Russia’s Newest Weather Satellite May Have Be Killed by Space Junk

Russia’s Newest Weather Satellite May Have Be Killed by Space Junk

For humans and satellites alike, making a living is space is hard. First, there’s the problem of surviving the brief but energetic and failure-prone ride there, after which you get to alternately roast and freeze as you zip around the planet at 20 times the speed of sound. The latter fact is made all the more dangerous by the swarm of space debris, both natural and man-made, that whizzes away up there along with you, waiting to cause an accident.


One such accident has apparently led to the early demise of a Russian weather satellite. Just a few months after launch, Meteor-M 2-2 suffered a sudden orbital anomaly (link to Russian story; English translation). Analysis of the data makes it pretty clear what happened: the satellite was struck by something, and despite some ground-controller heroics which appear to have stabilized the spacecraft, the odds are that Meteor-M 2-2 will eventually succumb to its wounds.

Weather Watchers


To call the Meteor-M series of satellites unlucky is something of an understatement. Originally conceived as a four-satellite constellation, the birds were to be equipped with the latest in imaging and sensing instruments and launched into sun-synchronous polar orbits. They would afford Russia scientists complete coverage of the vast country every couple of days, with special emphasis on monitoring conditions in the Arctic regions.


Original plans called for a series of satellites called Meteor-3M to be launched between 1998 and 2000, but for unknown reasons the satellites were never built. The plan morphed into the Meteor-M series, which aimed to be in service by 2010. Th ..

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