed and I suspect it is related to space weather and too much cosmic dust being sucked up into the engines and causing damage.

Rocket Debris Re-entry - Munich, Germany 24th December 2011
YouTube, 24th December 2011

Santa Claus’ fireball over Europe was from Russia [VIDEO]
RT News, 27th December 2011
Well, the Russians are happen to accept responsibility for what clearly looked like debris re-entry into our atmosphere and nothing else. Whatever, I am now wondering how bad this will get, the explanation that it was “the re-entry of the third stage of the Soyuz rocket that transported the Dutch astronaut to the ISS” seems strange to me, this does not “normally” happen but quite frankly, we are not living in normal times.

Satellite crashes into Siberia minutes after launch
ABC News, 24th December 2011

A Russian satellite has crashed into Siberia minutes after its launch, the defence ministry says, in the latest humiliating setback for Russia's embattled space program.

The Meridian communications satellite failed to reach orbit after it was launched due to a failure with its Soyuz rocket, raising new concerns over the Russian space program which has now lost over half a dozen satellites in the last year.

Its fragments crashed into the Novosibirsk region of central Siberia and were found in the Ordynsk district around 100 kilometres south of the regional capital Novosibirsk.

"A sphere was found, around 50 centimetres in diameter, which crashed into the roof of a house in the village of Vagaitsevo," a local security official told the Interfax news agency. In an extraordinary irony, the official said that the house was located on Cosmonaut Street, named after the heroic spacemen of the Soviet and Russian space program

Comment: Oh dear! So, what's going on? These launches are supposed to be routine but Russia (and other nations) keep having failed launches and the problem seems to be getting worse. Let's think: is there too much cosmic dust about?

Russian Satellite Crashes in Latest Failed Rocket Launch
Space.com, 23rd December 2011
""This area of the space industry is in sort of a crisis," Russian space agency chief Vladimir Popovin told reporters in a televised press conference today. "We can say even now that the problem lies in the engine." But more analysis is needed to be certain exactly what went wrong, he added."

Meteor über Deutschland Weihnachten 2011 - wohl doch die 3. Stufe einer Soyuz Rakete
YouTube, 24th December 2011
I actually think this is satellite debris but it does not seem to want to break up in Earth's atmosphere, but I am really hesistant to call this anything else... Update, see story above.

'Space ball' drops on Namibia
PhysOrg.com, 22nd December 2011

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik. Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said.

With a diameter of 35 centimetres (14 inches), the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together". It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilogrammes (13 pounds), said Ludik.

It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 meters wide. Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past twenty years, authorities found in an Internet search. The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.

Comment: Has anyone lost a ball? LOL! See my previous comments on space junk!

Space Junk News: FAA Says Falling Debris Not from Any Known Aircraft (Video)
Gather News, 1st December 2011

In the most significant UFO news to date, FAA officials are baffled by a piece of metal which crashed through the roof of a furniture warehouse in Plymouth, MA on Thursday because the debris does not belong to any known aircraft.

The 5-lb. chunk of metal was discovered on the floor of Michael's Wholesale Furniture Distributors after workers noticed a giant hole in the roof and the office below in disarray. Police were called in but soon turned the matter over to the FAA when they could not identify the metallic object.

Comment: Hmmm... Maybe a bit of a satellite? Well, as space weather worsens, there will be lots of bits of junk falling from the skies.

Russia's Mars probe starts making regular contact
European Space Agency helps Moscow try to salvage stranded Phobos-Grunt mission
MSNBC News, 24th November 2011

The European Space Agency reported Wednesday that a ground station in Australia has made repeated contacts with Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe, two weeks after a mysterious post-launch glitch.

The reports sparked a growing glimmer of hope for a mission that seemed as good as dead a day earlier. The $170 million Phobos-Grunt ("Phobos-Soil") mission was designed to land on Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons, scoop up a soil sample and return it to Earth. The spacecraft is also carrying China's first interplanetary probe, Yinghuo 1, which is supposed to be dropped off in Martian orbit.

Comment: Never give up. Never surrender! Sorry I could not resist that one...

Gov't Report Warns of Chinese Plans to Cripple U.S. Space Defenses
Daily Tech, 17th November 2011

Report says two U.S. satellites were hacked in 2007 and 2008, attacks resemble Chinese military literature

China appears to be taking its cyber-skirmishes with the U.S. to a new level. A recent government report reveals that attackers gained access to two U.S. satellites. Meanwhile, China -- the suspected culprit -- has internally revealed that it's developing capabilities to cripple an enemy satellite network via either outright destruction or planted misinformation.

The potential of a Chinese cyber-attack crippling U.S. defense satellites is an alarming one.

Comment: Call me skeptical I don't care... I don't believe anything in this article, I think this is a work of fiction.... space weather is frying satellites good and proper, that is the real terrorist and there is not much any military or government on this planet can do about it... Maybe this is some kind of justification for more money to be spent on mitigating space weather or more likely an attempt at saving face because the fantastic sums of money that have been spent, many hundreds of billions of dollars [military satellites these days cost 1 billion each, so think how much is at stake], but it is now all at risk.

Toxic Russian Mars Probe Heads Back to Earth
Discovery News, 11th November 2011

It's hard to believe that only last week we were getting excited for Russia's first interplanetary mission in 15 years to launch. By now, we should be happy in the knowledge that the ambitious -- and awesome -- mission is powering through space, toward the Martian moon Phobos.

The reality is that we are now discussing uncontrolled reentry scenarios.

As if that wasn't enough bad news, we are looking at an uncontrolled toxic reentry scenario. Phobos-Grunt -- correctly written "Fobos-Grunt," meaning "Phobos-Soil" or "Phobos-Ground" -- is fully-laden with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide; that's ten tons of fuel and oxidizer. The probe itself weighs-in at only three tons.

The majority of the fuel will likely vaporize during reentry, but everyone will be hoping for a splash-down in an ocean (which covers two-thirds of Earth, fortunately), as the wreckage will still be hazardous. There's also a small quantity of radioactive cobalt-57 in one of the science missions housed in the probe -- a fact that will most likely cause a media frenzy.

It is for these reasons that the Russian media is dubbing Phobos-Grunt "Most toxic falling satellite ever." [...]

So what now? As we await the inevitable reentry of Phobos-Grunt, it would appear the Russian authorities are looking for someone to blame after a string of mission failures. According to a (translated) Interfax bulletin, an anonymous (expert) source indicated this may force reform in the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. Also, "a number of positions of responsible persons" could face jail time.

Comment: So, that's 10 tonnes of explosives mixed with a nuclear device, but nobody can blame Al-Qaida... Ok, the situation in near Earth space appears to have now gone from bad to worse. The RT video says there is 7 tonnes of highly toxic fuel ready to fall anywhere on Earth.... Well, if you have followed this blog for some time, you will know that there has been murmurings in the space community about satellite launches that were persistently failing. I have only featured a few of these incidents, but this is now getting serious and it will be interesting to see what happens next... Has something changed in the space environment or have the recent Russian incidents all been a coincidence or pure incompetence? The fact the Russians are already whispering about people doing jail time means there will be an investigation and the world will find out the truth. As far as I am concerned, the failure of the world's satellite communication infrastructure has been on the cards for years, but most people will not be bothered until modern technological conveniences are no longer convenient.

Martian curse: Russian probe may crash in populated area (Video)
RT News, 11th November 2011

The Rachel Maddow show
MSNBC, November 2011
Rachel Maddow has been given the opportunity to be somewhat sarcastic, but quite frankly the apparently amateur video footage looks strange to me... what's more Rachel forgets to mention the nuclear device...

Russian Engineers Race to Save Troubled Mars Moon Probe
Space.com, 9th November 2011

Russian engineers are scrambling to try to save the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was launched Tuesday (Nov. 8) but has failed to head toward Mars as planned.

The spacecraft appears to be stuck in Earth orbit instead, after its engine failed to ignite to send the probe on a trajectory to the Red Planet. Now Russian Space Agency officials say they have two weeks to figure out how to start up Phobos-Grunt's thrusters before the spacecraft is lost completely.

"They seem to be in a stable and relatively long-lived situation, so they have the most precious spaceflight resource -- TIME -- to figure out and implement an alternate command scheme," space consultant James Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle mission control engineer, told SPACE.com in an email. "It looks like they will try an orbit raise burn about 17:16 GMT [12:16 EST] today."

"The go-for-broke nature of this mission, aiming for the first Russian deep space success in a quarter century, always looked awfully bold, and now looks just plain reckless -- whatever happens next," Oberg said.

Comment: Oh dear! This project will only be reckless if the spacecraft comes crashing back down to Earth and we have another game (the third in about three months) of watching a piece of space junk before it completely disappears in a media blackout.

Ground-Based Laser Cannon to Turn Space Debris into Self-Powered Flaming De-Orbiting Rockets
Popular Science, 27th October 2011

Another week, another scheme to clean up our bourgeoning space debris problem. This one, like many before it, calls for a powerful ground-based laser to remove orbital debris from low earth orbit. Using high-powered laser pulses fired from the ground, the system would create a small plasma jet emanating from the piece of junk itself, essentially turning each piece of debris into its own laser-powered rocket that would remove itself from orbit.

The system, detailed in a paper released on arXiv last week, would rely on technologies already available or already under development. And unlike other ground-based laser systems proposed in past decades, it would be able to tackle both large and small pieces of space junk. A 33-foot telescope should do the trick, and a powerful enough laser isn’t out of reach, the authors of the paper claim.

Comment: Actually, there are a lot of articles about how to deal with space junk, because the world's satellite communication infrastructure is at risk. The situation is dire, space weather is being compounded by the serious hazard of 12,000+ dead satellites, thousands of large pieces of blown up or crashed satellites and billions of tiny pieces of junk (flecks of paint etc) swirling around near Earth space at 17,000 miles an hour (27359 kph)... this is now a very serious problem.

