Spaceship cemetery

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Spaceship Cemetery (Pacific Ocean)
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"Spacecraft Cemetery" in the Pacific Ocean

Spaceship cemetery or English Spacecraft Cemetery is known as a region in the South Pacific with the center about 4,000 kilometers east of New Zealand, where planned in the Earth's atmosphere Reinstated spaceships impinge on the ocean and drown there in the ocean. Mention should be made of the manned Mir space station built by the Soviet Union , returning Progress transport spaceships and others. Unmanned capsules were also brought down there after returning from the ISS : the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle and the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) of the European Space Agency . In total, more than 263 spacecraft sank there after re-entry between 1971 and 2016.

The region was chosen because it is very remote and no human lives are endangered by deviations or possible debris. The nearest country is over 2000 km away.

background

Due to the very thin, but still existing earth atmosphere in satellite orbit around the earth, spacecraft are gradually losing speed and height. If they are not raised again, they will burn up. In the case of larger objects such as space stations or space transporters (e.g. Progress , Skylab or Tiangong 1 ) there is a risk that larger parts will reach the surface of the earth and endanger people, ships and aircraft. Therefore, larger space objects are deliberately crashed in uninhabited and less frequented areas as long as they are still controllable. These areas are known as the spaceship cemetery.

Science fiction

In the SF series Moon Base Alpha 1 , the topic of spaceship cemeteries is taken up, but more in the sense of a classic junkyard .

See also

  • Graveyard Orbit, another scheduled storage location for space debris

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ on smithsonian.com: Thompson, H. There's a Spacecraft Cemetery in the Pacific
  2. ↑ Shannon Stirone: This is where international space station will go to die. Popular Science, June 13, 2016, accessed September 16, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Lead Increment Scientist's Highlights For Week of Sept. 10, 2012
  4. ↑ European Space Agency ATV page . Retrieved June 21, 2011.
  5. ^ Mission accomplished for ATV Edoardo Amaldi
  6. ↑ Pacific as the "Spaceship Cemetery". In: news.orf.at. Retrieved November 30, 2017 .
  7. ↑ http://www.funkzentrum.de/news-mainmenu-92/15606-raumschiff-friedhof-im-pazifik-progress-ms-versenk.html
  8. ↑ http://diezukunft.de/feature/science/friedhof-der-raumschiffe
  9. ↑ imfernsehen GmbH & Co. KG: Moon Base Alpha 1 Season 1, Episode 23: Guardians of Death. Retrieved September 17, 2016 .