26 Jan
2010
26 Jan
'10
7:08 a.m.
Hello,
Given the recent close conjunction between Compass-1 and Sich 1, I was curious how common such encounters were. Using SOCRATES on the celestrak site, http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/, it looks like they are fairly common.
Take those forecasts with a grain of salt since they are based on TLE's with limited accuracy. On the day Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collided, SOCRATES forecast a couple other conjunctions closer. SOCRATES predicted a miss of 584 m.
Fortunately for us, there is a lot of space in space.
-Joe KM1P