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One of the satellites found by this sleuth: > Transit 5B5 was a US Navy navigation satellite launched by a Thor Able Star rocket. It carried a nuclear power so
by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 6y ago
One of the satellites found by this sleuth:
> Transit 5B5 was a US Navy navigation satellite launched by a Thor Able Star rocket. It carried a nuclear power source.
Wait what? Nuclear powered satellites? How do they safely dispose of these??
- kjs3 6y agoYes, it's a thing. Most of the deep space probes were radio-nucleotide powered. Earth orbiting is less common for obvious reasons. One option is boost to a parking orbit where it'll be stable and out of the way for a couple of thousand years. But the stuff from the '60s was often "it'll burn up on reentry (cross fingers) and it's a cost of doing Cold War business if a little get's scattered around".
- perl4ever 6y agoThere are plenty of earth orbiting actual fission reactors, not like the RTGs you have heard about. There were quite a few sent up by the Soviets (from 1967-1988) and at least one malfunctioned, failed to eject its reactor into a disposal orbit and scattered radioactive waste across northern Canada. Even the Soviets didn't intend to send nuclear reactors to burn up on reentry; I'd be surprised if that was anyone's plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BES-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BES-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1402 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1402 "...44 kg of uranium had been dispersed into the stratosphere after the incident..."
- kjs3 6y agoI've more than "heard about" RTGs, and I'm well aware of the kind of reactors that have been shot into space. We can argue the level of "intend", but in the Cold War, the reentry of a nuclear reactor was considered an acceptable cost of doing business.