In what’s believed to be the most significant incident of its kind, a derelict Russian Kosmos 2251 military satellite has collided with a U.S. communications satellite that’s part of the Iridium satellite communication network. The collision occurred approximately 500 miles over Siberia, and has produced a cloud of debris containing at least 600 objects that are currently being tracked by NASA and other agencies. Although the debris doesn’t pose any immediate threat to the International Space Station (ISS) or the space shuttle launch planned for later this month, the debris cloud makes an already-complicated task of finding launch windows that much more difficult…and the debris could pose a risk to the Hubble Space Telescope.