Scientists determining fate of satellite that returned to Earth, probably crashed over Asia
Washington Post, 23rd October 2011

BERLIN — Scientists were trying to establish how and where exactly a defunct German research satellite returned to the Earth on Sunday, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 280 mph (450 kph).

Most parts of the minivan-sized ROSAT scientific research satellite were expected to burn up, but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could have crashed.

Comment: Hopeless... yet another satellite that 'gets lost'. BUT, maybe there is a news blackout so that authorities can recover the pieces without souvenir hunters getting in the way...

Dead German Satellite Will Fall to Earth This Week
space.com, 17th October 2011

A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery.

The massive German Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, is expected to plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23), though German space officials have also offered a wider re-entry window of between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25. This latest falling satellite comes about a month after a dead NASA climate satellite, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), plunged into the Pacific Ocean in late September. [...]

Officials at Germany's space agency studied NASA and the U.S. Air Force's response to the falling UARS satellite in order to prepare for ROSAT's final return to Earth.

"For us, it was an advantage that UARS fell before," Woerner said. "We know now a little better how to interpret all the data and use the global network. It was an advantage that the satellite came down before so that now we can look at how to deal with ROSAT and how we deal with this in the future."

Comment: It's raining satellites.... Personally, I can't see what all the fuss is about. If they know these satellites are coming down, why don't they give the military an opportunity for a bit of target practice? Of course, they need to wait for it to start plumetting to Earth and not be a nuisance to other satellites, but surely, the military would have some expensive missiles that could be used?

The Facts About Germany's Falling Satellite ROSAT (Infographic)
Space.com, 14th October 2011

Warsaw conference to spotlight Space Situational Awareness
Spaceref.com, 28th September 2011

As part of its EU Council presidency, Poland will host a special seminar on Space Situational Awareness on 29 September. The event is co-sponsored by ESA and aims to foster discussions toward defining Europe's future Space Situational Awareness activities. [...]

The objective of the SSA programme is to support Europe's independent use of, and access to, space through the provision of timely and accurate information, data and services regarding the space environment, and particularly regarding hazards to infrastructure in orbit and on the ground.

In general, these hazards stem from possible collisions between objects in orbit, harmful space weather and potential strikes by natural objects that cross Earth's orbit.

The SSA programme will, ultimately, enable Europe to detect, predict and assess autonomously the risk to life and property due to remnant man-made space objects, reentries, in-orbit explosions and release events, in-orbit collisions, disruption of missions and satellite-based service capabilities, potential impacts of Near-Earth Objects, and the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based infrastructure.

Comment: Well, the situation in space is at break point.... This event is being held on the same date as NASA is also releasing new information about Near Earth asteroids... link

UARS is down in south-western Canada
Early reports are just in; UARS fragments have been discovered south of Calgary in Canada.
IT Wire, 24th September 2011

Locals in Okotoks (approximately 30km south of Calgary) are reporting the discovery of wreckage from the recently downed UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite), including a large piece that left a substantial crater and early estimates suggest a debris field extending to the north east of there.

In addition, apparent video showing pieces of the burning satellite passing over Okotoks is already on YouTube. [...]

Update #15: NASA has confirmed that "NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite penetrated the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty."

Comment: The video link below was doing the rounds of Twitter & forums and has already been debunked. Obviously, this is not the UARS re-entry and it looks to be about 30 orbs floating gracefully across the sky! They could even be Chinese lanterns, but I doubt it because if you watch carefully at the beginning, some are travelling at different speeds and others are grouped in smaller geometrical formations. So, how could anyone think these orbs/lanterns are a satellite burning up in the atmosphere? Really, lots of education is required because there is another German satellite coming down soon, see below. It's raining satellites, Hallelujah!?! And as I have confirmed this week, there are approx. 12,000 dead satellites in orbit around Earth! That gives plenty of options for lots of fun and games...

SATTELLITE UARS DEBRIS FALLING OVER CANADA SEP/24/2011
YouTube, 23rd September 2011

What's Up: A Visual Database of Satellites and Debris
YouTube, Nov 8, 2010

More Space Junk: Second ROSAT Satellite to Fall to Earth
Blippit News, 23rd September 2011

Falling satellite slows down, Earth strike delayed
Mail News, 23rd September 2011

September 23, 2011 — CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A 6-ton NASA satellite on a collision course with Earth clung to space Friday, apparently flipping position in its ever-lower orbit and stalling its death plunge.

The old research spacecraft was targeted to crash through the atmosphere sometime Friday night or early Saturday, putting the U.S. back in the potential crosshairs, although most of the satellite should burn up during re-entry.

"It just doesn't want to come down,"said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell said the satellite's delayed demise demonstrates how unreliable predictions can be. That said, "the best guess is that it will still splash in the ocean, just because there's more ocean out there."

"In the last 24 hours, something has happened to the spacecraft," said NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney. NASA cautioned there was now a slim chance any surviving debris would land in the United States. Earlier this week, the space agency said North America would be in the clear.

Comment: What a joke, the UARS satellite is refusing to crash! The link below provides details on the problem of radiation.

Does the accumulation of "space debris" in Earth's orbit pose a significant threat to humans, in space and on the ground?
Science Clarified, September 2011
Falling Debris and Exposure to Radioactivity
"Risks posed by orbital debris to people on the ground aren't limited to the heavy, twisted chunks of metal that fail to burn on reentry and fall from the sky. What very few people consider are the substances carried inside the various spacecrafts and rockets. Many times, these substances fall back to Earth. On January 24, 1978, after suffering a technical malfunction onboard, the Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 disintegrated over the Northern Territories in Canada. Scattered across a vast area were thousands of radioactive particles, pieces of the satellite's nuclear power core that survived reentry. The Soviets were unable to predict where Cosmos 954 might fall—they estimated somewhere between Hawaii and Africa; nor were they able to alter the satellite's flight path on reentry.

Over 60 nuclear devices were launched into orbit so far. NASA will launch three more missions involving nuclear-powered crafts in the coming years. The army isn't saying much, but nuclear militarization of space is a known trend and an ongoing debate. What happens if a nuclear space rocket is hit by space debris? Nine nuclear spacecrafts have fallen back to Earth, so far. The Cosmos 954 incident was the worst one, and in fairness, some cores were never breached. But of the nuclear-powered spacecraft that fell to Earth, some released measurable radioactivity into the atmosphere. How do we know what effect the release of radioactivity into our atmosphere had on our health? Can we be sure that the next nuclear-powered craft that falls to Earth will once again miss a populated area, and that its core won't be breached?

Neil Armstrong says US space program 'embarrassing'
Space Travel, 22nd September 2011

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, told lawmakers Thursday that the end of the space shuttle era has left the American human spaceflight program in an "embarrassing" state.

"We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future," Armstrong told the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

"For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable."

Comment: Space weather means that space is now an extremely hostile environment and the technology required to go into space has to be vastly different from that currently employed. At a minimum, spacecraft require plasma shields and the availability depends on where scientists have got to in their knowledge of working with plasmas.

"Star Trek" Shield May Protect Astronauts
National Geographic News, 4th November 2008

FEMA Prepared for Dead NASA Satellite's Plunge to Earth This Week
space.com, 20th September 2011

With a massive dead NASA satellite due to plunge back to Earth this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is laying the groundwork for a fast response in case the 6 1/2-ton spacecraft falls over American soil.

The defunct spacecraft, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), is projected to make and uncontrolled, fiery fall on Sept. 23, plus or minus a day, according to NASA.

Odds are that nobody will be beaned by any remaining chunks of the nearly $750 million spacecraft, with NASA experts forecasting a remote 1-in-3,200 chance of a possible injury from the satellite's debris

Comment: It's the size of a bus and NASA et al. are obviously very concerned about the risk. The image of the UARS ground track is interesting, yes there is a lot of water but I am surprised it could hit over Europe too. The comments here about not leaving enough propellant for a controlled reentry is probably misguided. When satellite controllers lose control they lose control... There is more info and images at spaceweather.com. Here, we are told the satellite is now tumbling because something hit it, but it's the size of a bus, so what size object would cause it to tumble? RE-ENTRY ALERT: Spaceweather.com, 20th September 2011

Bus Sized Satellite to hit Earth Friday
CNN, 20th September 2011
This CNN Video is hilarious...

Huge Defunct Satellite Falling to Earth Faster Than Expected, NASA Says
Space.com, 16th September 2011

NASA space junk experts have refined the forecast for the anticipated death plunge of a giant satellite, with the U.S. space agency now predicting the 6 1/2-ton climate probe will plummet to Earth around Sept. 23, a day earlier than previously reported.

The defunct bus-size spacecraft is NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS), which launched in 1991 and was shut down in 2005 after completing its mission. The satellite was expected to fall to Earth sometime this year, with experts initially pegging a weeks-long window between late September and early October, then narrowing it to the last week of this month.

Comment: First of all, I had a shock reading a space weather text book for university students, where it stated that only 500 satellites are operational. So the recent YouTube video showing 13,000 satellites is actually showing you the litter of mostly dead satellites. In fact, I have found an online database that says there are 966 satellites operational, but the French space agency CNES says there are 700 operational, so you can take your pick for what no. is correct... Sigh... We are told here that the recent solar activity has only accelerated the fall of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) as I suspected, but it does make you wonder what the true rate of satellites falling to Earth is, when there are so many uncontrolled dead satellites littering space... Anyway, the concern about people picking up bits of satellite debris must be worthy of some consideration. First of all, I just assumed that the debris would be highly radioactive.... but the next thought is that it might also have bacteria on it that is highly radioactive as bacteria in space mutates quickly and becomes extremely agressive. Interestingly, there is more and more awareness that there is bacteria at the very top of Earth's atmosphere on the edge of space and that suggests that bacteria exists in space too... I am sure there will be souvenir hunters, but these are people who don't know what they are dealing with...

