Cool videos of TacSat3 launch from Wallops Launch Site

Here is a followup and cool video of the TacSat3 satellite launch from Wallops Island in Virginia at the tip of the Delmarva peninsula that occurred on Tuesday night. I did not see anything from Delaware, but people in Rockville, Md, Charlottesville, Va, and Wilmington, De claim to have seen the rocket trail. Also, Leesburg, VA, Eldersburg outside of Baltimore, DC, Severn, MD, and even Philadelphia claim sightings. Here is a picture of a rocket trail from Arlington, VA. Picture of a rocket trail from Lusby, MD. Pictures from western shore of Chesapeake bay.

Professional video below from close to Wallops launch site.



If you watch the video closely, and especially in HD (click on the video to got to YouTube), I think you can see the first stage separation and second stage ignition, and then later possibly the second stage separation and third stage ignition. I need to go see one of these in person, since it is so close.

Amateur video below from Rockville, MD. Impressive as this is 120 miles (as the crow flies) northeast of Wallops Island.



(video one via ShoreFireProductions, video two via Jared's Global Microbrand)

Satellite Launch from Wallops tonight at 7:35pm

Here we go again with the launch of a TacSat satellite from the Wallops NASA launch site at the tip of the Delmarva peninsula. The launch is tonight at 7:35pm, though the launch window extends to 11pm. Clear skies mean the weather is probably not a factor, but that isn't what stopped it last time. I will try to glance south at the appropriate time, but tonight I may miss it.

The last time was a bust.

Space Debris Visualization beats statistics

The ESA have put out an impressive set of visualizations of the number of satellites and space debris in orbit around the earth. I am certain that they used the information from the papers by Liou and Johnson on space debris which I highlighted in previous posts.

This visualization beats my earlier analysis of all the satellites in orbit for sheer beauty of display. They have put together an impressive array of visualizations of the simulation of space debris generated by collisions. However I feel it doesn't really convey the numerical details of the issue. The chart below allows you to see all of the satellites in both circular and elliptical orbits, but isn't as pretty because I don't have teams of visualization experts working on it, just me and excell.



Here I thought I would put the map of Earth below the geosynchronous satellite histogram, just so one could see that the satellites are bunched over the populous parts of the globe.


I hate to sound like a spoilsport about the great visualization. I guess it is good that the ESA is getting out the message about satellite debris, though I feel that they (and NASA, the Russians and the Chinese) are the ones who would work on it, not me.

(Howard, and UniverseToday were also enticed by the pretty pictures)

United States shoots down its own spy satellite

The United States has successfully shot down an errant spy satellite, ostensibly to protect us on the ground from the dangers of a toxic hydrazine fuel spill, but other reasons posited have been to destroy any top secret material on the satellite or just to show the world (especially China) that we can do it.

The Department of Defense has released some cool photos of the missile in flight and of the explosion that they say probably destroyed the tank of hydrazine that they were aiming at. The missile looked like it was two stage, which pretty much makes it a real live spaceship.

The press has made a big hoopla about the speed of the impact and the difficulty of hitting the satellite, but how is this different from any other orbital rendezvous? You may recall that the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on February 7th and successfully rendezvoused with the Space Station. Isn't this missile test just a space rendezvous gone wrong? The Shuttle and Space Station had to be going the same speed and orbit before they could dock, the missile and satellite just had to cross. Now, I couldn't do this myself, but the United States military and civilian space programs have demonstrated this capability on many occasions. Even Tom Clancy has an Aegis guided missile destroyer take out a ballistic missile in his novel, The Bear and the Dragon.

It is funny that they felt they needed to do it and don't seem to be concerned about the debris in orbit. I suppose most of it reentered the atmosphere and burned up. They had harsh words when the Chinese did a similar thing last year. Now the Chinese have harsh words for the US for weaponizing space. Both governments are a bit hypocritical on this topic. I don't recommend a space war started by destroying anyone's satellites anyway. It is easy to start and hard to stop, you stop the missiles but the debris just keeps on going, and would leave us without some very needed technology.

Sputnik and 50 years of satellites

Unless you live under a rock you know that 50 years ago today the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union. That one is not orbiting around anymore, but you can review my analysis of the list of satellites that are currently up there (and Kepler's second law, and geosynchronous orbits), as well as worry about orbiting debris. All of that may make you want to move under a rock for safety.

China fails to pick up its Space Junk

China's recent destruction of a satellite with space weaponry has produced more space junk for all. I discussed this issue in a previous note last year (The sky is not falling - orbital debris threatens satellites) based on an interesting article in Science describing the threat to orbital facilities - communications satellites, weather satellites, telescopes and space stations - from space debris. The debris comes from pieces of the spacecraft breaking apart, from collisions and from old spacecraft themselves.

One of the authors of the Science article, Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA, recapitulates his advice for dealing with the problem. He suggests deorbiting old satellites or destroying debris with ground based lasers and implicitly adds a new suggestion - don't actively blow up or test weapons that create large amounts of debris. The fear is that enough debris will create a chain reaction and destruction as impacts break apart satellites and add to the debris field, creating more impacts, etc.

The graphics produced by the New York Times to illustrate the danger are what I would have produced with the satellite data from the Union of Concerned Scientists from this post combined with the debris data from above if I had the infinite time and resources that they have (only in comparison to me). The charts are informative. I like to think that my approach preserved more scientific information about the orbits while the NYT's approach was prettier.



Now that the Chinese have blown up a whole satellite, it seems silly to worry about that golf ball in orbit stunt now doesn't it?

I must also mention the deleterious effect this worrying about space debris is already having on the astronaut corps.

(NYT article found by Slashdot)

(alternative post title - Whatcha gonna do with all that Space Junk? All that Space junk inside your trunk. )

tags: satellite, astronomy, science,