• Question: what would happen if our satelite got hit by a meteor? would we no longer be able to fix it or make another one

    Asked by theboss123 to Dilwar, Lou, Simon, Susan on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hey theboss!
      We have lots of satellites – they are used for so many things such as TV, the internet, mobile phones and weather forecasting.
      If one did get hit by a meteor, then I think there’s a good chance it would be completely broken and we wouldn’t be able to repair it, but the good news is we have others we could use instead, so I don’t think it would affect us too much.
      Actually the meteors are not so far from the surface of the Earth, when you compare the distance to the distance to the moon, or even the sun, so I don’t think there is too big a chance of them getting hit by a meteor!

    • Photo: Simon Langley-Evans

      Simon Langley-Evans answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hey theboss- good to talk to you earlier. I enjoyed that chat.

      I think that Susan has answered the first part of that one for you pretty well. You did ask about repairing satellites though. There have been some missions to repair satellites using the Space Shuttle. A few years ago they did a major mission to correct a problem with the Hubble Space Telescope. Now that the Shuttles have been retired we can no longer do repairs, so any satellites that become damaged would have to be replaced at huge expense.

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