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The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
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The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Or at least the coincidences keep piling up. Someone inside of NASA is talking. They are not privy to restricted intell, but they do not think the collision was an accident.
What we know:
- Iridium's board of directors is heavy with retired high-level gov't intelligence people.
- Gen. Dennis C. Blair, the Dir of National Intelligence, appointed by Obama, has direct links to Iridium.
- Iridium's sat system is used extensively by the Dept of Defense.
- When the two sats collided, they were supposed to have been over 100-miles apart.
- The Iridium sat was 'active', the Russian sat was 'dead'.
- The Iridium sat was supposedly on course, the Russian sat supposedly off course -- a 'dead' satellite went off course.
- The Iridium sat is NOT positioned by Iridium; its position is set and maintained by the US Air Force.
- The debris fields caused by the collision are in an elliptical orbit that has the potential to take out other Iridium satellites, as well as other active satellites in other levels of orbit.
- The Fed Reserve Bank and the major Wall Street banks that received and are receiving govt bailout funds have those funds transferred to them, and from them, by Electronic Funds Transfer. Those EFTs are done through the Iridium sat system. Knocking out the Iridium sats knocks out those banks ability to send and receive large funds transfers.
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
"- The Fed Reserve Bank and the major Wall Street banks that received and are receiving govt bailout funds have those funds transferred to them, and from them, by Electronic Funds Transfer. Those EFTs are done through the Iridium sat system. Knocking out the Iridium sats knocks out those banks ability to send and receive large funds transfers. "
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Yeah, but do you really believe they entered into any EFT scheme that did not have a backup plan, just in case?!? Maybe only slow things down, at most -- I hope. I really want to believe there is a backup system place.
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
skibum - 2/16/2009 1:57 AM
Put your tinfoil hat back on Eyeball!
Tinfoil hat on and ready to go. Help me understand this, skibum. From these FACTS;
(a) the Russian satellite was dead, not maneuverable for the last 10-years.
(b) the Iridium satellite was active, very much maneuverable.
(c) the US Air Force controlled the maneuvering of the Iridium satellite.
(d) at the point where they collided, the two satellite were supposed to be 100+ miles apart from each other.
Here's your choices, skibum:
(1) the US Air Force accidentally maneuvered a satellite used by the Dept of Defense into the path of a dead Russian sat.
(2) the US Air Force intentionally maneuvered a satellite used by the Dept of Defense into the path of a dead Russian sat.
(3) little green men pushed a dead Russian satellite into the path of a satellite used by the Dept of Defense.
(4) little green men pushed a satellite used by the Dept of Defense into the path of a dead Russian sat -- and no one at the US Air force noticed their sat went off course.
(5) the dead Russian sat really wasn't dead, it was sleeping for 10-years, ever since the Iridium sat showed up 10-years ago, waiting for just the right time to "get it".
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
My best guess is that the Russian Sat had a degrading orbit, and no one noticed. There is a lot of stuff in that orbit, and something like this was bound to happen.
Our military isn't so good at a lot of things, and may have just screwed up. (happen to see the $1000000000 ship beached the other day?)
Its not all a conspiracy. Shiit happens. Too many morons on thi planet. Too many of them breeding.
Look at it this way - we smash enough of these things together in low earth orbit and maybe we can slow down global warming... (poking you with a stick!).
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
skibum - 2/16/2009 3:53 AM
My best guess is that the Russian Sat had a degrading orbit, and no one noticed.
Not possible. To give you some idea of how long and slow the orbital degrade is 500 miles up there where those sats are, um, where, their debris field is estimated to take 10,000 years before it gets near enough to Earth to begin to be sucked into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. And that debris is in an elliptical orbit that brings it closer to Earth than the sats were.
A science writer was talking about this on the radio last night. He has written articles on sats and stuff in space colliding. It happens but it is very rare. When asked if he thought it was possible the collision was accidental he said "Well, it was awfully unlikely. I'll say that much." The inflection in his voice clearly indicated he did not think it was an accident. He did some calculations, said the odd of those two specific sats colliding are more than 1 in a billion. That's like you picking the wining lottery numbers once a week, every week, for three months in a row.
I think it's possible something knocked the Russian sat out of its long held orbit. I think if something knocked the Iridium sat out of its orbit it would send back a msg to control that its location had changed. At the speed those birds are moving I would guess anything capable of knocking one out of orbit would also have destroy it at the same time.
