AT 50,000 kilometres per hour, even minuscule pieces of space junk can tear a
satellite to pieces. But simplified software should help satellites dodge this
orbital shrapnel.
Right now, only the International Space Station and the space shuttle make a
point of getting out of the way of junk, says Nick Johnson, an orbital debris
expert at NASA in Houston. They plan their collision-avoidance manoeuvres via a
detailed computer model—but the calculations are complex and take hours to
run.
But by stripping down the detailed model to a simple equation, Russell Patera
of the Aerospace Corporation in Los…
