On February 10, 2009, two military operated satellites, Iridium 33 and Russian military Kosmos-2251, collided at a speed of 11,700 m/s (26,000 mph; 42,000 km/h) and an altitude of 789 kilometres (490 mi) above the Taymyr Peninsula in the Siberian Russian Arctic. It was the first time a hypervelocity collision occurred between two satellites.
The US military had been alerted by Iridium Satellite LLC to the sudden “non-reporting” of the destroyed craft, according to Cartwright, who from 2004 to 2007 headed the Pentagon’s Strategic Command responsible for space operations.[1]
Kosmos-2251 was a 950-kilogram (2,100 lb) Russian Strela military communications satellite owned by the Russian Space Forces.[2] It had no propulsion system.[3]
Iridium company
Up until 2009, Iridium Satellite LLC ran a network that used 66 satellites to provide voice and data services for areas not served by ground-based communications networks.[1] In 2010, the company became incorporated as Iridium Communications.
Retired U.S. Air Force General John Campbell is Iridium’s executive vice president for US government programs. Iridium had been receiving a weekly average of 400 conjunction reports from the U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center that tracks debris in space.[1]
In June 2007, John Campbell stood before a Washington research panel, hosted by the George C. Marshall Institute, explaining a vulnerability to the panel about how his company handles conjunction reports.[1]
Campbell explained that conjunction reports are issued every time a potential threat object passes within five kilometers (3 miles) of a commercial satellite, “the ability to actually do anything with all the information is pretty limited,” Campbell continued, “Even if we had a report of an impending direct collision, the error would be such that we might maneuver into a collision as well as move away from one.”[1]
However, Campbell attempted to reassure the Washington panel that space is so vast that the chances of a collision are infinitesimal, based on the so-called “Big Sky” theory. Reuters scoffs at the remark, noting that there are more than 18,000 pieces of orbiting junk big enough to track.[1]
Iridium company response
On 12 February, 2009, Iridium Satellite LLC said that it had no advance warning of an impending collision between Iridium 33 and the Russian military satellite above Siberia. The company rejected suggestions that it might have come to disregard “conjunction reports” — potential accident alerts — routinely relayed by the U.S. military.[1]
“Iridium didn’t have information prior to the collision to know that the collision would occur,” said Liz DeCastro, a company spokeswoman. “If the organizations that monitor space had that information available, we are confident they would have shared it with us.”[1]
Aftermath
Marine Corps General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former head of the command that runs U.S. military space operations, said countries with satellites in space will have to play “dodgeball” for decades to avoid debris from the collision.[1]
On 6 March 2009, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received a "reset button" plaque from the US Secretary of State, symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with Russia under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. On 17 September 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. was dropping the Bush Administration's plan to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. Russia had viewed the planned missile shield as a military threat. Vladimir Putin said the decision was "correct and brave".[4]
Since the collision incident, Iridium Satellite LLC became incorporated as Iridium Communications and began its design and development for Iridium-NEXT satellites. In June 2010, Iridium signed the largest commercial rocket-launch deal ever at that time, a $492 million contract with SpaceX to launch 70 Iridium NEXT satellites on seven Falcon 9 rockets from 2015 to 2017 via SpaceX leased launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base.[5]
Vladimir Putin took a special interest in GLONASS,[6] Russia’s "Global Navigation System". By 2010, the satellite system's restoration was made one of the government's top priorities,[7] and given a budget of $420 million.[8] On 11 August 2010, Sergei Ivanov announced a plan to introduce a 25% import duty on all GPS-capable devices, including mobile phones, unless they are compatible with GLONASS. The government also planned to force all car manufacturers in Russia to support GLONASS starting from 2011. This would affect all car makers, including foreign brands like Ford and Toyota, which have car assembly facilities in Russia.[9]
GPS and phone baseband chips from major vendors Qualcomm, Exynos and Broadcom[10] all support GLONASS in combination with GPS.[11]
Satellite neighborhood
China added significantly to space debris when it used a ground-based ballistic missile to blow apart an obsolete weather satellite in a January 2007 arms test.[1]
China’s anti-satellite test “alone increased our risk due to space junk by a factor of about three and increased the overall risk of collision by about 15 percent,” John Campbell told the Washington Panel in 2007.[1]
The United States used a missile from a Navy warship to explode a tank of toxic fuel on a crippled U.S. spy satellite in February 2008.[1]
On Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009, one week prior to the US-Russian satellite collision, Iran said it had launched its first domestically made satellite into orbit. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the launch had been successful and that with it Iran had "officially achieved a presence in space". The satellite, carried on a Safir-2 rocket, was meant for telecommunication and research purposes, Iran state TV said.[12]
A US state department official said the Iranian launch was of "great concern" and could lead to ballistic missile development. Iran insists its intent is peaceful. France also expressed concern, saying the technology used by Iran was "very similar" to that used in ballistic missiles.[12]
Iran's successful launch of its communications satellite by its own rocket shows how it is slowly but surely mastering the missile technology that the West fears one day might be available as a delivery system for a nuclear weapon, reports Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent, BBC News.[13]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Reuters, Iridium says in dark before orbital crash by Jim Wolf, 12 February, 2009
- ↑ Russian and US satellites collide. BBC (February 12, 2009).
- ↑ Игорь Королев. Авария на $50 млн // Ведомости, № 26 (2296), 13 февраля 2009
- ↑ Baker, Peter, "Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms", The New York Times, 2010-03-24. Retrieved on 2010-03-29.
- ↑ Largest Commercial Rocket Launch Deal Ever Signed by SpaceX , SPACE.com, 2010-06-16, accessed 2010-06-16.
- ↑ Harvey, Brian (2007). "Military programs". The Rebirth of the Russian Space Program (1st ed.). Germany: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-71354-0.
- ↑ Moskvitch, Katia, "Glonass: Has Russia's sat-nav system come of age?", BBC News, 2010-04-02.
- ↑ Glonass still wants to be "the other guy in the sky. RT. 6 December 2010.
- ↑ Template error: argument title is required.
- ↑ Broadcom Upgrades Its A-GPS Data Service and GPS LTO Product/Service with GLONASS Satellite Support. Broadcom.com (2011-02-09). Retrieved on 2011-10-06.
- ↑ Wikipedia, Promoting commercial use
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 BBC, Iran launches homegrown satellite, 3 February 2009
- ↑ BBC, Iran's slow but sure missile advance, by Paul Reynolds, 3 February 2009