UCS Satellite Database
Union of Concerned Scientists, May 2011
"The UCS Satellite Database is a listing of the more than 900 operational satellites currently in orbit around Earth. Our intent in producing the database is to create a research tool for specialists and non-specialists alike by collecting open-source information on operational satellites and presenting it in a format that can be easily manipulated for research and analysis."
This file can be downloaded as a .pdf.

Huge Defunct Satellite to Plunge to Earth Soon, NASA Says
space.com, 7th September 2011

Heads up! That's the word from NASA today (Sept. 7) given the impending re-entry of a 6.5-ton satellite through Earth's atmosphere.

The huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled fall in late September or early October. Much of the spacecraft is expected to burn up during re-entry, but some pieces are expected to make it intact to the ground, NASA officials said.

The U.S. space agency will be taking measures to inform the public about the pieces of the spacecraft that are expected to survive re-entry. [...] That appraisal indicated a surviving mass of 1,170 pounds (532 kilograms) falling within a debris footprint length of some 500 miles (800 kilometers). "The risk to public safety or property is extremely small, and safety is NASA's top priority," noted a NASA website dedicated to the re-entry. "Since the beginning of the Space Age in the late-1950s, there have been no confirmed reports of an injury resulting from re-entering space objects. Nor is there a record of significant property damage resulting from a satellite re-entry." Nonetheless, there is a chance that pieces of debris from the satellite will crash in areas accessible to the public.

Comment: More space junk falling out of the sky, I am wondering if it is related to all the recent satellite failures, but it is more likely that the recent serious bursts of solar flares with extreme ultra-violet radiation will have caused some unanticipated satellite drag hence the quick shortening of the lifespan of satellites in space. More stuff about junk below:

Photos: Space Debris Images & Cleanup Concepts [33]
space.com, 7th September 2011

Space junk at tipping point, says report
BBC News, 2nd September 2011

Scientists in the US have warned Nasa that the amount of so-called space junk orbiting Earth is at tipping point. A report by the National Research Council says the debris could cause fatal leaks in spaceships or destroy valuable satellites.

It calls for international regulations to limit the junk and more research into the possible use of launching large magnetic nets or giant umbrellas. The debris includes clouds of minuscule fragments, old boosters and satellites.

The situation is critical, said Mr Kessler, a retired Nasa scientist, because colliding debris creates even more of the junk.

"We've lost control of the environment," he said.

The report makes no recommendations about how to clean up the field of debris.

Comment: Hmmm... I have been highlighting space junk because Space Weather is delivering more than just 'invisible' sub-atomic particles. The aetheric tide in the form of an interstellar debris cloud, is also delivering large and small rocks, meteoroids and cosmic dust and it poses the great potential for severe damage to the world's satellite communication infrastructure. ~~Yes, that's the 13,000 satellites that help to operate our modern technological world.~~

Space station faces steady threat from orbiting space junk
PhysOrg.com, 25th July 2011

Now that the space shuttle is retired, NASA and space agencies around the world will focus on the International Space Station for the rest of this decade - and cross their fingers that it lasts that long.

The station, with its crew of six international astronauts, orbits Earth at an altitude of about 220 miles, a neighborhood that is increasingly cluttered by space junk, mainly parts of old rockets and satellites that were either abandoned or destroyed in orbit. Thousands of pieces are big enough - and shooting through space fast enough - to seriously damage or destroy the $100 billion laboratory.

"The orbit they are flying in is the worst possible. . . . The Russians blew up all kinds of things in that damned orbit. So there are thousands of pieces in that particular orbit," said Christopher Kraft, a retired director of NASA's Manned Space Flight Center. The odds are against the station getting hit by debris big enough to destroy it before its planned abandonment in late 2020. But the threat is no long shot. NASA's projections indicate the chance of a disastrous collision with space junk are about 1 in 13. [...]

NASA, which evaluates risk in six-month increments, says there is a 1-in-114 chance a serious debris strike will partially disable the space station during the next six months, and 1 chance in 241 of a collision that kills astronauts or totally disables or destroys the station.

During the station's lifetime, that works out to a 1-in-6 chance of a disabling strike - and a 1-in-13 chance of a fatal collision.

Comment: The complaints about space junk are steadily increasing as I have expected, but for NASA to admit a 1 in 6 chance of a "disabling strike" during the station's lifetime, makes me think they have given up and expect the ISS to get hit at some point by the hurricane of space debris swirling about in space, especially as there is also an influx of meteroids and small rocks too being dragged in by the aetheric current.

'Russian' debris threatens Atlantis mission as ground control fears it will hurtle 'dangerously close' to ISS during space walk
Daily Mail, 11th July 2011

* Nasa is trying to work out if the junk comes from a defunct Russian satellite
* It is scheduled to pass the space station at around 5pm GMT on Tuesday

Nasa is monitoring a piece of 'Russian' space junk that looks likely to come dangerously close to the International Space Station during a planned space walk tomorrow. The debris is heading towards the station, where Atlantis yesterday docked on its final mission.

Scientists are still trying to work out how big the object is and how close it will come to Atlantis. Some believe it originated from a defunct Russian satellite that is orbiting Earth. LeRoy Cain, mission management team leader, said he hopes the space junk will keep a safe distance and as they observe its trajectory throughout today, they will be able to work out how close it will come. [...]

Two weeks ago, the crew of the ISS had to shelter in the lifeboats after a piece of debris missed them by just over 1,000ft - the closest call to date

Comment: Space exploration should not really have to include watching out for your junk... However, the arrival of Space Weather means a quickly changing cosmic environment (more asteroids, meteors, comets, small space rocks, meteoroids, and dust), where astronauts are now being regularly threatened and more satellites are being lost. As the space environment around Earth deteriorates, the citizens of Earth should realise that our modern communications infrastructure is also under risk, this is the reality of a new era dominated by the aether or space caused by the arrival of a more densely ionised cloudlet in the Local Fluff, see the Interstellar 'Etheric' Cloud Index.

Debris Forces Astronauts To Evacuate
Sky News, 28th June 2011

A piece of debris has narrowly missed hitting the International Space Station, forcing astronauts to scramble to their rescue vehicles. The unidentified space junk missed the fragile craft by just 250m, a Russian space industry source told the Interfax news agency.

The six astronauts on board the station had to take refuge in their rescue vehicles because it was moving at such speed they had no time to take evasive action. The crewmen had to spend around half an hour in the Soyuz escape capsules before the debris passed safely.

Comment: These days, there are millions of pieces of space debris but the Russians dispute this and say there are billions under a fraction of a centimetre (see below), but there are natural hazards too like micrometeroids (space dust) chipping the solar panels on satellites and shortening their lives, but the intriguing factor is the small asteroids that cannot be detected until the last minute. I am rather cynical that NASA et al. are interested in these small asteroids hitting Earth because they are expected to burn up in the atmosphere on impact, so I imagine the real concern is something hitting the ISS or a billion dollar military/research satellite. This is the reality of worsening Space Weather making a bad situation worse. So, if you are wondering why I talk about what is going on in our local space environment, it is because over the last twenty years or so, there has been a drastic change and consequently, there are massive implications for all life on Earth.

Bend it Like Beckham! Small Asteroid to Whip Past Earth on June 27, 2011
NASA/JPL NEO News, 26th June 2011

Real-time Satellites in Google Earth
YouTube, 08 September 2008
"This collection by Analytic Graphics Inc. shows real-time positions of 13,000 satellites around the Earth in Google Earth."
With 13,000 satellites (mostly dead) in orbit, is it any wonder that scientists panic when they discover an asteroid at the last minute wandering through Earth's geosynchronous orbit.

Why monitor objects in orbit?
European Space Agency, 31st May 2010
Orbital debris mean danger

Space debris are defined as all non-functional, man-made objects, including fragments and elements thereof, in Earth orbit or re-entering into the Earth atmosphere.
Space debris hits satellite animation

Is is estimated that the total number of space debris objects in Earth orbit is on the order of:

20 000 - for sizes larger than 10 cm
600 000 - for sizes larger than 1 cm
more than 300 million - for sizes larger than 1 mm

Any of these objects can cause harm to an operational spacecraft, where a collision with a 10-cm object would entail a catastrophic fragmentation, a 1-cm object will most likely disable a spacecraft and penetrate the ISS shields, and a 1-mm object could destroy sub-systems on board a spacecraft. The problem is compounded when you consider that satellites orbiting close to the Earth, such many Earth observation satellites, travel constantly at over 30 000 km/hr.

Scanning the Skies for Debris Hazards
Science Daily, 6th June 2011

Today, orbiting satellites are threatened by over 700 000 pieces of debris. Avoiding them requires knowing where they are, and that means surveillance with radar and telescopes. The European Space Agency is designing a system to catalog debris and warn satellite operators when to take evasive action.

This week, over 150 global experts will meet at an ESA-organised conference to share the latest research findings on space debris, surveillance technology, orbital hazard detection and satellite safety. The first European Space Surveillance Conference (ESS2011) will be held 7-9 June in Madrid, Spain.

The conference spotlights ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, now in the preliminary phase, which aims to put in place a 'three-legged' system to warn of hazards posed by orbital debris, space weather and natural objects like asteroids that may strike Earth.

Comment: More Space Weather, more space debris... Asteroids are now becoming a major part of Space Weather, as more objects drift along with the new aetheric tide...

Japanese Satellite Declared Dead in Orbit
Space.com, 12th May 2011

Japan's Earth-observing satellite Daichi is dead in orbit, three weeks after a mysterious anomaly crippled the spacecraft, the nation's space agency announced today (May 12).

Daichi, formally known as the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), unexpectedly powered down on April 22 for reasons that remain murky. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) repeatedly tried to re-establish communication with Daichi over several weeks, but finally threw in the towel today.

