At 03:27 AM 2/13/2009, Rich Dailey (gmail) wrote:
*If* the controllers of the Iridium satellite could alter it's orbit slightly, ...
There's a great article in the International Herald Tribune. Unfortunately, IHT has also carried several other articles about the collision with similar titles, so the good one is hard to find. Use this link.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/02/12/europe/OUKWD-UK-SPACE-COLLISION-USA.php
This article discusses the "what did they know" aspect. In fact it says so much that it is confusing. First it says they did not know in advance.
"Iridium didn't have information prior to the collision to know that the collision would occur,"
Then it says they get 400 "conjunction reports" from "US Strategic Command Joint Space Operations Center" per week (ie a notification that an object will pass within 5 km of a satellite), implying that they suffer from information overload.
Then they say the reports aren't any good anyway.
"So the ability actually to do anything with all the information is pretty limited,"
"Even if we had a report of an impending direct collision, the error would be such that we might manoeuvre into a collision as well as move away from one,"
Congratulations to the author for pulling these quotes together. Unfortunately, it still leaves the reader uncertain about what happened.
The first quote may be lawyer-speak. After all, nobody tracks these objects well enough to "KNOW that the collision WOULD occur". That isn't the same as being warned that a one ton satellite is going to whiz by within 5 km.
When the first fellow says "Iridium didn't have information prior", is he saying the DOD missed this one, or is he saying, as in the other quotes, that the conjunction reports aren't accurate enough to take action? Could be either.