http://www.slashgear.com/iss-orbit-raised-to-avoid-chinese-satellite-fragment-31211358/ Feeding Your Gadget and Tech Obsessions Tue, 15 May 2012 14:06:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.slashgear.com/iss-orbit-raised-to-avoid-chinese-satellite-fragment-31211358/#comment-177991 Iss_observer Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000 http://www.slashgear.com/?p=211358#comment-177991 The ISS continuously loses altitude because of atmospheric drag (at 400 km above the surface it is not completely above Earth’s atmosphere). So the orbit has to be raised every few weeks, even without debris. Here is a graph showing the altitude over the last year. The large raise in June was after the last visit by a space shuttle. 
http://heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

]]> http://www.slashgear.com/iss-orbit-raised-to-avoid-chinese-satellite-fragment-31211358/#comment-177992 Iss_observer Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000 http://www.slashgear.com/?p=211358#comment-177992 The ISS continuously loses altitude because of atmospheric drag (at 400 km above the surface it is not completely above Earth’s atmosphere). So the orbit has to be raised every few weeks, even without debris. Here is a graph showing the altitude over the last year. The large raise in June was after the last visit by a space shuttle. 
http://heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

]]> http://www.slashgear.com/iss-orbit-raised-to-avoid-chinese-satellite-fragment-31211358/#comment-177993 Iss_observer Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000 http://www.slashgear.com/?p=211358#comment-177993 The ISS continuously loses altitude because of atmospheric drag (at 400 km above the surface it is not completely above Earth’s atmosphere). So the orbit has to be raised every few weeks, even without debris. Here is a graph showing the altitude over the last year. The large raise in June was after the last visit by a space shuttle. 
http://heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

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