Martin X. Moleski, SJ wrote:
On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:50:45 +0000 (UTC), (Don Poitras) wrote in :

Was it somehow kept secret? I can't find any such news report. The last
one I remember was a year ago when the russian satellite hit an Irridium (sp?).

That's the only one I could find.

February 2009:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n4792976.shtml

I think that was a fairly low orbit. GPS is way up at 20,000 km.

The article above said ~491 miles up.

It's a big sky--but strange things do happen.

The Iridium and the Russian S/C were significantly lower than GPS...on
the order of 10,000 miles or more. Strange things do happen, but it
would take some incredible stretches of luck for a bit from the
collision to not only make it up high enough but to try pass through
space coinciding with the location of a GPS satellite. Now, after a
year, it's even less likely (any debris would have been in elliptical
orbit with a low perigee).

And what might have happened if we'd been incredibly unlucky? A single
GPS satellite might have failed. The system doesn't depend on single
satellites....

Ron Wanttaja