He February 10, 2009 The world scientific community was surprised by an unprecedented accident in the history of astronomy: the first satellite collision in space in history
Released on September 14, 1997 by the United StatesIridium-33 collided, in a completely unexpected way, with Cosmos-2251, which Russia had put into orbit the June 16, 1993 from the Plesetsk cosmodrome aboard a rocket «Cosmos 3M, which low a huge amount of space junk.
The historic clash between these satellites of 900 and 560 kilos of weight respectivelyin space took place, at 16:55 GMTto 776 kilometers high on the Taimyr Peninsula, in Siberia, a speed of 42,000 kilometers per hourwhat uses what both satellites were completely destroyed.
“It was a bad day for both”, he commented, a few minutes after the news was released, Nicholas Johnson, a scientist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told the specialized site Space.com
“Until now, only minor collisions of space junk have been recorded, but two entire satellites had never collided”, added the North American specialist.
The first US Army radar investigations were completed. that the crash left floating in space approximately 600 piecesso much so that scientists confirmed that the International Space Station (ISS) and his crew would not be at risk.
“Although the pieces that remained from the satellites circulate at an altitude of between 500 and 1,300 kilometers, the nature of the cloud of junk will have to be permanently analyzed since, now, the main danger that exists is that some parts collide with old Soviet spy satellites that carry nuclear reactors on board”, explained the then Russian commander of the security forces responsible for space, Alexander Jakushin.
It should be remembered that the sanitation of all the area that highly turned out contaminated by nuclear materials as a consequence of the impact between these two powerful satellites required several million dollars which were disbursed by the US and Russian governments.
