Track the out of control North Korean satellite here!

What they mean by the satellite being out of control is that it is spinning, rotating, and rolling on its axis in space with no control.

The orbit itself is stable, but without the ability to control its atitude and thus make adjustments to its orbit, it won't be able to sustain that orbit for more than a few years.

The orbit will eventually degrade but for now it's up there and staying there.

It's probably armed with a nuke and they're waiting until in gets right over the mid-USA in order to detonate and subsequently discontinue electricity in our country for the next few hundred years...

This may be my last post id so...

Thanks! that makes sense, I had never thought about it before.

Arthur C Clark proposed the idea. Nice work AC (not to be confused with glp ac

What are estimated impact coordinates after orbit decays?

A polar orbit is very advantageous in military applications. On a traditional equatorial orbit, you can generally only strike in regions along the circular path of your orbit. It takes a lot of energy to alter the angle (ascending and descending nodes) of an orbit, energy that probably is not on board the satellite. In a polar orbit, given that the orbit is out of phase with the rotation of the earth, you can, in theory, strike anywhere you want.

Slowly passing over Mexico City now and heading towards New Mexico, USA

O_O

However,Mr Murphy, I was reading recently about Geo stationary satellite 'parked' in orbit @ 16,000 or so, miles out.
If we now have 2000 plus satellites in orbit and various space junk, it is inevitable that having conflicting orbits, sooner or later, one will meet another?
Imagine flying through space on your Space Bike at 17,000 mph or better and you hit a Frozen Pea or a Turd from a Space Pod toilet.
It would shred you head and your helmet.
This is what will happen with the Geo-Synchronous orbit craft.
A single high energy collision will result in a Cloud of high energy shrapnel/ buck shot ?
If these Satellites are sharing an orbit, Close or distant, then one devastating impact will eventually expand exponentially, think about it.
A grain of sand becomes a meteorite in the Earths Atmosphere,
Although the spacing between orbit vehicles is vast, the cloud of flying buckshot will be large, lethal and unpredictable as it expands over time.
One single event could disturb mankind's exploration of space for decades and ruin the whole satellite biz.
One Satellite gets fragmented and then another, the debris field expands, 3 Satellites are Shrapnel and in a month 300 are vapor bullets. Ex-ponential un expected un controllable damage expanding endlessly ?
The Humans have built a super lethal garbage dump in space.

earlier i made a .gif of almost one pass around the earth

took it just shy of an hour

[link to postimage.org]

It is fascinating stuff, that particular advantage never occurred to me until I read this thread !
I was laying in a campground one night,10 years ago down south of Las Vegas, watching for satellites and I saw one on a regular orbit,a twinkle in the sky passing over, and then another twinkle in the sky came up behind it,caught up to it and met it, there was a flash and the second twinkle departed from the first twinkle in the same direction that it had come from, this was orbital stuff and I have seen it with my own eyes, there is a lot more going on in the sky than we are being told about. The desert south of Vegas is awesome for having a beer and laying out and sky watching, stuff happens over Vegas! That is why they have the light pollution turned up to 11.

I've done about 200 passes through Searchlight, some of the best sky! have you ever seen the sky from Tonopah?

Have there been any estimates of this satellite's mass? Going into a polar ornit, I can't imagine it's that heavy, just based on the booster. (one can at best guess on the specs there)...

Its not coming down, for now anyway...


The satellite is now circling the Earth, and is likely to stay up for a year or two, although it appears the North Koreans are having trouble controlling it.


[link to www.cbsnews.com]

tumblin' tumbleweed..

Why not? KNS-3 is still in a stable orbit!

Go here to track it:

[link to n2yo.com]