Prospector

Space Junk

Conference Announcement:
Fourth European Conference on Space Debris
18-20 April 2005
ESOC
Darmstadt, Germany

PURPOSE
Since 1957, more than 4000 space launches have led to a current population of approximately 13000 trackable objects (i.e. larger than 10 cm) in near-Earth space. Only about 600 - 700 of these are operational spacecraft. The remainder is space debris, i.e. objects which no longer serve any useful purpose. About half of the trackable objects are fragments from explosions, or from the breakup of satellites or rocket bodies. In addition, there is also a much greater number of objects in orbit that cannot be tracked because of their small size.
The purpose of the Fourth European Conference on Space Debris is to provide a forum for the presentation of results from research on space debris, to assist in defining future directions for research, to identify methods of debris control, reduction and protection, and to discuss policy issues, regulations and legal aspects.


To look at the stuff in orbit that is not junk you can go to NASA's J-Track 3D

The site runs from a database of over 500 satellites. It opens a window that shows the postiions of all the satellites. You can zoom in and out on all the little buggers swartmed around ole planet Earth.
Make sure to go to the menu. You can view the path, ground path and get detailed information on any of the satellites.

J-Track 3D

posted by Prospector @ 10:22 AM