Space Debris

Home News Tech A conceptual image illustrating space debris orbiting Earth. (Image: © johan63/iStock/Getty Images Plus) Two defunct satellites nearly collided on Jan. 29, and their close call (the objects missed each other by an estimated 154 feet, or 47 meters) renewed attention for a growing problem far above Earth:…

Home News Spaceflight Another internet-satellite megaconstellation is starting to take shape.A Soyuz rocket carrying 34 of OneWeb's broadband satellites lifted off today (Feb. 6) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, rising off the pad at 4:42 p.m. EST (2142 GMT; 2:42 a.m. on Feb. 7 local time). The Soyuz — which is operated…

Thousands of pieces of space junk are speeding around Earth, but current tracking tools aren't yet able to pinpoint where most of the junk is at any given time, putting other satellites in danger — and fueling a growing industry to track debris and satellites.Why it matters: Trackers warn collisions…

If you ever find yourself sitting back in wonder as super-bright artificial meteors flash across the sky, you will be able to thank the credit crunch – at least in part. After the crisis of 2008 that Lena Okajima decided to leave her job at a financial company for a…

The Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) technology demonstration is slated to take place on NASA’s Restore-L spacecraft. The payload will assemble a functional communications antenna and manufacture a spacecraft beam. Maxar TechnologiesNASA announced it will contract Colorado company Maxar Technologies to develop a system for robotically assembling spacecraft parts in…

This zoomed-in look at the reentry of the space debris comes from AMS/AllSky6 camera operator Bob Lunsford. Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET Some lucky people in California caught sight of an epic fireball streaking across the sky Wednesday night. It lingered, and then broke up into multiple bright pieces.This wasn't…

Home News Spaceflight Satellite operators, and everyone else who wants a safe and sustainable space environment, dodged a bullet Wednesday evening (Jan. 29). Two defunct satellites — the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment (GGSE-4) — cruised safely past each other high in the skies above Pittsburgh.The…

Home News Spaceflight The odds of a space-junk crash this evening (Jan. 29) aren't as slim as we had thought, it turns out.Two dead satellites — the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment (GGSE-4) — will zoom past each other today in the skies above Pittsburgh, analyses…

Tuesday, January 28th 2020, 9:00 pm - Look up Wednesday night! There may be a mid-space crash between two defunct satellites over Pennsylvania. There are thousands of pieces of space junk and debris orbiting around our planet, and just before 7 p.m. Eastern …

While it’s common to think of the universe as dark, mysterious and infinite, it’s less often that we consider all the human-made space junk floating around nearby. The cosmos is a graveyard of spacecraft—each with its own story. These defunct vessels “glide silently in Earth’s vicinity” with “their mission to chronicle…