space junk and satellite killers
The question "Is it possible for two orbiting satellites to collide?" has been answered. The crash occurred on Tuesday at an altitude of about 780km, destroying both satellites (A privately-owned US telecommunications satellite has collided with a defunct Russian satellite) and creating a cloud of debris that officials say could threaten other satellites including the International Space Station. Approximately 95% of the objects in the illustration above are orbital debris. Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by humans, that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust, and slag from solid rocket motors and other small particles. These objects travel at speeds over 22,000 miles an hour (35,000 kilometers an hour). At such high velocity, even small junk can rip holes in a spacecraft or disable a satellite by causing electrical shorts that result from clouds of superheated gas. Nicholas Johnson, the chief scientist and program manager for orbital debris at NASA in Houston, Texas, and his team have devised a computer model capable of simulating past and future amounts of space junk. The model predicts that even without future rocket or satellite launches, the amount of debris in low orbit around Earth will remain steady through 2055, after which it will increase.
The debris population will continue to grow. We know it will only get worse. Something like that happened on the night of January 11-12, 2007 after China launched a rocket which destroyed the outdated weather satellite Feng Yun 1C.(read article) the United States Feb. 20, 2008 smashed into small pieces a defunct U.S. satellite using a modified Standard Missile-3 interceptor. In classified projects shielded from public debate, the US has been widely reported to be developing "satellite-killers" of its own, using more advanced technologies, including lasers...
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