An inactive Russian satellite has collided with US satellite (iridium satcomms fleet), this accident took place at more than 400 miles above the earth surface (Siberia) on Tuesday. It has left a large cloud of debris drifting in space, NASA scientists are closely monitoring the skies after collision.

“It will be weeks at least before the true magnitude of these clouds are known,” Nasa said in an alert message. “The risk to the space station is considered to be very small and within acceptable limits.”

The agency said that it was more concerned about the threat to an array of monitoring satellites, which it said were of “highest interest for immediate consideration”.
The incident is thought to have involved a 12-year-old satellite belonging to the US company Iridium and a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite that was put into orbit in 1993. The craft, which weighed 560kg and 950kg respectively, apparently smashed into each other at high speed. Both satellites were used for telecommunications, with the US satellite an active part of Iridium’s network of 66 craft which provide satellite telephone access to more than 250,000 people worldwide.

It is unclear what caused the crash, but the Russian satellite is thought to have shut down some time ago and would have had no steering mechanism.

Although there have been collisions in the past, they only involved spent rocket parts or small satellites. The scale of this crash, said officials, was unprecedented.
In the past some not functional satellites have caused such problems, such satellites pushed in to “graveyard” which is extremely wide orbit that move them out of the way of other working or functional satellites.

Sources :
Nasa alert as Russian and US satellites crash in space

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