"We decided to complete its operations by sending a command from the ground to halt its onboard transmitter and batteries at 10:50 a.m. on May 12 (Japan Standard Time), as we found it was impossible to recover communication with the satellite," JAXA officials said in a statement. [...]

The death of Daichi (which means "Earth" in Japanese) is not a complete failure, JAXA officials said. The satellite craft launched in January 2006 with a planned mission lifetime of three years, and had already outlasted expectations, they added.

Comment: Due to my research and interest in the recent phenomenon of Space Weather, I am always interested to find out about the demise of satellites and the circumstances surrounding their death. However, this particular instance is just too poignant because we find that the satellite was called Daichi meaning Earth. This provoked me to look up the definition of Daiichi and it means the 'the first', 'number one' or 'best' but somehow this did not leave me particularly comforted...

Will German Satellite Crash Into Earth?
De spiegel, 28th February 2011

Parts of Rosat, a massive, out-of-control German satellite, could smash into the earth sometime between October and December this year. Officials in Germany, however, say that humans likely are not in danger.

The German government is scrambling to determine how to deal with a rogue research satellite that a report states could crash into earth later this year. Up to half of the 2.4 ton, decommissioned Rosat research satellite could fail to burn up completely when it re-enters the planet's atmosphere sometime between October and December. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that the federal government has obtained an analysis indicating that the satellite is at risk of crashing down to earth during an 80-day window of time.

Because its final path is impossible to predict, no one knows for sure whether the X-ray research satellite, decommissioned in 1999, might hit a populated area. The satellite includes a considerable amount of ceramic and glass in its design that experts fear will be too heavy to burn up completely upon reentry into the earth's atmosphere.

A best-case scenario would see Rosat, now 370 Kilometers (about 230 miles) in the sky, incinerate in the atmosphere or land in the ocean. A worst-case scenario has about half the satellite reaching the earth, smashing into a major city at a speed of up to 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) per hour, and causing an untold amount of damage. Danger to Humans Unlikely

Comment: Regulars may start to notice the increasing frequency of these reports of out of control satellites, but they are even admitting that parts of the Rosat satellite could crash into a major city. Well, the conditions are rough out there and we are seeing some bizarre events on the daylight side of the magnetosphere (magnetopause) see Just look at these amazing pictures of the magnetosphere!, but shooting this baby down is not the answer either... see archives Best of the blog Space Junk & the escalating problem

Air Force, Lockheed Negotiating Satellite Failure Cost
Bloomberg News, 15th February 2011

Lockheed Martin Corp. may pay for a failure on its first Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite that led to the $1.7 billion spacecraft not reaching its orbit, U.S. Air Force officials said today.

A blocked fuel line caused the failure and the Air Force is in negotiations with Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed on the penalty, Air Force officials, including Erin Conaton, the undersecretary of the service, said. “We are in the midst of active negotiations,” Conaton told reporters today in the Pentagon. “We are looking at the operational and the financial implications.”

Comment: This has only got a mention because I did not realise that satellites could be so expensive... especially when you realise that even getting a satellite into the correct orbit is a very risky venture, which is exactly what the problem was here, but there does seem to be some relief that the satellite was not destroyed.

Russia locates missing satellite
Herald Sun, 5th February 2011

RUSSIA has re-established contact with a missing military satellite but it was unclear if the craft would still work. The high-tech Geo-IK-2 craft was designed to help the military draw a three-dimensional map of the earth and locate the precise positions of various targets.

But it lost contact with ground control shortly after its launch Tuesday from a northern Russian space centre, in the second such satellite mishap in less than two months. A defense ministry spokesman said Wednesday that stable contact had been established with the craft and that officials were now trying to determine if its orbit would allow it to complete its assigned mission.

"We are currently maintaining steady contact" with the craft, Russian space forces commander Oleg Stapenko told Russian news agencies.

Comment: Well, at a cost of approx. 250 million dollars, which is not chicken feed, it's worth making every effort to get this satellite operational and thus not allowing it to become the latest piece of space junk.

WikiLeaks: US and China in military standoff over space missiles
The United States threatened to take military action against China during a secret "star wars" arms race within the past few years, according to leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph.
The Telegraph, 2nd February 2011

The two nuclear superpowers both shot down their own satellites using sophisticated missiles in separate show of strength, the files suggest.

The American Government was so incensed by Chinese actions in space that it privately warned Beijing it would face military action if it did not desist.

The Chinese carried out further tests as recently as last year, however, leading to further protests from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, secret documents show.

Beijing justified its actions by accusing the Americans of developing an “offensive” laser weapon system that would have the capability of destroying missiles before they left enemy territory.

Comment: Well, often when space junk is mentioned the Chinese are blamed for destroying a satellite but the fact that the Americans did the same a year later is largely overlooked. The short sightedness is very apparent but space weather has not helped either. So, the whole satellite communications industry is under threat and many services that people take for granted could simply vanish. Hence the race to start new projects to clean up.

'Fishing net' to collect space debris
A giant net several kilometres in size has been built as part of a collaboration between Japan’s space agency and a 100-year-old fishing net company to collect debris from space.
The Telegraph, 2nd February 2011
"The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Nitto Seimo Co aim to tackle the increasingly hazardous problem of rubbish in orbit around the Earth damaging space shuttles and satellites once and for all."

Space so full of junk that a satellite collision could destroy communications on Earth
Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report warned.
The Telegraph, 1st February 2011
"The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the $250 billion (£174bn) space services industry, scientists said."

Missing Russian military satellite
RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service, 2nd February 2011

Russia's top military and space official launched a search Tuesday for a missing military satellite that apparently was put into the wrong orbit shortly after its launch.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed that it had lost sight of the craft -- a dual-use vessel that can draw a three-dimensional map of the Earth and locate the precise positions of various targets. The incident came just a month after President Dmitry Medvedev sacked two top space officials for a similar setback and delivered another humiliating blow to Russia's much-maligned space industry.

The seriousness of the situation was underscored late Tuesday by reports that the defence ministry had set up an urgent joint task force with the Russia's space agency to look for the missing craft. The Geo-IK-2 satellite was created in Russia to help the military survey land and create a detailed three-dimensional map of the Earth. It was designed to spin in a circular orbit 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) above ground. But news reports said that the satellite had been put in an an elliptical orbit whose lowest point brought it to within 330 kilometres of Earth.

"We have still not been able to establish contact with the craft, and it looks like most likely, it will be declared lost," a Russian space source said. "The spacecraft will not be able to perform its intended functions at these orbit characteristics," another space official told the news agency.

Comment: Hmmm.... another launch failure, so this is not looking too good for the new Russian equivalent to GPS. What's more, that's about a billion dollars worth of losses (4 satellites lost in the last 8 weeks....).

'Zombie' Satellite Comes Back to Life
Space.com, 29th December 2010

A "zombie satellite" that spent months sending out signals while it was adrift in orbit has sprung back to life, resetting itself after its unexplained breakdown in space earlier this year.

"The most critical phases of Galaxy 15's recovery have been successfully completed," officials at Intelsat, the communications provider that owns the satellite, said of the newly responsive satellite. [...]

On Dec. 23, the battery on Galaxy 15 — which relied on solar panels pointed at the sun to generate power — became completely drained, Intelsat officials said. Once that happened, the satellite reset itself as designed and began accepting commands from Intelsat's control center. "We have placed Galaxy 15 in safe mode, and at this time, we are pleased to report it no longer poses any threat of satellite interference to either neighboring satellites or customer services," Intelsat officials announced. [...]

A satellite's resurrection? With Galaxy 15 now accepting commands from Earth, there is a possibility that the satellite could become fully functional again. "After we complete the initial diagnostic tests on Galaxy 15 and the drift of the satellite stopped, we expect to relocate the satellite to an Intelsat orbital location where we will assess the viability of the payload, and conduct extensive in-orbit testing to determine the functionality of every aspect of the spacecraft," Intelsat officials said.

Comment: What a recovery! A new space weather legend...

Space Junk Rivals Weapons as a Major Threat
Space.com, 23rd December 2010

What began as a minor trash problem in space has now developed into a full-blown threat. A recent space security report put the problem of debris on equal footing with weapons as a threat to the future use of space.

Hundreds of thousands of pieces of space junk — including broken satellites, discarded rocket stages and lost spacewalker tools — now crowd the corridors of Earth orbit.

These objects could do serious damage to working spacecraft if they were to hit them, and might even pose a risk to people and property on the ground if they fall back to Earth and are large enough to survive re-entering the atmosphere.

The new Space Security 2010 report released by the Space Security Index, an international research consortium, represented space debris as a primary issue. Similar recognition of the orbital trash threat also emerged in the U.S. national space policy unveiled by President Obama in June 2010. [...] "When the United States tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in 1985 by destroying its Solwind satellite, and China tested its ASAT in 2007, neither broke any 'rules,'" Johnson-Freese said in an e-mail. "But each created a substantial amount of space debris potentially dangerous to other spacecraft." Both countries have since changed their policies, and said future tests will be characterized as "missile defense," aimed only at destroying targets that won't leave lingering debris, Johnson-Freese pointed out. "In terms of space debris, it is simply not in U.S. interests to pursue paths that encourage actions that result in debris creation."

Comment: I have continued to highlight the space junk problem because with the onset of severe Space Weather, it was obvious that all that uncontrolled junk floating around Earth would become lethal, like debris swirling around in a tornado. Now it looks like reality has finally set in as the fear mounts of a rapid escalation of space junk damaging more and more satellites, risking the whole satellite communication infrastructure.

“Zombie” satellite shuts down critical NOAA NWS systems overnight
Watts Up With That, 6th December 2010

I’m a bit of a zombie myself as I write this, as I was up until 4:30AM PST dealing with this problem which turned out to affect National Weather Service offices nationwide in addition to my business, which uses the same satellite data feed.

