Yet a Russian satellite "accidentally" rammed a privately owned American satellite over Siberia:
The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. The Russian satellite was out of control, Matney said.
It's the first ever collision of this sort.
No doubt.
Certainly, rare things do happen.
Oh, and funny thing, the United States military is a major user of the Iridium network:
The company has 309,000 subscribers, including about 33,000 telephones deployed with the U.S. military and many more sensor-based applications to track equipment and soldiers.
Wow. Another freaky coincidence.
Again, rare things certainly happen. That's why we have the word "coincidence."
But given Russian pressure on our supply lines to Afghanistan, how sure are we that the Russian satellite was really out of control? Would the Russians really be above sending such a raw message to a new administration?
UPDATE: Interesting:
This is the first case in history of two satellites colliding. The orbital altitude where the collision took place is among the most crowded in low Earth orbit, but statistically speaking, the enormous scale of space makes the chance that this kind of direct collision would occur completely by accident infinitesimal.
This unlikelihood is compounded by the fact that the U.S. Air Force Space Surveillance Network provides space situational awareness and tracks some 18,000 satellites, orbital debris and other objects orbiting the earth. Though the network’s tracking of each of these objects is not constant, all objects of a certain size or larger are catalogued; potential collisions or near misses are generally spotted, and satellites can usually be maneuvered to avoid them.
Even big coincidences happen. Even as an American team is trying to see if the Russians won't screw with our air base in Kyrgyzstan.
