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Experts say tens of thousands of pieces could orbit Earth for 10,000 years

MOSCOW – The crash of two satellites has generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said Friday.

One called the collision “a catastrophic event” that he hoped would force the new U.S. administration to address the issue of debris in space.

Russian Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said Tuesday’s smashup of a derelict Russian military satellite and a working U.S. Iridium commercial satellite occurred in the busiest part of near-Earth space — some 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth.

“800 kilometers is a very popular orbit which is used by Earth-tracking and communications satellites,” Solovyov told reporters Friday. “The clouds of debris pose a serious danger to them.”

Solovyov said debris from the collision could stay in orbit for up to 10,000 years and even tiny fragments threaten spacecraft because both travel at such a high orbiting speed.

James Oberg, a NASA veteran who is now space consultant, described the crash over northern Siberia as “catastrophic event.” NASA said it was the first-ever high-speed impact between two intact spacecraft — with the Iridium craft weighing 1,235 pounds (560 kilograms) and the Russian craft nearly a ton.

“At physical contact at orbital speeds, a hypersonic shock wave bursts outwards through the structures,” Oberg said in e-mailed comments. “It literally shreds the material into confetti and detonates any fuels.”

Most fragments are concentrated near the collision course, but Maj.-Gen. Alexander Yakushin, chief of staff of the Russian military’s Space Forces, said some debris was thrown into other orbits, ranging from 300 to 800 miles (500-1,300 kilometers) above Earth.

David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security said the collision had possibly generated tens of thousands of particles larger than 1 centimeter (half an inch), any of which could significantly damage or even destroy a satellite.

Wright, in a posting on the group’s Web site, said the two large debris clouds from Tuesday’s crash will spread over time, forming a shell around Earth. He likened the debris to “a shotgun blast that threatens other satellites in the region.”

Test on newly installed valves pushes liftoff date to Feb. 22

NASA’s planned launch of the space shuttle Discovery this month has slipped a few more days to Feb. 22 due to extra time needed to finish tests related to newly installed valves on the spacecraft, agency officials said Friday.

Discovery was slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 19 pending the completion of tests to ensure the shuttle’s three fuel flow control valves are safe to fly. But work at several NASA centers to evaluate the valves in time for a Tuesday meeting by shuttle managers is taking longer than planned, and shifted the launch to no earlier than Feb. 22, according to an update released late Friday.

Mission managers are now expected to discuss the valve test results on Feb. 13, and then meet again on Feb. 18 to review the Feb. 22 launch target, said NASA spokesperson Kyle Herring at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. That process, however, is wholly dependent on the progress and results of the valve tests, he added.

Earlier this week, NASA delayed Discovery’s initial Feb. 12 launch date by at least a week due to concerns with the spacecraft’s flow control valves.

There are three flow control valves on Discovery — one for each main engine — designed to route gaseous hydrogen from the engines to a propellant tank in the orbiter’s external tank to maintain proper pressurization during the launch into space.

During NASA’s last space shuttle launch in November, one of the valves aboard the Endeavour orbiter was damaged, sending a small chip about the size of a thumbnail tip into the plumbing lines leading back to the external tank. Endeavour successfully reached orbit and maintained fuel tank pressure despite the glitch. Engineers found a crack in the suspect valve after Endeavour returned to Earth.

An initial analysis suggests that acoustic vibrations may have led to high-cycle fatigue of a valve component that pops up and down like a lawn sprinkler head, NASA’s space shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters late Tuesday. Similar valves aboard Discovery were replaced with ones that have flown previously and are known to be in good shape, he added.

Even so, mission managers ordered a round of tests to better understand how metallic chips from the valves could affect plumbing lines leading back into Discovery’s fuel tank during flight.

“We want to make sure we’ve got this right,” said NASA’s space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier late Tuesday. “So we think standing down a little bit of time, and letting the folks do a little more work is a good thing.”

Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Lee Archambault, Discovery’s STS-119 mission is NASA’s first of up to six shuttle flights scheduled for 2009. The two-week mission includes four spacewalks to deliver the last set of U.S.-built solar arrays to the International Space Station and replace a member of the orbiting laboratory’s Expedition 18 crew.

A series of additional space station construction flights, as well the final shuttle mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope, are also slated to launch this year.

Astronauts living aboard the International Space Station were surprised by the unexpectedly strong vibrations that rattled their orbiting lab last month, but don’t believe the event damaged their $100 billion outpost. Space station commander Michael Fincke of NASA said the Jan. 14 vibrations shook objects loose from the walls during a scheduled engine burn, but it did not immediately spark concerns over the health of the spacecraft.  “We were definitely surprised,” Fincke told SPACE.com Thursday via a video link. “It’s not usual during a reboost to see anything come off the walls.” Video from a camera inside the space station showed equipment doors and other objects shaking back and forth.

The vibrations on Jan. 14 occurred during what was expected to be a routine Russian thruster firing to boost the space station into a higher orbit. During the two-minute, 22-second maneuver, sensors aboard the space station picked up vibrations that exceeded acceptable limits.

Michael Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager, said Tuesday that a subsequent analysis has shown that the vibrations did not shorten the orbiting lab’s 15-year design lifetime. Space station flight controllers, however, did cancel another planned thruster firing slated for Wednesday pending more study.

“Fortunately, the results of the analysis so far shows that we haven’t hurt the space station,” Fincke said. “But we certainly could have, so we’re definitely going to be very careful next time.”

Fincke described the engine burn as the strongest thrust he and his two crewmates had felt since they launched into space last fall aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket and NASA space shuttle. Whenever Fincke let go of a handhold in the station, the rest of the ship would noticeably move around him as he floated in weightlessness.

“At the time it was quite amazing,” Fincke said. “Then the harmonic vibrations started to kick in and we saw things shaking off the walls. That was surprising, but it didn’t last very long.” The astronauts then had to fly through the space station’s cabin collecting loose items and reattaching them to the outpost’s walls, he added.

Shuttle Discovery’s delay

With the vibration event behind them, the space station crew is preparing the orbiting lab for the arrival of a new Russian cargo ship and the space shuttle Discovery later this month. The unmanned cargo ship Progress 32 is slated to launch early next week and dock at the station on Feb. 13. But the planned Feb. 12 launch of Discovery has been delayed at least one week as engineers evaluate a fuel flow control valve concern.

For space station flight engineer Sandra Magnus, also of NASA, Discovery’s delay means a longer stay in orbit. Magnus arrived at the orbiting lab last November and will return home aboard Discovery.

“Of course, with shuttle schedules you never really want to get your heart set on a specific date because it’s a very flexible program,” Magnus told SPACE.com. “Another week is fine, they’ll make the right decision when to launch the shuttle and I’ll go home whenever it arrives.”

Discovery is now slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 19 to deliver the last set of U.S. solar arrays and Magnus’s replacement, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Earlier this week, Magnus raided the space station’s pantry to put together some special treats during Sunday’s Super Bowl showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals. Fincke, a Pittsburgh, Pa.-native who grew up in Emsworth, is a vocal Steelers fan who beamed down video messages of support to spur his team on during the NFL playoffs and their Super Bowl win.

“We really didn’t have a party, but Sandy did. She put together some really amazing dips and other Super Bowl treats that we normally would have on the ground,” Fincke said. “It made the day even more special.”