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krigetoday at 7:54 AM4 repliesview on HN

There's a lot of space in air, and yet we have multiple midair collisions every year.


Replies

wongarsutoday at 12:08 PM

In the last ten years we have one (1) accidental satellite collision. In 2021 when a Chinese spy satellite in a 788km orbit collided with an old rocket stage from the 90s. There was also that Indian anti-satellite weapon hitting a microsat in 2019, but that was very much intentional (and much condemned because of all the fragments it caused)

In the decade before that (so 2006-2015) we had four accidental collisions and two anti-satellite tests (China and US)

Those are not frequent events. And if you attribute any statistical significance to them, it seems we are getting much better at avoiding collisions

lnenadtoday at 8:51 AM

Surface of a sphere (spheroid) is the square of the diameter. Planes fly at ~10kms, satellites at orders of magnitude higher.

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csomartoday at 9:01 AM

We have very few midair collisions every year and they almost all happen near the airports.