Which brings us to last Friday, while I was out of the office, my staff was dealing with intermittent signal problems with our satellite data feed. The NWS Wallops Island uplink boosted the signal strength on the transponder, and the problem was solved…or so they thought. [...]

Later this morning, the real reason became clear with this message:

NOAAPORT SATELLITE INTERFERENCE

Effective: 12/4/10 – The Noaaport satellite transmission is subject to interferrence from this date forward thru 12/18/10. The below notice is the NWS’ official notice to-date regarding this interferrence.

Complete loss of Novra receiver satellite lock is being experienced due to the interference from the Galaxy15 satellite.

The NWS is now simulcasting the noaaport broadcast on an alternate frequency of 1138.5Mhz. Use your S75 receiver console software to enter in the alternate frequency if your receiver is not staying locked on the original frequency of 1193.5 More info here

Yep, the “rogue” Galaxy 15 satellite was spewing C-band microwaves as it drifts in space, interfering with critical downlinks used by NOAA and the U. S. Air Force. It almost sounds like an idea for a rouge nation to use to interfere with satellite communications.

Comment: This "Zombie" satellite is supposed to be have a satellite sitter 24/7, so somebody must have fallen asleep on the job. However, it is interesting to find out that this out of control satellite is still out there and has actually now caused some real havoc.

Russian satellites crash after failed launch
Reuters, 6th December 2010

(Reuters) - Three Russian satellites crashed into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday after a failed launch, in a setback to a Kremlin project designed as a rival to the widely used U.S. GPS navigation technology.

Russian news agencies said the satellites veered off course and crashed near Hawaii after blasting off from Russia's Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan. The Khrunichev Space Center said the satellites had failed to enter the right orbit after the launch went wrong 10 minutes after take-off.

In a separate statement, space agency Roscosmos said that, "according to the results of our telemetric analysis, it has been determined that the group of satellites went off orbit." Both agencies said specialists were trying to work out what went wrong. [...]

Gurko also said that the Russian satellite navigation market, estimated at only $1 billion in 2010, would grow to about $10 billion in 2014 and that GLONASS would also market its technology in India, the Middle East and ex-Soviet countries.

Comment: Well, it costs between 250 - 500 million dollars to put a satellite into orbit, so it's just bravado to shrug off this failure as no big deal. I imagine that the failed launch was due to gravitational anomalies and/or geomagnetic factors, but as always, the real details are never really explained.

Update!

Top space officials fired for Glonass launch failure
RT News, 29th December 2010
[...] The botched launch of the Glonass satellites on December 5 resulted in the rocket failing to reach orbit, falling into the Pacific Ocean. According to investigation, the failure was caused by an error in mission instructions, which resulted in too much fuel being loaded.

The incident turned into a major scandal, as it was meant to complete the Glonass satellite constellation and make the navigation system global. Earlier, a number of Russian officials, including the president, had announced that the Russian alternative to GPS would be fully operational in 2010.

An audit of the Glonass program by the Russian budget spending monitor, the Accounts Chamber, is now underway. Some sources hinted that investigators found cases funds mismanagement. For instance, the three lost satellites turned out to have only been partially insured, and some sources said the insurance covered only as little as five per cent of their cost.

Villagers stunned after pieces of Chinese rocket from lunar probe rain down from the sky
Daily Mail, 4th October 2010

At first these Chinese villagers thought the two large explosions in the middle of the night were an earthquake. But they awoke the next morning to see their village in Suichuan County in Jiangxi dotted with huge pieces of metal. These images show the scene in their rural village after the rocket from China's second lunar mission crashed to Earth, narrowly missing crushing their homes. Huge chunks of metal rained out of the sky after the lunar probe Chang'e II jettisoned its Long March 3C rocket on Friday night. No one is believed to have been hurt in the incident. China launched an unmanned lunar probe on Friday, the latest milestone for an ambitious space programme that aims to put a man on the moon later this decade.

Comment: Wow! Look at the size of the pieces and there's not even a dint in the ground! Actually, isn't space debris supposed to burn up, as it makes it's entry back into our atmosphere...

Zombie satellite Galaxy 15 still won't die
After months of drifting in orbit, craft continues to pose potential hazard
MSNBC News, 20th September 2010

A wayward satellite that has spent months drifting in orbit has not shut itself down as originally predicted, and continues to pose a signal interference risk for other craft.

The so-called " zombie satellite," Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite, lost contact with ground controllers in April, but continues to follow a stable path as its operators on Earth work to avoid potential interference with other nearby spacecraft.

In an unprecedented satellite malfunction, the telecommunications broadcast package on Galaxy 15 is stuck on and still transmits signals, but ground controllers are unable to control the solar-powered craft. [...]

Galaxy 15 launched on Oct. 13, 2005 on a European Ariane rocket. The spacecraft's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said that an intense solar storm in early April may have caused the breakdown in communication.

Meanwhile, Intelsat continues its own technical investigation, but has yet to reach any definitive conclusions on the cause of the glitch. "This continues to be an unprecedented event for the entire industry," Mitsis said. "The good news is, we haven't had channel losses, we haven't had programming losses, and we're very thankful for the cooperation we're getting from our satellite neighbors."

Comment: Well, I have been wondering what happened... Obviously, Galaxy 15 was built to last...

The New Space Junk Blame Game
WUWT, 27th June 2010

Space junk, those bits and pieces dropped by astronauts, or resulting from explosion of upper stages, or collisions of satellites or ASAT tests, are a major safety hazard in Low Earth Orbit and are a growing issue in Geosynchronous Orbit [...]

However, the point of this post is to discuss a recent New Scientist story that is trying an attempt to revise scientific history, much as the Hockey Team has attempted with the LIA and MWP in the temperature record. New Scientist’s article is trying to claim that the cooler upper atmosphere and continued space junk problem is not due to the solar minimum at all, but due to CO2 induced Global Warming! Yes, that carbon dioxide is not just a car wax, a tooth polish, a paint remover AND an atmospheric warmer, it is also an atmospheric cooler…

Comment: I can't understand this article because they are claiming that NASA and NOAA do not agree with the concept of CO2 causing COOLING in the upper atmosphere, but that is EXACTLY what has been reported before! This is old news... From the article Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically, 17th December 2009, at space.com, we read:

"When the sun is relatively inactive — as it has been in recent years — the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find." [...]

"Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man's emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)" link

There is even a nice video Why Earth's Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling.

Obviously, NASA sponsors many different scientists with different opinions but up until now they have been clear that more CO2 cools the upper atmosphere. Watts et al. should stay away from scientists in the space community, they are NOT climate scientists and if satellites are wandering out of orbit they want to know exactly why, they have no interest in convincing the general public about the merits of CO2.

Space so full of junk that a satellite collision could destroy communications on Earth
The Telegraph, 26th May 2010

Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report has warned.

The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the $250 billion (£174bn) space services industry, scientists said.

A single collision between two satellites or large pieces of “space junk” could send thousands of pieces of debris spinning into orbit, each capable of destroying further satellites. [...]

The space junk, dubbed “an orbiting rubbish dump”, also comprises nuts, bolts, gloves and other debris from space missions. "This is almost the tipping point," Dr Gopalaswamy said. "No satellite can be reliably shielded against this kind of destructive force."

Comment: I have been saying this for over four years now. In fact, ever since I did the original research and published my book in September 2006. Of course, people want to be positive, so anything that upsets their perception that they can completely control their reality is ignored. However, the reality of the junkyard that is near Earth space has now become an issue and the conditions accerbated by Space Weather just make the situation more unmanageable. Hence, I have been regularly logging stories about space junk and my own thoughts, as a record of my belief that we could quite easily lose the whole satellite infrastructure, just as this report now claims. I have not been pessimistic, it's just a realistic assessment of the facts.

'Zombie' satellite prompts orbital waltz
BBC News, 25th May 2010

Two spacecraft are about to begin an unusual orbital dance above the Pacific Ocean to try to evade the interference from a third, failed satellite. Control was lost of Intelsat's Galaxy-15 platform in April. It will not take commands from the ground and is in a drift towards neighbouring spacecraft. [...]

Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report has warned.

The intricacy of the space choreography that is about to take place is thought to be unprecedented in the commercial telecommunications sector.

Comment: The saga continues...

Rogue satellite threatens cable television
Winnipeg Sun, 11th May 2010

A TV communications satellite is drifting out of control miles above the Earth, threatening to wander into another satellite’s orbit and interfere with cable programming across the United States, the satellites’ owners said Tuesday.

Communications company Intelsat said it lost control of the Galaxy 15 satellite on April 8, possibly because the satellite’s systems were knocked out by a solar storm. Intelsat cannot remotely steer the satellite to remain in its orbit, so Galaxy 15 is creeping toward the adjacent path of another TV communications satellite that serves U.S. cable companies.

Galaxy 15 continues to receive and transmit satellite signals, and they will probably interfere with the second satellite, known as AMC 11, if Galaxy 15 drifts into its orbit as expected around May 23, according to AMC 11’s owner, SES World Skies.

AMC 11 receives digital programming from cable television channels and transmits it to all U.S. cable networks from its orbit 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the equator, SES World Skies said. It operates on the same frequencies as Galaxy 15.

Comment: Oh dear! A rogue satellite interfering with cable programming might be the only way that some people become aware that there is hell fire going on in the heavens above Earth!

Attempt to Shut Down Zombie Satellite Galaxy 15 Fails
Space.com, 5th May 2010

PARIS – An attempt to shut down the electronics payload of the out-of-control communications satellite Galaxy 15 has failed, leaving the satellite - which ceased responding to ground commands last month - still in its uncontrolled "zombiesat" drift toward orbits occupied by other spacecraft, the satellite's fleet operator Intelsat said Tuesday.

