March 24, 2015
The Growing Satellite Menace
An American space satellite exploded in orbit on February 3rd. This one was a twenty year old weather satellite that experienced an equipment failure that showed up to ground monitors as a rapid increase in internal temperature followed by the satellite exploding into 43 pieces. This was not catastrophic for weather monitoring since this satellite, because of its age, was relegated to backup duty in 2006. Eventually, when it failed, it would have been maneuvered into a lower orbit where it would eventually burn up in the atmosphere and leave no debris in orbit.
As soon as signs of malfunctioning in the satellite were detected plans were made to maneuver the satellite into the lower orbit, but the satellite soon became uncontrollable and exploded. At this point the air force is still trying to find any additional pieces of the satellite in orbit so that these can be tracked and the owners of other satellites warned if the debris will get too close.
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