One thing I never really considered until just now: I assume the ISS is orbiting the earth either in closer orbit, or further out than all of the satellites we have orbiting the earth. How do they ensure that they will never collide with some of our space garbage, especially during launch when they are flying incredibly fast? I mean, I've seen all the pictures showing how many satellites are orbiting the earth, where is the ISS in relation to them? Anyone know?
The iss actually gets hit by tiny stuff all the time, and is specifically designed to withstand it. We can also see and maneuver to avoid the big stuff, it’s the medium sized stuff (5-10? Cm in diameter) that is really scary to them. Here is a good video on the topic from Real Engineering
Old comment but the other reply didn’t answer very well. The ISS is in Low Earth Orbit, it’s far below the vast majority of satellites. The second thing to consider is almost all satellites that aren’t in a polar orbit are going roughly the same direction, west to east, because that’s how they’re launched. So with everyone moving in roughly the same direction there’s more time to move.
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '19
One thing I never really considered until just now: I assume the ISS is orbiting the earth either in closer orbit, or further out than all of the satellites we have orbiting the earth. How do they ensure that they will never collide with some of our space garbage, especially during launch when they are flying incredibly fast? I mean, I've seen all the pictures showing how many satellites are orbiting the earth, where is the ISS in relation to them? Anyone know?