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United States announced a competitive tenders for create a space debris monitoring system.. / July 27, 2009 /

The U.S. government announced a competition to create a new system for monitoring space debris, says the magazine New Scientist. Results of the competition will be concluded in 2010.

Development of the new system will take three aerospace companies: Northrop Grumman, Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon. Command of U.S. Air Force has provided each of them 30 million dollars.

The new system will be an «electronic fence». It will determine under what angle and at what point in orbit satellites and space debris particles pass a given point in space. Using these data, scientists can calculate the probability of collisions of different objects.

As the development of near space, the amount of debris around the Earth is growing rapidly. According to the latest figures, around our planet is drawn about 16 thousand particles larger than 10 centimeters. Clashes with «artificial satellites» represent a serious hazard to space technology.

In February 2009, over Siberia for the first time encountered two satellites. As a result of their meeting in the orbit of Earth was about 1500 particles larger than 10 centimeters. Two years earlier, China now joins warehouse space debris in 2700 of large particles, shooting down a satellite of its own ballistic missiles.

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