Remnants of a Chinese anti-satellite and a Russian satellite damaged. The debris hit the satellite so the latter has become unusable. By the increase of space debris increases the risk of collisions.
The collision took place on 22 January in low earth orbit, the orbit around the earth, many man-made space objects. Now it has become known that the damage to the Russian satellite due to a collision with Chinese space debris that remained after an anti-satellite: the remnants are all that remains of an ancient Chinese weersatelliet that in 2007 a rocket was destroyed.
According to the Russians was the affected satellite used for the study: the workspace object had laser beams reflect back to the earth, but by the collision the orientation is changed and can no longer be used. Also rotates the satellite is now noticeably faster on its axis.
By the disposal of old hardware in the space is more and more waste is in orbit around the earth. This poses a threat to satellites, but also for the International Space Station. The space station had already dodging by an expected collision with space debris. There would be in the low earth orbit, which is approximately between 160km and 2000km altitude, currently more than 8500 objects which have a diameter of more than 10cm.
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