@sundogplanets The good news is, collision avoidance...

Prof. Sam Lawler's posts Post Back to profile

@sundogplanets The good news is, collision avoidance is called for at fairly large error bounds and these satellites aren't *that* big.

IOW, these are "we might get within a few km of another satellite" avoidance maneuvers not "we will definitely impact one if we don't take evasive action". So I would expect maybe 1/1000 or less odds of a collision if one of these avoidance maneuvers doesn't take place.

Of course, if thousands of them all become unable to maneuver at once for a bit, that's a lot of dice rolls...

Like 10 May at 14:52 | Wall-to-wall | Open on ioc.exchange

2 comments

Prof. Sam Lawler

@azonenberg This is real time data of close approaches: http://astriacss03.tacc.utexas.edu/ui/min.html

And yes, the odds are low, but with dozens happening per day, those low odds add up to high odds very quickly

10 May at 14:54 | Open on mastodon.social

Anthony

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social @azonenberg@ioc.exchange Just a note of support here: back of the envelope says that ten "one in a thousand" chances a day means 98% chance after one year; two dozen one in a thousand chances a day becomes a near certainty after a year. You don't seem to have special knowledge of this topic Andrew but surely you can see the math suggests there's reason for alarm?

10 May at 15:24 | Open on buc.ci