An SSTL-built satellite made history in 1996 as the first officially registered surviving victim of a space-debris impact.
The Cerise microsatellite bus, made for Alcatel Espace and the French ministry of defence, was launched into a 700km polar orbit in July 1995, riding piggyback on the Ariane 40 model which placed France's Helios reconnaissance satellite into space. The Cerise carried out broadband radiometric measurements in a research programme that may lead to an operation electronic intelligence-gathering satellite.
On 24 July, 1996, a 1m, irregularly shaped piece of a third stage of the Ariane 40 booster which launched the Spot 1 remote-sensing satellite into polar orbit in 1986 (and which had exploded after its residual propellant overheated) smashed into the mid-section of the 6m-tall stabilisation boom of the Cerise at a speed of 14km/s (31,000mph), vaporising it and creating a new piece of debris in the form of the severed forward section of the boom. If the impact had been 3m lower, the Cerise would have been totally destroyed. It was remarkable good fortune.
Nonetheless, the Cerise tumbled end-over-end, out of control. SSTL's mission control centre in Guildford re-programmed the satellite's computer with new attitude-control software and re-oriented the spacecraft, relying solely on the craft's electromagnets. "Effectively, the craft basically lost its rudder but still had rotational control," Sweeting says.
The Cerise continues to function today, but the incident illustrated graphically the dangers of accumulating space debris and the potential of "cascade effect" of the creation of debris as the result of satellite collisions.
Source: Flight International
