Two satellites flew 224 meters from each other and almost collided

(Image: Kanopus-V / Wikimedia Commons)

Last month (November 26), the Russian satellite Kanopus-V and the Indian satellite Cartosat-2F flew 224 meters from each other.

The total mass of the vehicles is more than a ton, and during the flight their relative speed was 14.5 km/s, so a potential collision could lead to the formation of a huge amount of space debris.

Currently, there are several thousand satellites and tens of thousands of space debris in space.

Their movement is followed by tracking systems for space objects, so usually a potential collision becomes known in advance and satellite operators try to avoid this by adjusting the orbit.

However, adjustment is not always possible. Sometimes the vehicle does not have enough fuel to change its working orbit and then return back.

In other cases, operators may not be aware that a maneuver is necessary because the accuracy of the tracking and orbit prediction systems is not ideal.

For example, in 2009, the Russian satellite Kosmos-2251 and the American Iridium 33 collided and formed hundreds of debris, although calculations predicted a flight at a distance of about 600 meters.

On November 27, the Russian Space Agency (Roskomos) recorded a dangerous approach of two Earth remote sensing satellites: the Russian Canopus-V and the Indian Cartosat-2F.

The flight took place at 20:49 EST, and the minimum distance between the vehicles was 224 meters.

Judging by the data from the public databases of the trajectories of space objects, the flight took place over the coast of Antarctica; and the relative speed of the vehicles was 14.6 km/s.

The Cartosat-2F weighs 710 kilograms, while the Russian Canopus-V weighs 465 kilograms. Their dimensions are 2.5 meters and 0.9 meters, respectively.

During November 27, the satellites met several more times in the Antarctic region, but each time the distance between them increased. We were lucky this time.

Sources:

• Roskosmos: https://www.roscosmos.ru/29618/
• Celestrack: https://www.celestrak.com/cesium/orbit-viz.php?tle=/pub/TLE/catalog.txt&satcat=/pub/satcat.txt&referenceFrame=1

#Satellites #Collision #KesslerSyndrome #Roskosmos #ISRO #STEM #Space