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[Chicago Astronomer Joe]

Space: The final junkyard

Outer space is fast filling up with human-generated junk, from exploded satellites to leaky nuclear reactors, and the debris threatens the safety of cosmic exploration.

International agencies have met for years to try to solve the problem. One possible solution is to encourage space-launching nations to build sturdier rockets that don't blow up in space and spew debris everywhere, ones that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere upon their return.

Space junk ranges from human waste to a discarded Russian spacesuit. The latter was recently dumped by the crew of the international space station; later this year, it should fall back to Earth in a blaze of glory. In the 1960s, U.S. tracking systems monitored an American astronaut's discarded glove, which eventually returned to Earth. This summer, a Russian cosmonaut reportedly plans to hit a gold-plated golf ball from the international space station as part of a paid promotional stunt for a golf-club firm in Toronto. That'll add to the floating litter.

About 18 collisions of existing satellites -- 11 of them "catastrophic" to the objects that collide -- will probably occur over the next 200 years, even if Earth never launches another rocket, reported two officials at NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston in the Jan. 20 issue of Science magazine. In reality, wrote Jer-Chyi Liou and Nicholas Johnson, the actual number of collisions "will undoubtedly be worse" because new spaceships -- that is, future space debris -- are continually being launched.

Among the stranger debris is a Russian satellite with an onboard nuclear reactor that is "leaking liquid metal -- something like 70,000 blobs of liquid metal (so far)." He said the world's space agencies are collaborating on ways to develop anti-debris protocols for future launches.

Full story here: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/12/SPACEJUNK.TMP

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Where is Fred Sanford now?

[Chicago Astronomer Joe]

Russian Satellite Failure Caused By Space Garbage

The cause of the March 29 failure of the Russian Ekspress AM11 communications satellite has been confirmed as a collision with space trash, a Russian official told the state Novosti new agency Monday.

"The Ekspress AM11 satellite accident occurred when the spacecraft collided with space garbage," said Yury Izmailov, acting general director of the Russian Satellite Communications Company. "As a result, the satellite left its orbit and started spinning."

The event interrupted broadcasts in Russia's Far East for a short time.

The satellite, equipped with 30 transponders with total capacity of 2,000 W, was put into geostationary orbit at 96.5 degrees East on April 27, 2004. It was built jointly with France's Alcatel Space and Sodern, with some equipment made in Germany and Japan. The spacecraft had been scheduled to remain in orbit at least 12 years.

Izmailov said the spacecraft had been moved to a disposal orbit.

Story here: www.physorg.com/news64651857.html

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[Chicago Astronomer Joe]

100,000 Pieces Of Trash In Space Poses No Shortage Of Risks.

An Indonesian satellite was once struck by urine and fecal matter.

Last July, spacewalker Piers Sellers sheepishly reported losing a spatula. Nicknamed "spatsat" by space-junk watchers, it will return to Earth in a fireball early next month.

The Atlantis astronauts made their own contributions to the orbiting debris this week, as a couple of bolts escaped from the additional module they were connecting to the international space station.

To engineers, this isn't funny. Many of those pieces of space junk can kill astronauts, puncture satellitesspace shuttle's expensive windows. or, if nothing else, scratch up the

"It's one of these problems that is growing in seriousness," said William Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corp in Los Angeles. "It's really the small things that will get you."

Using radar and telescope sensors, NASA and the Air Force track objects bigger than about 4 inches. The official "box score" of such space debris as of Thursday was 9,925. But the 90,000 smaller objects zipping around Earth at more than 15,000 mph can be just as dangerous and are harder to track.

Indeed, NASA even found debris composed of dried-up urine, toothpaste, and shaving cream all from space shuttle waste dumps in an experiment placed outside the Russian space station Mir, said officials at the agency's orbital debris program lab. An Indonesian satellite was once struck by urine and fecal matter.

NASA doesn't dump human waste outside much anymore.

Source: www.spacemart.com/reports/100000_Pieces_Of_Trash_In_Space_Poses_No_Shortage_Of_Risks_999.html

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Oh man!...Having your sat hit by human waste!...