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In space Russian & US satellites smashed together
Feb 13th
On Wednesday 2 satellites smashed together in space hundreds of miles (kilometers) above Earth, destroying an Iridium commercial satellite in a collapse that may result in disturbance of service, the US Company said.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based company said it “lost an operational satellite” after it was struck Tuesday by a spent Russian satellite, in what is being described as the first foremost collision of its kind in space.
US space agency NASA apparently was tracking hundreds of particles of debris from the collision, and said that the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) faced an “elevated” but small risk of being struck.
“While this is an extremely unusual, very low-probability event, the Iridium constellation is uniquely designed to withstand such an event, and the company is taking the necessary steps to replace the lost satellite with one of its in-orbit spare satellites,” the company said in a statement.
The privately-held Iridium Satellite, which says its network comprises 66 communication satellites plus in-orbit spares, stressed the mishap was not the effect of a breakdown of technology or the company’s fault.
“This satellite loss may result in very limited service disruption in the form of brief, occasional outages,” it said, adding that the company expects to apply a network solution by Friday, and move one of its in-orbit spares in place to eternally replace the shattered satellite within 30 days.
According to Space News, the US space agency NASA issued an alert Tuesday saying Russia’s 900-kilogram (1,980-pound) Cosmos 2251 satellite collided with Iridium’s 560-kilogram (1,232-pound) craft at 16:55 GMT, some 790 kilometers (490 miles) above Siberia.
It said NASA was tracking two large clouds of debris.
The Washington Post quoted a NASA memo about the occurrence, saying officials “have determined that the risk to the space station is elevated, and they estimate the risk to be very small and within acceptable limits.”
There is little risk the space station will enter the debris clouds, however, as the ISS is orbiting about 354 kilometers (220 miles) above earth, some 436 kilometers (270 miles) below the collision orbit.
Cosmic collisions of space junk are not unheard of, but NASA officials said it was the first linking a pair of intact satellites, the Post reported.
NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the collision debris would persist to spread and could end up forcing the space station into elusive maneuvers.
“The space station does have the capability of doing a debris-avoidance maneuver if necessary,” and has done so on eight occasions, he said.
Some 6,000 satellites have been sent into space since the Soviet Union launched the first man-made orbiter, Sputnik 1, in 1957. About 3,000 satellites remain in operation, according to NASA.
NASA’s space shuttle Discovery is planned to launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on February 22 at the earliest, on a mission to the ISS.
US: Another Indian techie died
Jan 23rd
Muthyala Purushottam, a 27-year-old software engineer from Andhra Pradesh, was found lifeless in his flat in Indianapolis in the US, family sources said Thursday. This is the second incident of the loss of a techie from the Indian state in the US this month.
Purushottam’s family in Anantapur town got a phone call from the US Wednesday informing them that he was found dead in the bathroom of his flat Tuesday night.
He was working for Triton Infotech and was married to 25-year-old Praveena Reddy, who as well as from Anantapur.
The families of the couple refused to talk to the media. Nevertheless, according to sources close to Purushottam’s family, he supposedly committed suicide. The police were said to have found a suicide note written by him stating that no one was responsible for his death.
Praveena, also a software engineer, reportedly made phone calls to her husband Tuesday night. When he did not answer her calls, she returned home and found the doors bolted from inside. She required the help of the police, who broke open the door and found Purushottam dead.
Purushottam, son of police sub-inspector M Nagalingam, wedded his classmate Praveena in Anantapur three years ago. While he went to the US about two years ago, his wife tied him a few months later.
The news of Purushottam’s death came close on the heels of a 26-year-old techie from Andhra Pradesh being shot dead in Arkansas. Akshay Vishal, who was an employee of the scam-hit Satyam Computer Services, was killed by anonymous persons as he was returning home on January 13.
His murder was the seventh case of students and professionals from Andhra Pradesh being killed in the US in the last 13 months.
In November last year, Nerusu Lakshminivasa Rao, a software programmer from Krishna district, strangely vanished from his home in Detroit in the US after his wife and two children were found murdered. The US police believe that he fled the country after killing them.
