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February 13, 2009
Satellite Crash Animation in 3D with Google Earth
The recent news about two satellites colliding, a Russian Cosmos 2251 and a US Iridium 33, can now be visualized in Google Earth. Thanks to the KML development efforts of James Stafford, you can use Google Earth's time animation feature to see the orbits of the two satellites from the six minutes before the impact until they meet. The file 
also includes one hour's worth of their orbital paths for some perspective. You can use the time slider in the upper left (on GE 5) to play the animation. James also has released a version that works in the browser seen here. Great work James! (Now I'm just waiting for another version using the GE 5 record tour version where the perspective is seen flying just behind one of the satellites, and the addition of the crash and resulting debris...)
Posted by FrankTaylor at February 13, 2009 12:37 PM
Comments
Posted by: fleet management software at February 10, 2010 10:31 PM
Google Earth's time animation.Great work.
Maybe we can find aliens and UFO with Google Earth.
Posted by: Animation Hunter at July 31, 2010 12:26 AM
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ive always wondered how long it would be before satellites starting colliding. with 27 for GPS, the Chinese adding more for Compass, Russians GLONASS and now the EUs Galileo I think we'll start to see more of this.
Apparently there is only room for a total of 49 MEO satellites - were fast running out room!