Galaxy 15 is closing in on the geostationary orbital slot occupied by another C-band satellite, the AMC-11 spacecraft operated by SES World Skies, and with its stuck-on communications payload will be in a position to cause potentially severe interference with the SES satellite during a two-week period starting around May 23, according to Intelsat and SES estimates.

Comment: OK, the electronics on Galaxy 15 is still working and sending out signals that can intefere with other satellites. So now, as well as being worried about it crashing with another satellite, they have to worry about electromagnetic interference (EMI). The space weather nightmare has just been raised to another order of magnitude...

Intense Solar Storm Spins Satellite Out of Control
Fox News, 3rd May 2010

Galaxy 15 stopped responding to ground controllers on April 5. The satellite's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said an intense solar storm in early April may be to blame. An adrift Intelsat satellite that stopped communicating with its ground controllers last month remains out of control and has begun moving eastward along the geostationary arc, raising the threat of interference with other satellites in its path, Intelsat and other industry officials said.

In what industry officials called an unprecedented event, Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite has remained fully "on," with its C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator.

Comment: Well, for the many factors that I have outlined in the last three years on this blog which I started after I wrote my book and the fact that Earth was blasted in early April see Earth struck by most powerful space storm in three years , we have a major report from Fox News (original source Space.com) that a major communication satellite Galaxy 15 has been lost. I actually wrote about the trouble caused in April 1998 when Galaxy IV died, it was the first loss of service in 35 years which was reported as "The Day The Bleepers Died".

We must note that Solar cycle 24 has not even really ramped up yet either, so it does not bode well, especially as they think this satellite is now junk and might become a nuisance. It might explain all the complaints about space junk in the last few weeks. So far, there has been nothing but apathy about Space Weather and it's implications. People are just so comfortable that everythings works at the moment, but that might not last too much longer as more satellites crash out and we lose our modern satellite communication infrastructure. As you might have gathered, I am not too optimistic after researching the impact of Space Weather for the last six years.

More It "...was designed to be operational through 2022" and "It will relay GPS navigation to in-flight aircraft, providing highly accurate guidance to pilots at airports and airfields where there currently is no precision landing capability." ... Oh dear!

Junkyard Circling the Earth Is Growing, Scientists Say
AOL News, 18th April 2010

Imagine half a million marbles circling Earth -- a sort of celestial obstacle course for the International Space Station, shuttles and satellites. That's the increasingly problematic issue of orbital debris. The objects can be as big as a defunct satellite, but -- traveling at speeds of 17,500 miles an hour or more -- even a paint flake can put a chink in a space shuttle window, as happened on one mission. "It's almost like it's being sandblasted by these very small pieces of space debris," said Roderick Heelis, director of the Hanson Center for Space Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. [...]

"Space is like the Wild West used to be,"said David Wright, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The first explorers of the new frontier "didn't feel like they needed laws. They dumped their trash anywhere."

Comment: Nice headline... Well, space weather makes the debris issue far worse as a threat to satellites, as I have previously commented. However, problems with the ISS might mean it soon ends up joining the other junk up there too. Incidentally, there has been a major problem in the last few days, see NASA considering emergency spacewalk to fix valve and now we find the large crew of 13 Russian and Japanese astronaunts are coming home early, NASA delays shuttle Discovery's return to Earth .

RE-ENTRY ALERT!
Spaceweather.com, 20th April 2010
Discovery's first landing attempt at KSC has been scrubbed. Mission controllers are focused now on a second attempt for Florida with a deorbit burn at 8:02 a.m. and a landing at 9:08 a.m. EDT. En route to the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle will fly over many US towns and cities including Helena, Montana; Casper, Wyoming; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Montgomery, Alabama. If you're near the ground track, listen for sonic booms about a minute and a half after the shuttle passes by. Check NASA's landing blog for updates. link

Space Junk Mess Getting Messier in Orbit
Yahoo News, 23rd February 2010

The already untidy mass of orbital debris that litters low Earth orbit nearly got nastier last month. A head-on collision was averted between a spent upper stage from a Chinese rocket and the European Space Agency's (ESA) huge Envisat Earth remote-sensing spacecraft.

Space junk tracking information supplied by the U.S. military, as well as confirming German radar data, showed that the two space objects would speed by each other at a nail-biting distance of roughly 160 feet (50 meters). ESA's Envisat tips the scales at 8 tons, with China's discarded rocket body weighing some 3.8 tons. A couple of tweaks of maneuvering propellant were used to nudge the large ESA spacecraft to a more comfortable miss distance.

But what if the two objects had tangled? Such a space collision would have caused mayhem in the heavens, adding clutter to an orbit altitude where there are big problems already, said Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany.

It turns out, Klinkrad told SPACE.com, that 50 percent of all the close conjunctions that Envisat faces are due to the lethal leftovers from China's January 2007 anti-satellite test, as well as chunks of junk resulting from last year's smashup between an active U.S. Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian Cosmos spacecraft.

Comment: Apparently, it is quite stressful watching out for collisions between live satellites and space junk, but this situation is the inevitable outcome of a space community that has been very short sighted. With Space Weather dragging satellites and junk out of orbits in a chaotic manner, the Chinese being totally inconsiderate in deliberately blowing up a satellite (but no doubt it was meant to warn another government to not mess with them) and the satellite collision in February 2009, means that the world's satellite infrastructure is much more fragile than many realise. The comparison of debris creating more debris and comparing it to evolution is in my opinion a stretch. By the way, we have to consider how bad things are in space when we get these bizarre reports of massive fiery holes in the ground, cover ups and even locals getting sick (radiation poisoning) after going to investigate a crash.

Sweating the Space-Junk Problem
Fox News, 6th November 2009

Life online today exists thanks to satellites, but outer space is getting dangerously crowded, putting those satellites at risk. More than 20,000 pieces of space junk are orbiting planet Earth, putting our communications satellites in serious danger. At last, The Pentagon is taking it seriously, with the military finally tracking hundreds of satellites to watch for collisions. Is it too little, too late, or is the Pentagon onto something?

"We were in denial before February 10th," notes Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics and the author of "Physics of the Impossible." On that date, a collision in space between a dead Russian satellite and a US Iridium communications satellite knocked out the satellite and sent a shower of debris into the surrounding space.

"We basically forgot the location of the satellite!" Kaku lamented. Now the Pentagon says that 800 satellites will be monitored every day, and up to 1,300 satellites by the end of the year. But space junk is still a problem.

"There's 20,00 pieces of space junk! Everything from paint flecks to screwdrivers to tool bags to booster rocket parts" is orbiting the planet, notes Kaku, pointing out that if more satellites are damaged, communications could be set back 80 years or more.

"Television, the Internet, Wall Street. The Pentagon could not fight wars, you couldn't get online, Wall Street could not make transactions without satellites." Some space objects are maneuverable, meaning the Pentagon can reposition them if it senses a collision. A cosmic "vacuum cleaner" could clear up the rest of the gunk, though that would be costly and impractical. Laser beams are another option, though we don't have a laser capable of such activity. And neither solution is imminent. Meanwhile, the odds of another collision are high.

Comment: This article is incredible because first it admits that scientists were in denial (how Oprah-esque) and secondly the Pentagon admits that they weren't watching their junk. This article even gives a hint of soul searching as scientists wring their hands. Now, for you folks that don't think we could lose our satellite infrastructure, just watch the magnetosphere (Earth's magnetic shield) blowing about in a galactic gale and imagine that one day you wake up and all the satellites have been blown out of Earth orbit....

ROCKET FUEL DUMP:
Spaceweather.com, 19th October 2009

A Centaur rocket caused a minor sensation on Sunday night, Oct. 18th, when it flew over Europe and dumped a load of excess propellant. "We saw it at 9:15 pm local time (1915 UT)," report Federico and Chiara Bellini of Bodio Lomnago, Italy. "It looked like a comet with a fan-shaped tail."

They took this 30-second exposure using a Nikon D70s: "About 20 seconds later, a second object appeared." That was a US military weather satellite (DMSP F-18), which the Centaur booster had helped launch earlier in the evening from Vandenberg, Air Force Base in California. "And then," the Bellinis continue, "a big circular halo followed the two across the sky." The halo, shown here in a movie recorded by Jonas Förste of Jakobstad, Finland, was probably an expanding puff of gas emitted during an earlier firing of the Centaur.

Comment: I just don't believe it, this is a magical tale.... If I can find an expert who can verify that this report is hogwash, I will add a link.

Rogue satellites to be cleared from Earth's orbit by German robots
German-built robots are to be sent into Earth's orbit to repair 'dead satellites' or push them into outer space
The Observer, 11th October 2009

"Robots that rescue failing satellites and push "dead" ones into outer space should be ready in four years, it has emerged. Experts described the development by German scientists as a crucial step in preventing a disaster in the Earth's crowded orbit.

Last year it was reported that critical levels of debris circling the Earth were threatening astronauts' lives and the future of the multibillion-pound satellite communications industry. But senior figures at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) told the Observer they have been given the go-ahead to tackle a crisis that will come to a head in the next five to 10 years as more orbiting objects run out of fuel."

Comment: So whilst NASA scientists fret, the Germans are taking matters into their own hands and getting on with a solution, but will it be good enough to counteract Space Weather?

Orbital Debris Cleanup Takes Center Stage
Space.com, 7th October 2009

"There are serious challenges ahead in mitigating space clutter now orbiting the Earth, problems that are exacerbated by the rise of small satellite launchings as well as using debris removal techniques that mimic anti-satellite systems.

Experts focused on the escalating menace of orbiting litter during "Green Space: Addressing Space Debris - End of Life Operations," a recent session at the Space 2009 Conference and Exposition in Pasadena, Calif., staged by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Recent maneuvers by both the space shuttle and the International Space Station to avoid speeding space junk have helped flag the issue. So too has the February 11 collision between Russia's defunct Cosmos 2251 satellite and a U.S. commercial Iridium spacecraft — purportedly the first time two intact spacecraft have accidentally rammed into each other."

