According to NASA, the distance between the TIMED spacecraft and the Russian Cosmos 2221 is much shorter than first estimated. As humans, we continue to rapidly pollute not only our planet but also space. Because in recent years, the problem of space garbage has started to occupy the agenda a lot. The last of these could have resulted in a major disaster.
Further analysis of the near-collision incident between two decommissioned satellites in space has revealed that the two satellites came much closer to each other than first thought, raising further alarm about the increasing danger of space debris.
NEARLY ESCAPED THE COLLISION
According to Chip, in late February, NASA’s TIMED spacecraft and the Russian Cosmos 2221 narrowly avoided a collision that would have added thousands of pieces of space debris to low Earth orbit. Previous observations from the ground estimated that the two satellites were as close as 20 meters to each other, but a NASA official recently announced that this was a much closer encounter. According to the news on Space.com, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said in a statement during the 39th Space Symposium held in Colorado Springs that the transition occurred at a distance of less than 10 meters within the rigid body parameters of both satellites.
NASA’s TIMED spacecraft, launched in 2001 to study the Sun and the Earth’s upper atmosphere, and the Russian Cosmos 2221, launched in 1992, are now obsolete satellites. Since it is not possible to maneuver these two satellites, there is not much that can be done since they move very close to each other in orbit.
There are more than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network, and many smaller pieces are floating around undetected. So as the space industry continues to grow, so does the amount of spacecraft launched into orbit and the risk of collision with stray pieces of space debris.
So far, there has been only one incident where two spacecraft collided with each other in orbit. In 2009, Iridium 33, a US communications satellite, and Kosmos-2251, a decommissioned Russian military satellite, collided in orbit approximately 789 kilometers above Siberia.
