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NASA Shuttle Specific Sections => Atlantis (Post STS-135, T&R) => Topic started by: Chris Bergin on 06/26/2007 05:01 am

Title: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/26/2007 05:01 am
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5147
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Andrewwski on 06/26/2007 06:13 am
Is the possible debris confirmed?  I know a few months ago there were unfounded rumors on this.
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: ShuttleDiscovery on 06/26/2007 06:57 am
"..and 932 will be pathfinder"

What does that mean, that plane (932) will be escorting the SCA?
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: sfxtd on 06/26/2007 07:36 am
Quote
ShuttleDiscovery - 25/6/2007  11:57 PM

"..and 932 will be pathfinder"

What does that mean, that plane (932) will be escorting the SCA?

I assume it means flying ahead of the SCA to warn of clear-air turbulence and such.
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: eeergo on 06/26/2007 10:19 am

Quote
Andrewwski - 26/6/2007 8:13 AM Is the possible debris confirmed? I know a few months ago there were unfounded rumors on this.

I saw two or three months ago a UN report (which I assume it's not unfounded ;) ) offering a prediction of the debris' trajectories. There was even a slide showing that in one year or so -I don't remember the figure- the debris would be spread over the whole globe.

So it's only a matter of time before these encounters happen. And I guess they'll be turning even more frequent (and with less avoidance distance than the current predicted 17 km) with the passing months. Lovely stupid military tests...

I can't find the actual link to that report, but I think it'd been posted by Philip (psloss)...

Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/26/2007 04:27 pm
Quote
Andrewwski - 26/6/2007  7:13 AM

Is the possible debris confirmed?  I know a few months ago there were unfounded rumors on this.

The information is from an official NASA documented from last night. Not sure how that could be an unfounded rumor?
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Andrewwski on 06/26/2007 05:15 pm
No, I wasn't referring to this one.  I know that there were unfounded rumors a few months ago, and I was hoping to clarify that this was not a rebirth of the old ones.

Not that I should worry - I know everything you put on this site is credible.  Another reason why I love it so much. :)
Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/26/2007 05:37 pm
Ah ok. Thanks :)

Speaking of which (on this debris event), we're waiting to hear if the ISS was required to make a DAM.

*Paging Jim Oberg*
Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: avitek on 06/26/2007 06:31 pm
Computer program SOCRATES at the Celestrack site gives for TLEs for 2007-06-26 01:00 UTC those parameters for close encounter between ISS and FY-1C debris:




   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   
   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   

ActionNORAD
Catalog
Number		NameDays
Since
Epoch		Max
Probability		Dilution
Threshold
(km)		Min
Range
(km)		Relative
Velocity
(km/sec)
Start
(UTC)		TCA
(UTC)		Stop
(UTC)
 25544ISS (ZARYA)0.9874.985E-062.9924.23114.465
29719FENGYUN 1C DEB1.1892007 Jun 26 20:26:51.6472007 Jun 26 20:26:51.8312007 Jun 26 20:26:52.015

Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: STS Tony on 06/26/2007 08:33 pm
Quote
avitek - 26/6/2007  1:31 PM

Computer program SOCRATES at the Celestrack site gives for TLEs for 2007-06-26 01:00 UTC those parameters for close encounter between ISS and FY-1C debris:

What exactly does that all mean? Can you translate it?
Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Almurray1958 on 06/26/2007 08:46 pm


the website itself explains the factors and definitions very clearly.  Basically it takes the 2-line TLE for any 2 objects and calculates the orbital conjunctions.   How close, when, relative velocity, and other parameters.

pretty neat.



http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/

while this page  http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/top10maxprob.asp exlains the exact definitions of the values.

Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Jorge on 06/26/2007 08:54 pm
Quote
STS Tony - 26/6/2007  3:33 PM

Quote
avitek - 26/6/2007  1:31 PM

Computer program SOCRATES at the Celestrack site gives for TLEs for 2007-06-26 01:00 UTC those parameters for close encounter between ISS and FY-1C debris:

What exactly does that all mean? Can you translate it?

TLE - Two Line Elements. A format used by NORAD to describe the orbit of a spacecraft.

Celestrak - (http://celestrak.com/). A website run by Dr. T. S. Kelso that publishes TLEs from NORAD's Satellite Catalog (SATCAT).

SOCRATES - (http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/). Satellite Orbital Conjunction Reports Assessing Threatening Encounters in Space. A service that computes conjunctions (close encounters/potential collisions) between payloads and all objects in the SATCAT.

UTC - Universal Time Coordinated. Roughly equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Standard timetag for TLEs.

ISS - International Space Station. Self-explanatory.

FY-1C - Fengyun 1C. A defunct Chinese satellite that was used as a target for a recent Chinese ASAT test, which produced a lot of debris in low Earth orbit.
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/26/2007 11:48 pm
ISS did not conduct a DAM, after further predictions conducted by US and Russian Ballistics that were conducted today.
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Launch Fan on 06/27/2007 02:47 am
Quote
Chris Bergin - 26/6/2007  6:48 PM

ISS did not conduct a DAM, after further predictions conducted by US and Russian Ballistics that were conducted today.

Still leaves the question on how much notice they get for these possible collision avoidance moves?
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Jorge on 06/27/2007 03:29 am
Quote
Launch Fan - 26/6/2007  9:47 PM

Quote
Chris Bergin - 26/6/2007  6:48 PM

ISS did not conduct a DAM, after further predictions conducted by US and Russian Ballistics that were conducted today.

Still leaves the question on how much notice they get for these possible collision avoidance moves?

At least 36 hours for the shuttle. For ISS, at least that long, if not longer.
Title: Re: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: avitek on 06/27/2007 06:50 am
Quote
Jorge - 27/6/2007  5:29 AM

Quote
Launch Fan - 26/6/2007  9:47 PM

Quote
Chris Bergin - 26/6/2007  6:48 PM

ISS did not conduct a DAM, after further predictions conducted by US and Russian Ballistics that were conducted today.

Still leaves the question on how much notice they get for these possible collision avoidance moves?

At least 36 hours for the shuttle. For ISS, at least that long, if not longer.

According to the very informative article in April 2001 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News, see

http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/pdfs/ODQNv6i2.pdf

on page 4, at least 72 hours before TCA. There is in the mentioned article the whole collision avoidance procedure described in detail.
Title: RE: Atlantis heading home Friday - ISS may need to avoid Chinese debris
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/27/2007 02:32 pm
Atlantis might be back in one day now. Working on NASA information on L2. Will do an article.