# US and Russian Satellites Collide **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 12, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472 "2009-02-12T02:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/21 "2009-02-12T18:23:43Z")
> [@Glazer](#): > > What’s the chance of parts hitting other sats. Causeing a cascade of broken sats. Cutting off space to mankind untill orbital decay of all that trash. Pretty low. We’ve been putting stuff up there for over 50 years now, and there’s only been a handful of collisions. Its starting to get to the point where we have to worry about sending stuff up because some of the orbits are getting crowded. Folks are becoming concerned about the level of debris, but no one’s come up with a cost effective way (yet) to clear out the orbits. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/22 "2009-02-12T18:46:25Z")
[Beeb article on the concerns about collisions.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7885750.stm) It looks like there’s a chance that other Iridium sats could be threatened by the debris. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/23 "2009-02-12T19:31:58Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Yea, but the percentage of customers that spend a lot of time floating in the middle of the pacific or hanging out at the N. pole is pretty small, and the cost of a satellite network is gignormous. Which I presume is why they went bankrupt and were able to be bought out as **daryl** and **tuckerfan** describe. Yes but there are successful satellite communication companies, so perhaps it was more due to mismanagement. Our company uses Inmarsat for live video, data transfer, and plain old telephony. The need is definitely there but it is expensive to use. It doesn’t do you much good at the poles BTW. The Inmarsat coverage gets poor at high latitudes due to the geostationary nature of the satellites which requires them to be over the equator.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/24 "2009-02-12T19:34:34Z")
In Georgia, satellites hit on YOU! ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/25 "2009-02-12T20:07:38Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:23, topic:485472”] Yes but there are successful satellite communication companies, so perhaps it was more due to mismanagement. Our company uses Inmarsat for live video, data transfer, and plain old telephony. The need is definitely there but it is expensive to use. It doesn’t do you much good at the poles BTW. The Inmarsat coverage gets poor at high latitudes due to the geostationary nature of the satellites which requires them to be over the equator.[/hijack] [/QUOTE] Inmarsat can have a higher data transfer rate than Iridiums or Globalstar (which is a similar system to Iridium). Last I heard, you could get 64Kbs with Inmarsat, while Iridiums peaked at 14K or so. You’re right about the high latitudes (and, for example, if you’re on the north slope a mountain in Canada, you’re SOL, as you can’t point the antenna in the direction of the bird, even though if you were on the ground, you could get a signal). ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/26 "2009-02-12T20:11:36Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Inmarsat can have a higher data transfer rate than Iridiums or Globalstar (which is a similar system to Iridium). Last I heard, you could get 64Kbs with Inmarsat, while Iridiums peaked at 14K or so. We get 128Kbs with Inmarsat, though it might just use two links in parallel. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/27 "2009-02-12T20:15:29Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > This is like the 17th thousand repetition of this joke I’ve seen. I chuckled maybe the first three times. Might be time to retire it, I don’t think the guy is even president anymore. I blame the Whig party’s inability to achieve platform consensus on the Kansas-Nebraska act. Bush is merely the “butterfly effect” result of those earlier events. ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/28 "2009-02-12T21:56:05Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > You’re right about the high latitudes (and, for example, if you’re on the north slope a mountain in Canada, you’re SOL, as you can’t point the antenna in the direction of the bird, even though if you were on the ground, you could get a signal). Iridium, of course, is not affected by this since the satellites are polar-orbiting. The system provides global coverage. > [@1920s Style "Death Ray"](#): > > Yes but there are successful satellite communication companies, so perhaps it was more due to mismanagement. Inmarsat uses a network of 12 satellites in geostationary orbits; to get global coverage, Iridium uses 66 satellites in polar orbits (plus several spares). This very large number of satellites made the Iridium system very expensive to build and launch. Other satellite phone providers didn’t have as large of a start-up cost. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/29 "2009-02-12T22:03:31Z")
> [@wolfstu](#): > > Inmarsat uses a network of 12 satellites in geostationary orbits; to get global coverage, Iridium uses 66 satellites in polar orbits (plus several spares). This very large number of satellites made the Iridium system very expensive to build and launch. Other satellite phone providers didn’t have as large of a start-up cost. Globalstar has roughly the same number of sats as Iridium. They’ve had some financial problems, but not nearly to the extent that Iridium did. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/30 "2009-02-12T22:36:59Z")
As an aside, do a google search for heavens above and satellite. The heavens above website does predictions for seeing the Iridium Satellite “flares” as well as the hubble, shuttle, ISS and many other satellites. If you can see a bright Iridium “flare”, magnitude -5 to -8, they are pretty impressive. though I guess there is now one less iridium to do the flaring 🙂 Check out the site. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/31 "2009-02-12T22:53:39Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > They were also idiots when they started the company up I think I recall an Economist article on such phones, they ended up seeking charitable concerns or UN operations to take up their service, lacking enough private customers. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/32 "2009-02-12T22:59:18Z")
> [@wolfstu](#): > > Inmarsat uses a network of 12 satellites in geostationary orbits; to get global coverage, Iridium uses 66 satellites in polar orbits (plus several spares). This very large number of satellites made the Iridium system very expensive to build and launch. Other satellite phone providers didn’t have as large of a start-up cost. Inmasat also started as a gov’t funded program to provide emergency maritime communications, so I don’t think they had to fund the original launch of the satellites. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/33 "2009-02-13T00:56:47Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > As an aside, do a google search for heavens above and satellite. > > The heavens above website does predictions for seeing the Iridium Satellite “flares” as well as the hubble, shuttle, ISS and many other satellites. > > If you can see a bright Iridium “flare”, magnitude -5 to -8, they are pretty impressive. > > though I guess there is now one less iridium to do the flaring 🙂 > > Check out the site. Sorry for the hijack, but I’ve been wanting to see and photograph one of those flares for some time. I checked the website (I’ve been there before) and see that next Sunday there’ll be a magnitude -7 that I should be able to see. Here’s a link to the [prediction](http://www.heavens-above.com/flaredetails.asp?SatID=25077&lat=13.750&lng=100.517&alt=2&loc=Bangkok&TZ=UCTm7&Date=39858.9236218327&Mirror=2). However I’m a bit confused about the location. It says that the azimuth of the flare is 342 degrees (NNW) but the map on the page shows it happening on the West, I’d say a 90 degree shift counter clockwise… so, what should I believe, the map or the data? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/34 "2009-02-13T02:46:22Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Sorry for the hijack, but I’ve been wanting to see and photograph one of those flares for some time. I checked the website (I’ve been there before) and see that next Sunday there’ll be a magnitude -7 that I should be able to see. Here’s a link to the [prediction](http://www.heavens-above.com/flaredetails.asp?SatID=25077&lat=13.750&lng=100.517&alt=2&loc=Bangkok&TZ=UCTm7&Date=39858.9236218327&Mirror=2). However I’m a bit confused about the location. It says that the azimuth of the flare is 342 degrees (NNW) but the map on the page shows it happening on the West, I’d say a 90 degree shift counter clockwise… so, what should I believe, the map or the data? The map is just showing the path on the ground where the flare is the brightest in relation to your place on the ground. Does that make sense? Just ignore the ground map unless you are using it to drive somewhere else to see it brighter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472.md?page=1)