- Cerise (satellite)
-
A sketch of the event.
Cerise was a French military reconnaissance satellite. Its main purpose was to intercept HF radio signals for French intelligence services.[1] With a mass of 50 kg, it was launched by an Ariane rocket from Kourou in French Guiana at 17:23 UT, 7 July 1995.[1] Cerise's initial orbital parameters were period 98.1 min, apogee 675 km, perigee 666 km, and inclination 98.0 deg.[1]
It was hit by a catalogued space debris object from an Ariane rocket in 1996, making it the first verified case of a collision between two objects in space.[2]
The collision tore off a 4.2-metre (13-foot) portion of Cerise's gravity-gradient stabilization boom, which left the satellite severely damaged.[citation needed]
References
- ^ a b c "SPACEWARN Bulletin Number 501". NASA. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx501.html. Retrieved 2009-08-26.
- ^ "CO2 prolongs life of space junk". BBC News. 2005-05-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4486049.stm. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
External links
World Reconnaissance Satellites, excluding Russia and the United StatesCommercial Electro-opticalSynthetic Aperture RadarInternational Electro-Optical
BrazilIMINT
ChinaIMINTJSSW-3 · SJ-2 · DQ-1COMMFeng Huo-1 · ShenTong-1
FranceIMINTCerise · Clementine
GermanyIMINTCOMMTerraSAR-X · TanDEM-X
IndiaIMINTOtherRISAT-2
IsraelIMINTCOMMOther
ItalyIMINT
JapanIMINT
TurkeyIMINTGöktürk I · Göktürk IICOMM
TaiwanIMINT-COMMCategories:- Derelict satellites orbiting Earth
- French space program
- Spacecraft stubs
- European military stubs
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
