Correction: ISS NOT moved to avoid debris

From: Greg Williams (k4hsm@lock-net.com)
Date: Sun Feb 04 2007 - 01:22:36 EST

  • Next message: Mgr. CSc. Antonín Vítek: "Re: Correction: ISS NOT moved to avoid debris"

    According to a source on a NASA forum, ISS was not moved and no orbital 
    change was made.  The following is from the forum.
    
    Here's the details -- pass around as you like:
    
    UPI's Moscow bureau sent out a news story Friday PM
    that the space station had to change orbit to avoid
    collision with a fragment of a Chinese rocket that was
    destroyed last month in the anti-satellite test.
    
    The entire story is here:
    http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20070202-013112-8664r
    
    The story is NOT true, and should be disregarded.
    
    There has been no maneuver in space, and none are currently
    planned -- I verified with NASA spokesman John Ira Petty in Houston.
    
    The UPI story claims it is based on a 'Novosti' news agency
    story. I found the story, in English, and it DOES say that
    "We are diverting the orbit of the ISS to prevent a possible collision
    with large fragments of space debris, a decision the Russian Mission Control
    took together with the Johnson Space Center in Houston," a
    Russian Mission Control spokesman told Novosti Friday.
    http://en.rian.ru/world/20070202/60105727.html
    
    Sort of.
    
    Novosti botched the translation, and UPI didn't realize it --
    and didn't try to verify with NASA.
    
    Here's the original Russian story: 
    http://rian.ru/technology/cosmos/20070202/60093948.html
    
    Not to show off or anything .... I get by in Russian, and
    here's the much more accurate translation of the verb tenses:
    "In order to protect ISS from the possibility of collision with big 
    pieces of space junk,
    we conduct a maneuver of avoidance to lead the station to the side.
    The Russian MCC takes the decision of carrying out this maneuver
    together with the Johnson space center in Houston."
    
    The Russian expert at Moscow Mission Control is speaking
    HYPOTHETICALLY. This is, he explains, what we DO in order
    to keep the station safe from space junk.
    
    It's NOT what we have just DONE, today. It has nothing
    to do with actual events today. The verb tenses indicate that.
    
    It's kind of scary how an alarming story can blast off, on
    such a volatile and frightening subject, based on misunderstanding.
    
    So it's only fair that the story has been featured on Drudge Report
    all day Saturday!!
    
    -- 
    Greg Williams
    K4HSM
    k4hsm@knology.net
    
    http://www.twiar.org
    http://www.etskywarn.net
    
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