Comment: Well, space junk is a major problem that is not going to be easy to sort out as outlined in this article. Yet, Space Weather is a major factor, as the new tough electrical conditions in space, shortens the lifespan of satellites and so perpetuates the problem by creating more junk.

Race is on for space-junk alarm system
New Scientist, 26th July 2009

"A WORLDWIDE network of radar stations could tackle the ever-growing problem of space debris - the remains of old rockets and satellites that pose an increasing threat to spacecraft. The US government is launching a competition, which will run until the end of 2010, to find the best way of tracking pieces of junk down to the size of a pool ball.

Three aerospace companies - Northrop Grumman, Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon - have each been awarded $30 million by US Air Force Space Command to design a "space fence" that will constantly report the motion of all objects 5 centimetres wide and larger in medium and low-Earth orbits. "It's basically going to be an electronic tripwire," says Rich Davis, Northrop's special projects director in Linthicum, Maryland. "It will give you the orbit angle and time of day that every satellite or piece of debris passes any point you choose." Once you know that, he says, it is easy to calculate potential collision risks."

Comment: The headline is toned down since the last time there was mention of a race, which Fox reported as Scientists Race to Prevent 'Catastrophic Disaster' in Space, see archives. The competition implies that instead of the usual suppression of new ideas through imposed chains of command, the desperation is allowing any smart person to have their idea utiltised, but in the end, they might not get any personal benefit as can be noted by scientists who complain about how these schemes work.

Lockheed Martin to work on ‘Space Fence’
Business Weekly, 12th June 2009

"Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co. have each been awarded a $30 million contract to develop a prototype of a radar network to keep track of all the debris orbiting the earth, the Defense Department said Thursday. The contracts were awarded by the Air Force, which has named the system, “Space Fence.” The Air Force likely will select one of the three companies to build the system based on their work on the contract."

Comment: It looks like the space debris problem is so bad, that the military are now suffering from low visibility! See Pentagon's Space Spies for details. Where we find: "You can't protect what you can't see. And, right now, America's military has a really, really hard time seeing into space. Which means U.S. satellites could be at risk. So it makes sense that the Air Force is spending a whole lot of money on "space situational awareness" -- getting a better picture of what's in orbit -- before the service starts investing big in the more outlandish tools of space war. Air Force magazine breaks down the programs:

The Space Fence is an array of dispersed radars that track satellites as they pass over the United States. The Air Force is planning a $275 million upgrade over the next five years that will convert the system to S-band radar, allowing greater search capability and faster revisit times. It also will sharpen the resolution of the radar, so that it can see objects from a current minimum of 12 inches in size down to two inches in size. The radars themselves will be distributed over a wider geographical area, giving a better view of the horizon. They will be able to see beyond low earth orbit (LEO) to medium Earth orbit (MEO). [Col. Ronald] Grundman said the old hardware likely will be retired around 2011, because “it’s reaching some sustainability limits.”

Space Probe Set to "Collide" With Earth to Simulate Approaching Asteroid
National Geographic, 11th June 2009

"A 1,124-pound (510-kilogram) space probe will "collide" with our home planet in June 2010 to simulate an approaching asteroid, Japanese scientists have announced. The Hayabusa spacecraft is currently on its way back to Earth after a successful mission that landed on and hopefully collected samples from the asteroid Itokawa.

Potential samples will be aboard a heat-resistant capsule that will separate from Hayabusa shortly before re-entry into Earth's atmosphere so they can be recovered. But experts say the main body of the craft will most likely disintegrate during the trip through Earth's atmosphere. Although the plan was not part of Hayabusa's original mission, scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently decided to make the most of the doomed probe's return.

Comment: Don't we already have a MASSIVE problem with space debris? We are being told that even flecks of paint swirling around at a high speed 7-10 kilometres per second can damage satellites. Well, we will just have to hope that they get their samples safely, because after the engineering feat of actually collecting samples, getting them back to Earth safely is not guaranteed.

Shuttle Dodges Space Junk Risk
Wired Science, 17th April 2009

"Despite the recent rash of space-debris problems, the risk that the space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will have a catastrophic collision with space junk and micrometeoroids won't exceed NASA guidelines.

NASA said Thursday the new orbital debris risk for STS-125 had fallen to 1 in 221. A couple of precautionary maneuvers -- in particular coming into a lower, less crowded orbit on the 10th day of the mission and using Hubble as a shield -- reduced the spaceship's chance of getting hit with a stray paint chip or metal bolt. [...]

It could, however, just be a matter of time before NASA can't outmaneuver the space-debris risk, particularly in the most satellite-crowded orbit, which is several hundred miles above Hubble.

"That region of space is already supercritical. Given the amount of debris that was up there, the debris would double in 50 years, even if you didn't launch anything up there." said David Wright, a space security specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"What that says is that debris mitigation isn't enough. We're at the point where we have to do debris remediation and we don't know how to do that." But at lower orbits, where Hubble and the space station are, we will be able to continue the cat-and-mouse game with tiny pieces of debris, at least for a while. "You certainly can't say that anytime soon, the debris consequences are going to be so high that it's going to keep us out of space," Wright said.

Comment:This sounds a lot like bravado in the face of very difficult circumstances. See previous comments.

Scientists Race to Prevent 'Catastrophic Disaster' in Space
Fox News, 7th April 2009

"Kaplan, now a senior researcher in the space department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., has been figuring out how to bring down objects from space. That makes him one of a few dozen scientists feverishly trying to prevent what he calls a "coming catastrophic disaster" — a collision between a manned spacecraft and orbital debris, or space junk, thousands of pieces of which are zooming at thousands of miles per hour 300 to 800 miles above the Earth, ready to take out anything in their paths. [...]

Experts are saying we could expect a crash every couple of years, but this is an educated guess," says Michael Krepon, co-founder of The Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on security concerns. "We really don't know the scale of the problem — we just know that we've already done serious damage to a zone of space that's essential to our security." Our fast-paced, hyperlinked world could not exist without orbital relays; everything from phone calls to GPS devices to banking transfers needs satellites to work.

Even more damaging to satellites, and the enormous potential of the commercial development of space overall, could be a ground-based threat — crippling lawsuits over orbital-debris collisions. "Liability claims killed the private aviation industry," says Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, which sponsors contests and awards for private space ventures and innovation.

"In space, we're going to be dealing with 'Your satellite killed my satellite' claims. It's going to be a mess." No ... it's a mess already."

Comment:Well, now that scientists are talking in terms of a "'Catastrophic Disaster' in Space", I feel that my stance on Space Weather has been proven correct. My vindication is especially pertinent after my dealings with a so-called 2012 'expert' who could not see how the prediction 'A New Age dominated by Space' by GENUINE Mayan Elder, Carlos Barrios was related to Space Weather. In fact I have an email that states, "Space Weather does not sound like a Mayan Prophecy". I suppose NASA were suppose to call the build up of evolutionary energies around the Earth, 'Quetzalcoatl' Weather.

Shuttle and space station dodge debris
LA Times, 23rd March 2009

"This is the third time in the last few weeks that the station has had to worry about space junk speeding around Earth on a possible collision course. Ten days ago, before Discovery launched, the crew of the station had to take shelter in a Russian Soyuz lifeboat capsule as a 5-inch piece of spent rocket motor came within striking distance; it missed. And in February, two satellites collided, creating a field of debris.

"Space debris is becoming an ever-increasing challenge," flight director Kwatsi Alibaruho said Sunday evening. When it comes to dodging junk, "it's a big deal. It's very tiring. Sometimes it's exhausting.""

Comment: I wonder if the 4 inch "spent" piece of junk from a Chinese satellite was caused when the Chinese irresponsibly blew up an old satellite with a missile in space (February 2007) and created "a huge debris field" according to Russian sources. At the time the rest of the space community were incensed. It does sound from the flight director's account that this may have been an ongoing battle and we are only hearing about it because of the publicity with the two satellites colliding, but space junk was already a problem before the Chinese compounded the problem.

Space junk endangers $1B Canadian satellites
Canada.com, 21st March 2009

"OTTAWA — Two Canadian satellites are in danger of being damaged or destroyed because they’re passing through massive clouds of space junk caused by a recent collision between a Russian and an American satellite. The two Canadian satellites, RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2, orbit the Earth 14 times each day, heading east to west. Meanwhile the clusters of space junk travel north to south. Scientists say they could be on a collision course.

"There is a very high risk for the two satellites," said Robert Saint-Jean, manager of satellites at the Canadian Space Agency."

Comment: Well, it's over 5 years since I started researching Space Weather and realised that our satellite communication infrastructure was under threat, especially as there is so many disabled satellites that cannot be controlled. Yet, due to human folly with China and the United States shooting down unwanted satellites, thus creating huge debris fields, it seems that this situation has become untenable. Here the Canadians are just telling the world exactly how bad things are.

Discovery nears space station as debris nears, too
Associated Press, 16th March 2009

"Seven astronauts raced to the international space station aboard space shuttle Discovery on Monday, while NASA debated whether the orbiting outpost will need to move aside to dodge part of an old Soviet satellite.

Space station astronauts had a close call last week with a small piece of orbiting junk, and NASA said Monday that debris from a satellite that broke apart in 1981 could come within about half a mile of the station early Tuesday. [...]

