AMERICAN SCIENTIST – 6 ISSUES

AMERICAN SCIENTIST is an illustrated bimonthly magazine about science and technology. 

A European Space Agency rocket launch in 2013 carried three satellites to orbit. Now, launches can carry dozens of small satellites at a time, quickly growing the population of devices in Earth’s orbit, which in turn increases the potential for collisions. In “Do You Know Where Your Satellite Is Tonight?,” David Finkleman describes networks of ground-based observation stations, as well as data modeling techniques, that are used to try to keep track of everything in orbit around Earth and predict collisions. Finkleman also lays out why these networks and models are incomplete and their resulting collision estimates are thus largely inaccurate, and explains ways that data could be made more precise to protect valuable satellites in the future.

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