molnya orbit, hazard to leo sattelites?

Question

does the path of a molnya sattelite present a hazard to low/medium earth orbit objects considering the crossing of paths? and the much greater velocity at perehelion? do they/it have to be tracked constantly for this reason?

this question is in reference to any highly eliptical orbit

my queation is more or less theoretical, is a heo capable of causing a collision in leo/meo?

Answer 1

Theoretically, possibly.

In practice, no. Space is just too big for there to be any real possibility of a collision.

Answer 2

Molniya was a military communications satellite system used by the Soviet Union. The satellites used highly eccentric elliptical orbits of +63.4 degrees inclination and an orbital period of about 12 hours, which allowed them to be visible to polar regions for long periods.
The first operational satellite Molniya 1-01 was launched on August 23, 1965. Since October 1967, Molniya satellites have been used by Russia to broadcast their national TV network.

Since they have been in use for 40 years and no problems have arisen yet, I doubt there is any cause for concern now.

NASA provides real-time tracking of the over 500 artificial satellites maintained in orbit around Earth (not just American but also satellites of other nations).

Answer 3

Assume that the satellite is 5 meters across. The odds of it hitting another given satellite is about 5E+12 to 1 against. With about 10,000 objects in orbit, the odds of hitting something is 5E8 to 1. That's per orbit. It would take about 480,000 years to have a 50:50 chance of a collision.

Answer 4

Space is big, even Earth orbital space, and the US Air Force Space Command keeps track of all orbiting objects and acts as a kind of space traffic control, telling people who want to launch a satellite if their proposed orbit will hit something else already in orbit.