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IRAN’s second-ever domestically built satellite

Iran launched its second-ever domestically built satellite into orbit on June 15. the U.S. Space surveillance network already published its orbit:

Semimajor Axis 6645.762 km

Eccentricity 0.0037

Inclination 55.6 deg

Click here to see its orbit in Google Earth.

Iran launched its first homemade satellite 2 years ago. That satellite was already decayed. Iran also bought a satellite from Russia, called SINAH 1. It is a communication satellite launched in 2005 at Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The satellite is still believe to be active.

SJ-12 and SJ-6H

Igor Lissov firstly found that the Chinese SJ-12 satellites will be likely to “meet” the SJ-6H, which is also a Chinese satellite launched last month(Oct-6th,2010), in the next few days.

The SJ-12 rendezvoused with SJ-06F on August 15, 2010.

See these two satellites at Google Earth.

Orbits of Fragments from the iridium 33 Cosmos 2251 Collision

The collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 created roughly 2,000 fragments greater than 10 cm.

The fragments from each satellite first spreads out along the orbit of the original satellite. But in time the debris spreads to form a shell around the earth, and is concentrated near the altitude at which the original satellites orbited. Since the relative speed of Cosmos 2251 fragments is higher, the orbit of the fragments spread out more quickly, and will be distributed around the Earth within 3 years. However, even orbits are not spread out, the fragments still threat all satellites that pass through that altitude.