Space Junk

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That's not as unusual as you'd think. The problem is we didn't do it this time.

Back in the mid-80s, as an airman, I used to work in the HQ Satellite Control Facility (HQ AFSCF) at Sunnyvale AFS (now Onizuka AFS) in the Silicon Valley of California https://www.onizuka.af.mil/ (my home area).

In addition to tracking the Space Shuttle and the orbiting satellites, we also had the mission of tracking space "junk" and debris. It was back then when I learned how much damage a lost pencil, pen, or other tool could do - given the right parameters. We had a massive room, like you'd imagine from the movies, that we could pull up any of a number of objects or tracks. As an newly minted, 18-year old, airman - it was one of the coolest jobs in the world.

As the old line goes, "If I told you (more), I'd have to kill you."
 
Originally posted by akpilot
That's not as unusual as you'd think. The problem is we didn't do it this time.

Back in the mid-80s, as an airman, I used to work in the HQ Satellite Control Facility (HQ AFSCF) at Sunnyvale AFS (now Onizuka AFS) in the Silicon Valley of California https://www.onizuka.af.mil/ (my home area).

In addition to tracking the Space Shuttle and the orbiting satellites, we also had the mission of tracking space "junk" and debris. It was back then when I learned how much damage a lost pencil, pen, or other tool could do - given the right parameters. We had a massive room, like you'd imagine from the movies, that we could pull up any of a number of objects or tracks. As an newly minted, 18-year old, airman - it was one of the coolest jobs in the world.

As the old line goes, "If I told you (more), I'd have to kill you."

Ah-hahhh...

Is that facility also known as "The Blue Cube". I used to drive by it when I worked nearby several years ago.

Jaosn
 
For those of you that would like to see a video showing the debris field dispersion in space, there is a nice 39MB video generated using Satellite Tool Kit that shows it here:

https://www.centerforspace.com/asat/

Look under STK-Generated Videos for the video download link.

In particular I believe they were analyzing the rick the debris posed to the International Space Station as some of the debris pass near the ISS orbit.

The last few seconds of the video is really interesting in that it shows (not to scale) most of the tracked objects orbiting around Earth... There sure is a lot of "stuff" floating around up there!
 
Originally posted by jjnodice

Is that facility also known as "The Blue Cube". I used to drive by it when I worked nearby several years ago.

That's the one! ;)

It's "the" building that started Silicon Valley, as it was built in the '50s (near Moffett NAS) in the middle of no where to allow better coverage/tracking of the impending space race. We had a picture, of the Cube, hanging in our lobby showing it built with a dirt road to it and nothing around for miles; it was all farm land. From there Lockheed, Ford Aerospace, etc. built facilities near it to provide support for the emerging technology. From there it's history . . .

Growing up in the Bay Area, it was a humbling to see that picture, because now you can't find anywhere in the Bay Area that isn't built up.
 
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