Space debris. Is all the space debris we send up basically travelling in the same direction at the same speed or is it it just going Willy nilly everywhere at different speeds?
I'm wondering if it's likely that the ISS will run into a slower moving piece of junk.
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When I was in the business (satellite operations), we had a catalog of around 17,000 objects the size of a man's fist, or larger. The number today is over 23,000 and growing rapidly. Most of this debris is in low earth orbit where the ISS operates. Of course, orbits are determined by the mission, and can vary widely in altitude, inclination and direction of travel. There's a lot more 'willy nilliness' than we may realize. Here's a couple of useful videos, but the models may be deceiving when it comes to scale ... there's a lot of space out there!
p-nullifidian
Level 8
July 27, 2018
1
Thank you.
They are in different orbits...and there is an entire department at NASA, EU, China Aerospace Admin, & a few others to track EVERY partial. We can't really get to the Moon right now because of all the shit up there. We were going to start cleaning it up...but then 2016 happened. sigh.
MissaDixon
Level 7
July 27, 2018
1
What ever hits the ISS just needs to be in it's way slow contact is made. Any thing comming in contact can do harm.
dalefvictor
Level 8
July 27, 2018
1
Most of it is in geosynchronous orbit, yes. The pieces that are not are usually burned up scraping against the atmosphere, as I understand it. Very few pieces are large enough to make impact with the surface, and means they are mostly intact and can be tracked, thankfully. The ISS tries to keep well clear of the stuff they know about. But there is always margin for error. So the threat still exists, but it's as minimal as it can be made.
Kafirah
Level 8
July 27, 2018
0
Thanks but do you know if they are all traveling at the same speed?
@Anonbene It really depends on their altitude. The higher they are, the faster they have to go to maintain geosynchronous orbit. With intact functioning objects, that becomes easier the further from Earth they are, because of the reduced gravity. Actual debris can only travel as fast as they were already traveling in stable orbits plus whatever momentum they may have picked up in their destruction, like an explosion. However, once they reach that maximum velocity, it begins to degrade due to the constant pull of gravity, thus losing speed a little at a time. Once they lose enough, their orbits begin to decay and they are slowly but surely pulled back toward the Earth with an exponential decrease in velocity proportionate to their altitude and density of mass (i.e. weight). In other words, as their weight increases, their speed decreases until they start hitting the atmosphere, then they start losing mass on an exponential curve.
@Kafir
Their what begins to decay? ?
Thank you for your answer.
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