| General > General Technical Chat |
| we need traffic lights for satellites |
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| timgiles:
I still find it hard to believe in a three dimensional space (spherical skin with depth of x meters or kms) the size of the earths diameter plus a tiny bit - that satellites really get that close to each other - ever! Unless they are programmed to do so (conspiracy theory time!). Am I wrong? Please help my old grey matter understand if so. I just dont see it happening. Sure, space debris, but that is many many magnitudes higher density. |
| Brumby:
Every orbit of every satellite is different. They will have different apogee and perigee and they will drift. The more satellites you have, the longer they are circling the Earth, the greater the chances that you will have an intersect - and destruction. The reason there hasn't been a big problem with collisions is because of the volume of space involved, but as the number of satellites increase, these odds get less. It is the same sort of problem we have had to deal with in regards to atmospheric pollution.... When it first started out, the impact on the environment was ignorable - so it was ignored. Then it got worse and now we are facing major problems. The only reason satellites have been given the attention they have is because of the cost. |
| Psi:
Also, when they say collision it's not a certainty it's a statistical probability and it's very small. When your satellite is worth 100 of millions in replacement costs even a remote chance of a collision is too high. |
| madires:
--- Quote from: Psi on September 04, 2019, 09:04:59 am ---But maybe a TCAS system like planes use could work. Where the satellites can take their own action to move out of the way in opposite directions if they sense a proximity issue. It would likely have to be based on a global tracking system of all sats, rather a than radio signal/transponder system like TCAS. Depending on the orbits the collision could be a slow approach or a head on collision at km's per second with little time to detect a short range transponder before impact. And the issue of satellites with hall/plasma/ion thrusters not being able to move fast means you need lots of advanced warning. --- End quote --- We already have a tracking system of all satellites and larger debris. TCAS for sats sounds neat, but I think it wouldn't be feasable. Current sats in space can't be upgraded, and we still have to track debris. What about rogue sats or ones with a broken TCAS? |
| Psi:
--- Quote from: madires on September 04, 2019, 01:49:04 pm --- --- Quote from: Psi on September 04, 2019, 09:04:59 am ---But maybe a TCAS system like planes use could work. Where the satellites can take their own action to move out of the way in opposite directions if they sense a proximity issue. It would likely have to be based on a global tracking system of all sats, rather a than radio signal/transponder system like TCAS. Depending on the orbits the collision could be a slow approach or a head on collision at km's per second with little time to detect a short range transponder before impact. And the issue of satellites with hall/plasma/ion thrusters not being able to move fast means you need lots of advanced warning. --- End quote --- We already have a tracking system of all satellites and larger debris. TCAS for sats sounds neat, but I think it wouldn't be feasable. Current sats in space can't be upgraded, and we still have to track debris. What about rogue sats or ones with a broken TCAS? --- End quote --- It would be for new sats, It would obviously not help older sats hitting other older sats. But any new sats could avoid any olders sats or debry using data from ground based sat tracking. Newer sats could also coordinate directly with other newer sats to avoid each other |
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