[FPSPACE] Tracking orbital collision probabilities

[Geert Sassen]

For those who didn't know it: there is a very nice tool for tracking orbital
collision probabilities:

http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES

Results are quite amazing, I for one didn't know there are so many very
close encounters. It seems the recent Iridium collision did not even make it
into the top 10 of most probable collision dangers, which explains why no
action was undertaken but opens the question how accurate the tracking
really is or whether one of the satellites had very recently maneuvered (the
Comos satellite was 'dead' but might have suffered some fragmentation or
lost pressurized gas or something prior to the collision).

Regards,

Geert.

-- 
Geert Sassen
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20090214/e9a80ee0/attachment.html