Sunday, February 12, 2023

3872 - RUSSIAN SATELLITE DEBRIS - a ring of junk!

 

           -   3872  -  RUSSIAN  SATELLITE  DEBRIS -  a ring of junk!  Februay 8, 2022,  a Russian satellite has broken into pieces, littering debris in space. A Russian KOSMOS 2499 satellite broke up last month,  for a second time. The Space Force said they are currently tracking 85 individual pieces of debris at an altitude of 726 miles.  The breakup occurred on January 4, 2023, but the reason for the disintegration remains unknown.

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----------  3872  -   RUSSIAN  SATELLITE  DEBRIS -  a ring of junk!

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-    At this high altitude of 726 miles, it will take decades for the debris to deorbit and burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and presence of this debris in an increasingly busy region in Earth orbit.

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-  This is the second breakup event of Kosmos 2499. The first fragmentation occurred on October 23, 2021. That event created 22 pieces of trackable debris.

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-    Russia quietly launched KOSMOS 2499 on May 23, 2014. But tracking indicated the satellite performed unusual maneuvers, leading some to speculate that it may be an experimental anti-satellite weapon, satellite maintenance vehicle, or collector of space debris.

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-    Moscow website indicated the satellite was designed to test experimental plasma propulsion engines/ion thrusters.  Both the first and now second breakup event was thought to be caused by an explosion of that propulsion system.

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-   LeoLabs, Inc., a commercial provider of low Earth orbit mapping and tracking also tweeted about the current situation, saying that their analysis points toward a low intensity explosion, due to the asymmetry of the debris cloud, magnitude of the velocity imparted to the fragments, and a known energetic source on board.

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-    LeoLabs said another identical spacecraft, Kosmos 2491, exploded in 2020, and that event has been attributed to an explosion of the propulsion system.

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-   This event follows a recent close call where two pieces of leftover Soviet-era space junk passed within feet of each other on January 27, 2023. A piece of a rocket stage came as close as 19.7 feet  from a defunct satellite at an altitude of 611 miles above Earth’s surface.

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-   The Space Force is currently tracking 85 individual pieces of the Kosmos debris at an altitude of  726 miles.   At this high altitude, it will take decades for the debris to deorbit and burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and presence of this debris in an increasingly busy region in Earth orbit.

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-    This satellite has had a curious history. Russia quietly launched KOSMOS 2499 on May 23, 2014. But tracking indicated the satellite performed unusual maneuvers, leading some to speculate that it may be an experimental anti-satellite weapon, satellite maintenance vehicle, or collector of space debris.

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-    Both the first and now second breakup event was thought to be caused by an explosion of that propulsion system. LeoLabs, Inc., a commercial provider of low Earth orbit mapping and tracking also tweeted about the current situation, saying that their analysis points toward a low intensity explosion, due to the asymmetry of the debris cloud, magnitude of the velocity imparted to the fragments, and a known energetic source on board.

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-    LeoLabs said another identical spacecraft, Kosmos 2491, exploded in 2020, and that event has been attributed to an explosion of the propulsion system.  This event follows a recent close call where two pieces of leftover Soviet-era space junk passed within feet of each other on January 27, 2023. A piece of a rocket stage came as close as 19.7 feet from a defunct satellite at an altitude of 611 miles above Earth’s surface.

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-  Sierra Space tests another inflatable Space Station module … to destruction.  The commercial space company conducted a new duration test called an Accelerated Systematic Creep Test for their LIFE Habitat (Large Integrated Flexible Environment), putting a 1/3 size scale model of the space module under gradually increasing excess pressure until it failed. The habitat burst after more than 150 hours of constant pressure, exceeding NASA’s certification target of 100 hours.

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-    Sierra Space said the results of the test indicate that the test article exceeded the pressure shell on orbit lifetime performance requirement of 15 years with margin. That means astronauts could live and work in a full-size version of the inflatable habitat for up to 60 years in space.

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-    Sierra Space says the development of their ‘softgoods’ inflatable habitat technology is a key step in facilitating extended human missions to low-Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars. Sierra Space is a a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation.

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-    LIFE Habitat represents the essential technology developments needed to one day enable humans to live and work in space.   Habitat units are a key element in Sierra Space’s platform in space.

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-    Previously, the LIFE Habitats were put under a different kind of stress test called an Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP). Two of those test were conducted in July and November of 2022, and scale models of the modules were pressurized with increasing loads until they burst.

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-    Engineers filled the modules with gaseous nitrogen to test how strong the inflatable high-strength softgoods materials are, with the goal of climbing past 182.4 PSI (pounds per square inch) which is NASA’s thresholds for certification for pressurized modules. The first test exceeded that mark, bursting at 192 PSI. The November test held pressure until 204 PSI.

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-    The new test was conducted at Marshall Space Flight Center, and NASA designed a disposable building in which the test was performed to protect the module from weather during the test . Thank goodness the structure was disposable, because the whole thing exploded.

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-     Creep tests have been a standard model of testing for space hardware. In the Apollo days, creep tests were routinely conducted for pressure vessels and fuel tanks.

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-   The full-size version inflates to a three-story commercial habitation and science platform that is 27 feet in diameter and 27 feet long, with 300 cubic meters of space, or about 1/3 of the pressurized volume on the International Space Station. LIFE can house a crew of 4 to12.

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-    The module’s softgoods are made of sewn and woven fabrics – primarily Vectran that become rigid structures when pressurized.  Sierra Space said the weave they use is stronger than steel and tough enough to withstand the required internal pressure. The softgoods outer layers .are composed of a series of materials designed for orbital debris and thermal protection.

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-     NASA captured this image of a mysterious black object orbiting the Earth in 1998, during the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

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-    In 1960, TIME published a story noting that the U.S. Navy had detected an unidentified satellite that may have been a piece of Soviet spy technology. It turned out to be a broken-off piece of the Discoverer 5—an early U.S. photo reconnaissance (spy) satellite.

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-    While NASA and other space organizations keep catalogs of the space debris that they encounter, these lists are still incomplete and dependent on nations sharing sometimes sensitive data.

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-   There’s the possibility that Earth could eventually have its own ring system—made up entirely of space junk in the “graveyard orbit,” about 190 miles above most working satellites.

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            February 11, 2023                RUSSIAN  SATELLITE  DEBRIS              3872                                                                                                                         

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--------------------- ---  Sunday, February 12, 2023  ---------------------------

 

 

 

 

         

 

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