Btw, the science writer said the Russian sat was not suspected of being destructive. Russian has sent up, and has active, a series of sats that are thought to be sat killers.
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
The orbital degrade for a sat weighing thousands of pounds is much quicker than the small particles created by the impact. A tiny meteor strike, or another piece of space junk could have started a chain of events. Who knows.
And I am willing to bet if the Russians have killer sats, we do too (as well as a missle system capable of destroying sats...
I'll wager on chaos theory, Hakam's razor, or the like. Of course I am not a "science writer who writes about sats and stuff" expert. I have slept at a few Holiday Inns!
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
skibum - 2/16/2009 6:59 AM
The orbital degrade for a sat weighing thousands of pounds is much quicker than the small particles created by the impact.
You'll have to take that up with Newton. He seems to think different, thinks all objects are affected by gravitational forces the same, regardless of mass. Something about dropping two balls of different sizes from a tower. But then, he didn't stay at a Holiday Inn. Probably why he was out watching crap falling, didn't have MTV.
Atmospheric gasses (air) will create drag, e.g. terminal velocity, but I'm thinking at 500-miles up even non-smokers are going to be sucking hard just to catch their breath. Not a lot of air up there.
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
Hydro - 2/15/2009 7:29 PM
So many conspiracies..... so little knowledge.
Indeed. The atmospheric envelope is irregular and difficult-to-chart (and predict) "lobes" significantly increase aerodynamic drag. Solar winds can have a significant influence as well.
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
skibum - 2/16/2009 6:59 AM
And I am willing to bet if the Russians have killer sats, we do too (as well as a missle system capable of destroying sats...
DSP23, part of a DoD early warning constellation of sats, recently went AWOL. It happens. The interesting thing was that two little sats homed in on DSP23, moved in close and spent some time looking at her before backing down. The little sats are ours. That's got to get your mind wondering.
We (or at the least the 'good guys') have used missiles to knock out a couple of sats in very low orbit just before re-entry. It was done to break them into small enough pieces to disintegrate in the atmosphere so a chunk would not hit the Earth. From what I have heard in the past it is almost impossible for a missile to knock out a sat that is not in a fixed orbit that allows calc to predict exactly where it will be and when because a missile cannot change direction in flight outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
RE: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
This is all part of the effort to confuse the issue and distract form the nefarious schemes of the quadrilateral commission. You mockers and disbelievers can take your tin foil hats and wrap them around your baked potatoes. That's all there good for people!
Someone needs to figure out a way for our banks' computers to talk with each other without iridescent satanisms. Maybe they can use the new fiber-optics systems that have been installed over the past 10 years?
Re: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Aluminum foil hat on ...
Richard Hoagland was on the radio talking out this. More often than not I cannot agree with his conclusions, but he definitely gets his numbers right. Per Hoagland and per a VP of Iridium, the odds of any two man-made things crashing together in space is 1 in 500,000,000 (one in 500-million). The odds of those two specific satellites crashing together is less than 1 in 50,000,000,000 ( one in 50-billion).
Still think it was an accident?
And get this, the debris field is significant enough that it could potentially prevent further launching of manned craft (space shuttle) in the future because of the potential the debris will take out the shuttle.
...from that histogram, it looks like there are about N_satellites =
300 satellites between 700 and 800 km altitude. For a collision to
happen, two satellites have to be in the same place at the same time.
By "in the same place", let's say the two satellites would have to be
in a cubical that is 2 m x 2 m x 2 m (satellite bus is usually smaller
than this, but solar panels bigger, so this is a compromise) for a
collision to happen.
Between 700 and 800 km, how many of these "cubes" are there:
N_cubes = 4*pi*R^2*t_layer / V_cube (where t_layer is the
"thickness" of the layer of LEO we are examining: 100 km)
If satellites are more or less randomly bouncing around this volume of
space (think of a gas where satellites are individual molecules), then
the odds of any satellite being in the same cube as a particular
satellite at a given instant (i.e., in a given time slot) is:
P_1sat = N_satellites / N_cubes = 3.8*10^-17
Very unlikely. But over the course of a year, the odds become
P_1satYear = N_timeslots * P_1sat = 4.57*10^-6
or "one in 200,000". But, there are N_satellites, so the odds of *any*
satellite colliding with *any* *other* satellite over a year are
Now, over the past 30 years of having a large number of satellites on
orbit, the odds of satellite-satellite collision drop to:
P_SpaceAge = P_anySatYear * 30 years = 0.04
...or "one in 25". Entirely reasonable.
