Space debris threatened Delfi-C3

The Amateur Radio satellite Delfi-C3 (DO-64) nearly didn't make it to her 2nd birthday on April 28 due to Cosmos debris.

The Delfi team received a warning from the United States Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) that on March 30 at 14:49 UTC COSMOS debris would approach Delfi-C3 almost head on at a closing velocity of 15 km per second.

At that speed had they collided Delfi-C3 would have smashed to pieces producing an expanding cloud of debris that could have threatened other satellites. Fortunately they passed each other with about 492 metres to spare.

In February 2009 Cosmos 2251 smashed into Iridium 33 destroying the two satellites and producing over a thousand pieces of debris and in January 2010 a Cosmos rocket body come within a 100 metres of the Amateur Radio satellite SEEDS (CO-66).

In the United Kingdom the Surrey Space Centre team have developed a device to drag space debris out of orbit and will be launching a 3U CubeSat demonstrator called CubeSail in 2011.

UK CubeSail satellite
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2010/
cubesail.htm

IET article - Avoiding satellite collisions
http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/1005/
orbital-graveyard-1005.cfm

Feb 2009 - Cosmos-Iridium Satellite debris
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/may2009/
satellite_debris.htm

Jan 2010 - Cosmos-Seeds near miss
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2010/
seeds_near_miss.htm

Delfi-C3 (DO-64) Mission page
http://www.delfic3.nl/index.php?option=com_content
&task=view&id=93&Itemid=122

Live OSCAR Satellite Status Page
http://oscar.dcarr.org/