Kosmos 1275 broke up somewhat mysteriously, said NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney. It may have crashed with another object that wasn't tracked and it made a cloud of 310 pieces of debris that are slowly falling into a lower orbit, he said. "

Comment: NASA has to take action concerning space junk, twice in a period of a week? Estimates vary from 400 million to billions of tiny pieces of junk, so we can only surmise that the situation has becoming untenable. This article is confusing, as the recent crash was Kosmos 2251, but here we have junk from another Russian satellite Kosmos 1275 that 'broke up' 'mysteriously'. It's seems that if you like mystery, then working within the space community is a great place to be. See also Orbital Water Guns Could Blow Away Space Junk. Quote: "We need to treat space like a national park — carry out what you carry in," says Heiner Klinkrad, who runs the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany, and is chairman of the global Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee." This sounds like NASA are coming round to the idea of 'space' environmentalism!

Debris Briefly Forces Astronauts From Space Station
ABC News, 12th March 2009

"A tiny piece of space junk smaller than a fingertip forced three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station on Thursday when the debris came too close for comfort. The astronauts, Russian Yury Lonchakov and Americans Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus, spent about nine minutes in the Soyuz escape ship before the space litter passed by. NASA called the threat to the $100 billion space station "minimal" and said the astronauts were moved into the Soyuz
Comment: Wow, that's some serious visual capability! Now, why didn't someone spot two large satellites about to crash into each other? See article date 6th March, NASA: Shuttle's Risk of Debris Strike Up 6 Percent, note:

"NASA is still assessing the risk to the upcoming Hubble repair space shuttle mission, targeted to fly in late May. The danger to this trip could be greater, managers said, because that shuttle is set to take its crew to an altitude of about 372 miles (600 km), putting it much closer to the range of the collision than the space station is. "That didn't look so good, when they looked at that," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief, has said."

What a mess! Experts ponder space junk problem
AP News, 19th February 2009

"Think of it as a galactic garbage dump. With a recent satellite collision still fresh on minds, participants at a meeting in the Austrian capital this week are discussing ways to deal with space debris — junk that is clogging up the orbit around the Earth. [...]

Johnson is the co-lead of an International Academy of Astronautics study that is exploring ways of extracting space debris from Earth orbit. Some of the suggestions sound pretty spaced out.

One proposes attaching balloons to pieces of debris to increase their atmospheric drag and bring them back to Earth faster. Another, said Johnson, foresees attaching a 10-mile (16-kilometer) electrodynamic tether to debris that would generate a current, which then could be controlled from the ground enabling technicians to bring it down. Many scientists are skeptical about the possibility of a cleanup."

Comment:The suggestion of an electrodynamic tether is quite amusing after the previous failed attempt by the NASA/Italian tethered satellite experiment (TSS-1R) on the STS-75 mission. In 1996, the computer on-board the Italian satellite was fried and the fuel on-board mysteriously depleted, when the "shoestring-sized tether" — almost fully deployed — 12 miles above the Columbia space shuttle simply broke. This fast became a massive PR disaster for NASA's $450 million project and only boistered Electric Universe theorists. To my knowledge, there is still an satellite whizzing around our planet, trailing a 12-mile tether pointing towards the earth.....

COLLIDING SATELLITES:
Spaceweather.com, 13th February 2009

Copy: COLLIDING SATELLITES: For the first time ever, two large satellites have collided in Earth orbit. It happened on Tuesday, Feb. 10th, when Kosmos 2251 crashed into Iridium 33 approximately 800 km over northern Siberia. Both satellites were completely destroyed. Click to view a 2.3 MB animation

U.S. Strategic Command is tracking hundreds of satellite fragments. In the 48+ hours since the collision, the debris swarm has spread around both orbits. Experts characterize the distribution as a pair of "clumpy rings"; one ring traces the orbit of Iridium 33, the other traces the orbit of Kosmos 2251. This injection of debris substantially increases the population of space junk at altitudes near 800 km. Collisions are now more likely than ever. Fortunately, the International Space Station orbits Earth at a much lower altitude, 350 km, so it is in no immediate danger. The Hubble Space Telescope is not so safe at 610 km. In the days ahead, researchers will carefully study the make-up and dynamics of the debris cloud to estimate when bits will begin to drift down to lower altitudes.

Comment: The general awareness of a New Age dominated by space has arrived with a bang!

2 Big Satellites Collide 500 Miles Over Siberia
CBS News, 11th February 2009

"In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today. The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it's not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites. [...]

Johnson said the collision was 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." [...]

Asked if other satellites might be at risk, Johnson said "technically, yes. What we're doing now is trying to quantify that risk. That's a work in progress. It's only been 24 hours. We put first things first, which is station and preparing for the next shuttle mission."

Comment: Amazing, what did I write last week, see below! Well, I have believed for quite some time that our satellite communication infrastructure is under risk from Space Weather and the turbulent conditions that now exist . Since the start of this blog, I have consistently reported about the problem of the amount of junk in space but I was unaware until recently that there is an estimated 300,000 pieces of junk between 1cm -10cm and billions of pieces of junk under 1cm. This article mentions 18,000 artificial objects in space bigger than 10 centimeters, but only about 800 of which are operational satellites being tracked. According to The Secure World Foundation's Space Situational Awareness "...All of this material orbits the Earth at high velocities, usually between seven and ten kilometers per second, and in an uncontrolled manner." Hmmmm.....

Backyard space watcher films lost tool bag
The Age, 25th November 2008

"A tool bag lost in space by an American astronaut in an unprecedented blunder last week has been spotted and filmed by a backyard satellite watcher in Canada. Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper watched helplessly as the bag drifted away from her while she was cleaning and greasing a a gummed-up joint on a wing of solar panels on the International Space Station."

Comment: There has been a lot of media coverage about an astronaut losing a tool bag when doing repairs on ISS, but this story of an amateur astronomer finding the tool bag amongst all the junk in space is truely amazing and really makes you think..... If a so-called amateur can find something as small as a tool bag, what about other objects that are far bigger that can be seen as they part of the electromagnetic spectrum with sophisticated infra-red, ultra-violet and radar equipment.....

ATV carries out first debris avoidance manoeuvre for the ISS
ESA News, 28th August 2008

"The Automated Transfer Vehicle, Europe’s ISS logistics spacecraft, was used to perform its first debris avoidance manoeuvre for the International Space Station. The manoeuvre was started yesterday at 18:11 CEST (16:11 UT) and finished 5 minutes 2 seconds later. In the current Station configuration the Automated Transfer Vehicle(ATV), which is docked to the aft end of the Russian Zvezda Service module at the back of the Station, is the only vehicle that can carry out this kind of manoeuvre. The way to avoid space debris, which in this case comes from an old satellite, is by performing a so-called retrograde manoeuvre of the Space Station, i.e. by slowing it down, which in turn lowers its orbiting altitude. "

Comment: So, the ISS has measures to avoid being hit by the junk that surrounds this planet, is that really such an impressive feat? I would be more impressed if they could find a way of clearing up the junk. So, now that NASA are reassuring us that we are still on for celestial fireworks in solarcycle 24, it might be interesting to watch the ISS dodge one bullet after another as satellites die and spin out of control after getting hit by space weather.

Cosmic Clean-Up: Wild Ideas to Sweep Space
Space.com, 19th March 2008

"Space is littered with millions of bits of orbiting garbage leftover from missions. The flying flotsam can delay launches and could potentially smash into spacecraft. Now some creative ideas are emerging for how to sweep up the junk. One idea even involves an oversized NERF ball."

Comment: When you consider that some of these satellites cost in the region of $500 million dollars, it seems bizarre that China and the United States see fit to create more lethal junk by shooting down disabled satellites....

China missile test littered space with loads of debris
The Seattle Times, 30th March 2007

Comment: There has been so many stories about this particular incident where the chinese blew up an old satellite in space and created an even bigger space junk problem. Most people won't realise the depth of irresponsibility that was demonstrated here. I imagine that this event generated near apoplectic states amongst senior directors in the multi-billion dollar a year satellite communication business. There is already a huge problem with spaceweather, so creating more hazard to knock-out very expensive hardware in space is just plain stupid. If large numbers of satellites get knocked-out due to chaotic conditions induced by geomagnetic storms then our modern technological world will be in for at least some inconvenience, possibly severe disruption or at the very worst total meltdown.

Space blast's huge debris field
KAZINFORM, February 27th 2007

Comment: Another huge explosion in space creating more debris in space. There is already a problem finding places to park satellites and with spaceweather, more and more sateliites are being rendered useless. I actually wonder whether there is a critical level when Gaia decides there are too many irritants. A bizarre situation.

Orbital Debris a Growing Problem with No End in Sight
Space News, July 31, 2006

"The proliferation of garbage in low Earth orbit has reached a point where it will increase in the coming decades even if all rocket launches were canceled starting now, according to research by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The satellites and rocket stages designed and launched before the seriousness of the problem was recognized are like time bombs, waiting to break apart in the coming years on combustion of their remaining fuel thereby multiplying the pieces of space garbage. At some point, the growing population of orbiting debris increases the likelihood that pieces will collide into each other, spawning still more space junk. The problem is especially acute at altitudes of between 900 and 1,000 kilometers. Research by NASA’s Nicholas L. Johnson and J.C. Liou conclude that even if all launches were stopped immediately, the debris population would remain constant for about 50 years, then increasing noticeably after that as a result of in-orbit collisions."

Comment: Sigh!

Will Space Junk Bring Down The Space Initiative
Space.daily.com, Mar 16, 2004

Comment:Great article here on space junk and the risks for astronauts. The article is surprisingly hostile towards NASA.....

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Susan Joy Rennison, B.Sc.Hons. (Physics with Geophysics)

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Best of the Blog - Space Junk, Satellite Failure & the escalating problem

Best of the Blog - Space Junk, Satellite Failure & the escalating problem

Susan Joy Rennison quotes:

“Space Weather is now a fact of life.”

“We are all astronauts now!”

“We must spiritually evolve as part of the new terms & conditions for living on Earth.”

“Space Weather will force many changes in how we do business on this planet.”

NASA Press Release:

“Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history.”

“We're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.”