The only mystery is why this collision wasn't predicted and the orbit
of the Iridium satellite tweaked well in advance.
...and later writes:
Quote:
For example, the fact that Iridium 33 was launched from Baikonur and
Kosmos-2251 from Plesetsk means that both satellites were confined to
inclinations greater than 49 degrees, probably making a collision more
likely.
The conclusion to draw from a simple, order-of-magnitude calculation
like this is that a random satellite-satellite collision is not
outside the realm of the possible. Had the numbers come out "1 in a
million" instead of "1 in 25", it would be time to start considering the
*deliberate* collision of one satellite into the other.
RE: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
peptide - 2/24/2009 4:40 PM
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli
...or "one in 25". Entirely reasonable.
So I stand by my assertion that this was an inevitable accident, and not some kind of covert "killer satellite" test.
Mike
"There's a sucker born every minute" -- P.T. Barnum
(A) if the probability those two sats would collide is 1 in 25 then we have a serious problem. They passed each other twice in every orbit around the Earth; once near each pole. Per your assertion, for every 12-1/2 orbits they should have collided once. The Iridium sat was about 10-years in orbit, The Russian sat longer -- they should have collided 1000's of time.
I'm not sure which is more unbelievable; your odds that they should have collided, and didn't. Or the Iridium's odds that they shouldn't have collided and they did.
(B) So far, the only person I have seen/hear talk about a "killer satellite" is you. With that in mind I hereby pass my tin foil hat to you. I'm thinking you need it more than me.
Btw, here is the FAULT with your collision probability:
Quote:
it looks like there are about N_satellites = 300 satellites between 700 and 800 km altitude. For a collision to
happen, two satellites have to be in the same place at the same time.
The less than 1 in 50,000,000,000 chance those birds would hit is the probability of JUST THOSE TWO SPECIFIC SATS, and not all sats. Just those two, their orbits.
RE: The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat
Quote:
Eyeball - 2/24/2009 4:53 AM
Quote:
peptide - 2/24/2009 4:40 PM
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli
...or "one in 25". Entirely reasonable.
So I stand by my assertion that this was an inevitable accident, and not some kind of covert "killer satellite" test.
Mike
"There's a sucker born every minute" -- P.T. Barnum
(A) if the probability those two sats would collide is 1 in 25 then we have a serious problem. They passed each other twice in every orbit around the Earth; once near each pole. Per your assertion, for every 12-1/2 orbits they should have collided once. The Iridium sat was about 10-years in orbit, The Russian sat longer -- they should have collided 1000's of time.
I'm not sure which is more unbelievable; your odds that they should have collided, and didn't. Or the Iridium's odds that they shouldn't have collided and they did.
(B) So far, the only person I have seen/hear talk about a "killer satellite" is you. With that in mind I hereby pass my tin foil hat to you. I'm thinking you need it more than me.
Btw, here is the FAULT with your collision probability:
Quote:
it looks like there are about N_satellites = 300 satellites between 700 and 800 km altitude. For a collision to
happen, two satellites have to be in the same place at the same time.
The less than 1 in 50,000,000,000 chance those birds would hit is the probability of JUST THOSE TWO SPECIFIC SATS, and not all sats. Just those two, their orbits.
My first response is very simple - post a credible analysis, preferably with the math to back it up, and I will cheerfully admit there is a possibility that this was intentional. Bit until I read that - anywhere - I have to accept the math and not misinterpreted press releases.
My more detailed response to implore you to re-read my post. The analysis suggests that there is a 1/25 possibility that any collision may occur at any given instance, not these two specific satellites and not on a per-orbit basis. This is precisely why many in the aerospace community have predicted this day would come.
One of the most important terms in the professor's calculation deals with the gas particle-like motion of the satellites, which is vital in taking into account the movement of satellites in orbit. Their orbital paths are constantly being perturbed by forces too complex to model, and thus are not entirely predictable. This is similar to the challenges presented in attempting to describe the motion and location of a gas molecule or an electron; it cannot be done absolutely and must be described statistically.
Orbits aren't perfectly linear, and thus aren't entirely predictable. Read the sources cited in my first response. Any static analysis is flawed, and thus isn't to be trusted.
Again, I would be the first to admit I'm wrong. I have to as part of my work. But I need something a little more convincing than meaningless copy-and-paste numbers. Find me something useful, something better than what I posted and I'll accept that.
The Plot Thickens -- The Iridium Sat vs the Russian Sat 
