How does the NASA space shuttle avoid hitting all those satellites?

Question

When NASA and others launch the space shuttle and rockets into orbit, how do they avoid hitting all those cluttered satellites orbiting around the earth? Wouldn't they risk crashing into one on the way up?

Answer 1

there are several reasons for this.

1. most satellites orbit the earth at an elevation of Most satellites in both equatorial and polar orbits fly at low altitudes between 100 and 1,000 miles (160 and 1,600 km).

Geostationary satellites, on the other hand, are in very high equatorial orbits 22,300 miles (35,800 km) above earth, which exactly matches the earth's rotation speed so that the satellite remains above a constant position on earth. To arrive at this orbit, the satellite is first launched to an orbit called geostationary transfer orbit, a highly elliptical orbit around the earth.

2. the ISS (international space station) The station is in a low Earth orbit: its altitude varies from 319.6 km to 346.9 km above the surface of the Earth (approximately 199 miles to 215 miles). and they have a very different orbit.

3. NASA tracks over 500 current satellights, and 8000 other debris around the earth, and makes sure there is nothing in the trajectory of the space shuttle

4. the amount of volume surrounding the earth is immense. space is HUGE, adn there is lots of empty area around the earth for things to move in.

Answer 2

Most communications satellites orbit at a geosynchronous orbit so they stay over one spot on Earth all the time. The altitude of this orbit is 26,200 miles. The Shuttle and Space Station orbit around 200 miles above Earth. The Air Force Space Command also keeps track of "space junk" and warns the Mission Control Center if an object is predicted to come within 5 nautical miles of the Space Shuttle. This allows the crew to make necessary adjustments in orbital altitude or orientation to avoid the object.

Answer 3

I am just glad this wasteful expensive program is ended so we can save some money. We dont have a space race any more. In case people havent noticed, there is no Soviet Union, only the Chinese left to compete with, since the U.S. has to spends us all into an early grave just to be the global dictator. In case people have not noticed, under Obama we have streamlined lots of programs and saved a lot of money, things that were neglected for 20 years are being tackled now. Obama has not gotten proper credit from the media. Next we have to end the costly war on drugs, another Reagan boondoggle that has caused this country to go into deep debt. Billions spent on killing the coca crop in Bolivia and farmers just keep growing it. Ridiculous and insane. But American policies are insane. Every American could be taken care of if this government stopped wasting money.

Answer 4

The space shuttle flies at 100 miles high, orbiting the earth . Most satellites (especially geosynchronous) are much higher. Go to jtrack.com to track satellites.

Answer 5

Apart from the fact they are tracked, the thousands of objects are spread out over billions of cubic kilometers of space.

Notice that the Earth’s volume is about 500 billion cubic kilometers. As you extend the sphere out beyond the realm of the artificial satellites, the volume of the sphere becomes geometrically larger, so in fact, the satellites move around in trillions of cubic kilometers of space

There are thousands of ships all over the Pacific ocean - they are not always colliding, and even when there was no radar, there were thousands of ships all over the oceans not colliding (and that is not like 3-dimensional space).

Space, even inner space, is huge. You obviously have no conception of the size of the Earth.

Answer 6

NASA has to keep track of them all to avoid that.
They do that by using very large fast computers.
Satellites are the easiest because they were placed there.
In fact there are several thousand objects up there.
Some of which are big enough to do harm to the shuttle.
Many of these were accidentally left by other space vehicles.
Even something the size of a nut or bolt may be dangerous.
It could be travelling at several thousand miles per hour.

Answer 7

Believe it or not, all of that is tracked on computers and the guidance systems of the shuttles avoid them. If they were ever to collide the rate of collision would be measured in 1000s of miles per hour. Not a good thing.

Dah dude