Closest Encounter With Space Junk

[bobert577]

So recently I was launching a space plane on top of a rocket and a piece of launcher debris from the solar module of my Meersinke Space Station missed me by 53m! So this got me to wondering, has anyone else had any close encounters with space junk or even collided with space junk? Feel free to post stories/pictures, I would love to hear from all of you!

[DisarmingBaton5]

I had an upper stage miss my station by 30m (estimate, I do not know exactly how close) a few weeks ago. Remember, folks: retract your solar arrays!

[WooDzor]

I am flying space junk 8-)

[espm400]

Although technically not 'space junk,' I got nailed by on of those RemoteTech 'MiniSats,' or whatever they're called. Long story short, I was launching eight into the same LKO so that I could launch probes without having to activate any long-distance coms until I was in orbit. After getting most into orbit I needed a bathroom break, during which, I left the game running. When I had returned my ship was in pieces and I couldn't figure out why. After looking at the map screen and counting my satellites, and then looking at the mission log, my only possible conclusion was that one of those minisats had slammed into the fuel tank of my ship. Wish I would have actually seen it though...

[pslytely psycho]

Had a mysterious ship disassembling explosion at about 110k with a rocket that is one of my 'standard' (read: actually reliable) sub-assembly. Suddenly a quarter of it (Quad assembly) just exploded while coasting to Apoapsis. I didn't have time to get pictures, but did get everyone back on the ground alive.

Later I noticed the satellite I had orbiting at 110k (One of my first) was missing in the tracking center. I assume that I collided with it.

[Flixxbeatz]

I have set my maximum persistent debris to 0. What is this closest encounters you speak of?

[Snarfield]

My first manned mission to Laythe ended abruptly when the ship collided with a rather large satellite orbiting Eve (I was using Eve's gravity to help with the Jool transfer). Long story short, the collision destroyed about 75% of the satellite (no longer usable), and the entirety of the manned spacecraft was destroyed with the exception of the command module, which contained 3 Kerbals. Interestingly enough, the command module was still in orbit, but it's PE was inside the atmosphere. Using the mod that lets you launch rockets from other planets, I sent a rescue craft into orbit, rendezvoused with the capsule, but could only get 2 of the 3 Kerbals on the ship before I had to abandon the capsule and the remaining Kerbal. (By the time I rendezvoused with the capsule, it's AP was so low that the next pass through the atmosphere would deorbit it, and I didn't want to lose the rescue craft by following it.) R.I.P. Bildrin Kerman.

[The Destroyer]

Well I had 2 satalites that came a kilometer or so close to eachother, one going north-south, one going equaterual

[Crown]

Once I was hit by my own ship.

I had a space craft in an inclined orbit with the same orbit parameters as my space station. But I forgot that I had it in orbit.

While doing some stuff on the space station the game suddenly became laggy and then I had a space station in pieces. Good thing I quicksaved.

The other time a real piece of debris came close to me less than 2.2km during a rocket launch. Was kinda scarry.

[Coneshot]

I had a booster whiz past me out of nowhere on an ascent.. it hadn't come from that launch.

[spikeyhat09]

I can honestly say I have never had any close encounters with space debris.

[SkyRender]

My closest near-miss was with a ship headed for the Mun from a geosynchronous station. I hadn't really properly adjusted heading to account for the fact that the Mun was right in the path of the station the ship had left a while ago, so the ship basically buzzed the station going 200m/s relative to it, literally less than 10m away at closest approach. I'm sure coffee cups were spilled over shirt fronts at mission control over that one.

[Rakshasa]

I have set my maximum persistent debris to 0. What is this closest encounters you speak of?

That's taking the safe non-kerbal route... Personally I set debris to max and make sure all booster stages are in degrading orbits and/or deorbit them with probe modules.

[Merinsan]

I had one encounter that was so close you could literally reach out and touch it. The relative velocity must have been a few hundred m/s, and I only saw it for a few frames (until I turned the camera). Gave me a heart attack at the time.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I've been hit with debris with my debris removal system (a giant plate flying through space)

Although not with debris, but I've got a satellite in a 2:3 orbital resonance with another satellite, so I pass within 30 metres

Of it every 12ish hours.

[lammatt]

that's why i always sunbeam or lazor missile the debris when i ditch them...(or whack a kerbal if i dun have them on board)

[Oxytropis]

it was part of the ship so no its not technecially SPACE DEBRIS

forward to around the 2 min mark Edited July 23, 2013 by Oxytropis

[F1refly]

I hot hit by one of my aborted satelites (a satelite I forgot to put solar panels on). Luckily though this was one of my armored probes for the Mun but it did take off a landing leg. Still landed nicely though

[CalculusWarrior]

I accidently put an interplanetary ship into a retrograde orbit for refueling in LKO, and while I did not actually collide with any debris, the sight of pieces of old ships whizzing by at 4.5 km/s was enough to switch my orbit to a prograde one. Seriously, it is scary to watch that grey debris marker fly by. O_o

[Evan]

The launcher I use for my station assembly as well as my station resupply vessels all have fairings/tanks/etc that are ejected near the station in orbit. After all those missions, it has gotten pretty exciting when I launch to a station rendezvous. Right before the circularization-to-rendezvous burn, 40 or so pieces of debris fly past my ship at 2.5km/s while I'm going about 1 km/s. One of these days something spectacular will happen!

[1D-1()T]

The most I've ever had is a couple of KM, but it's creepy. I've been meaning to make a spaceplane with some sepatron missiles to destroy all of my LKO space junk.

[RogueMason]

There was the time I decoupled a stage that was still hurtling towards the target ship at 400ms. This one got right between me and the target, and I was about 150m from the ship; that was terrifying when I saw it fly past. However, it wasn't a chance encounter with some random debris already in orbit, which is why I shall say my other closest encounter was, I think, 3km away.

[Sof]

When I jettisoned my ascent stage, KSP immediately flagged it as debris and that was 0 metres away from the rest of the rocket for a few milliseconds.

[Gargamel]

Not quite junk, but while launching a section of my station, I mistimed the launch window, and as coasted to ap, the station decide to enter the same space.

I called it docking with emphasis.

[AfailingHORSE]

Only really two come to mind.

One was when I was make a interplanetary burn for a Laythe colony ship, normally I do all the node work my self but the ship was pretty big and laggy so I let mechjeb do it for me. Then out of no where an old interplanetary drive slammed into ship taking out the pilot and the colony habitation modules with all 24 colonists in it, none survived. That was a frustrating moment seeing as the next craft to be launched was one to recover that spent drive.

The second time really cant be called space debris, but it was still an unwanted encounter. I was setting up a support station in eve orbit, I was bringing the last piece into the station, I was doing my eve capture (for me that was creating an eccentric orbit as soon as I hit the encounter then coasting down to periapsis to circularize) all the while explaining the game to my younger cousin. I got up to go greet some more family that just came over, and when I got back to told me he was practicing with the game and told me he did not hit the shift key or space bar. I checked my resources and noticed that my mono propellent was lower, until the crash I just thought that he played with WASD with RCS on. Thinking nothing was wrong I started to time warp down to periapsis, when suddenly, Gilly. Remember when I said I though he was playing with WASD? Well I was wrong, turns out he found the translation controls, I knew I was going to come close to Gilly, I promised I would show him it we came in to circularize, and he moved the ship enough to hit Gilly. Fortunately this was a fairly routine station assembly launch and it was unmanned.