A satellite and a rocket stage collide in a possible ‘worst-case scenario’

Two large pieces of space debris – An old missile object and a military satellite – they almost collided on Friday.

LeoLabs, a private company that tracks satellites and objects in low Earth orbit, tweeted that if the objects had slammed into each other, the collision would have resulted in thousands of fragments that would have “lasted for decades.”

“Too close for comfort… two large invalid objects in #LEO narrowly missed each other this morning – SL-8 rocket object (16511) and Cosmos 2361 (25590) passed each other at an altitude of 984 km,” the company said.

The company said its radar tracking data helped calculate an error distance of only 20 feet (6 meters), with a slight margin of error.

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The pairing took place in what LeoLabs called “the bad neighborhood.”

“This area has great potential for debris generation in #LEO due to a combination of dislocation events and abandoned objects,” she tweeted, noting that the area hosts nearly 160 SL-8 rocket launchers It was published more than two decades ago.

GRAPHIC – (CIRCA 1989): This image published from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows a graphical representation of space debris in low Earth orbit.
((Photo by NASA/Getty Images))

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Between June and September last year, the company highlighted 1,400 high-speed PC connections that included rocket fuselages alone.

In this released photo released by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, the International Space Station is pictured March 30, 2022 by the crew of the Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft after exiting the station.
((Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP, file))

“Why is this such a big deal? We’ve identified this type of collision — between two discarded objects — as a ‘worst-case scenario’ because it’s largely out of our control and likely to result in a ripple effect of dangerous collision encounters,” explained LeoLabs.

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The company said it was necessary to focus on both Collision avoidance and debris relief And treat it to combat space debris.

The International Space Station had to maneuver to avoid such debris, and it is believed that a small object possibly a piece of orbital debris is responsible for a leak aboard a Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the station.