Waspie_Dwarf Posted August 19, 2013 #1 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Unidentified object floating outside station? Sort of...On the morning of August 19, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy noticed an unidentified object floating outside the space station, near the Progress cargo vehicle. He called down to Mission Control Houston and took some video of it. Was it a UFO? Not really...Russian ground controllers identified it as an antenna cover from the Zvezda service module.Credit: NASASource: NASA - Multimedia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bendy Demon Posted August 19, 2013 #2 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Wow. Couldn't something like that pose a real problem to the rest of the craft? How did it get loose anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asadora Posted August 19, 2013 #3 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Space junk is always a threat :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kannin Posted August 19, 2013 #4 Share Posted August 19, 2013 oh wow thats interesting, some one needs to get that! whos down for some space ball? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted August 19, 2013 Author #5 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Wow. Couldn't something like that pose a real problem to the rest of the craft? Almost certainly not. Space junk poses a threat because of the huge closing speeds involved in a collision. In this case, as it is in an almost identical orbit with the ISS the closing speed is next to zero. Eventually it will just drift away. It's not impossible that it could pose a threat to another satellite, but there is much more worrying debris in orbit. How did it get loose anyways. Zvezda has been in orbit for 13 years, experiencing the extreme heat of day and the extreme cold of night every 90 minutes for the entirety of that time. That a non-vital component has worked lose is not really surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DONTEATUS Posted August 20, 2013 #6 Share Posted August 20, 2013 It is truly amazing that we can track all the objects that may intersect our space missions . Hats off to all the Trackers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brlesq1 Posted August 20, 2013 #7 Share Posted August 20, 2013 Can't they just send something up to bat it away or something? Just kidding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimOberg Posted August 23, 2013 #8 Share Posted August 23, 2013 Can't they just send something up to bat it away or something? Just kidding. Actually that's not a bad idea. We studied firing the attitude thrusters to 'blow away' light stuff, but often it just comes back anyway an hour or so later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DONTEATUS Posted August 24, 2013 #9 Share Posted August 24, 2013 It will be great someday when we have the Great Space trash clean up Squad ! I would Love to Do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeWitz Posted August 25, 2013 #10 Share Posted August 25, 2013 It will be great someday when we have the Great Space trash clean up Squad ! I would Love to Do that. Adopt a highway, adopt an orbit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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