The debris could shatter into more pieces or change orbit and be on a collision course with something else.

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This would involve launching a spacecraft able to give the asteroid a nudge to change its orbit.

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Although the predicted distance between the debris and the satellite seemed to preclude a collision, the fact that the close approach happened within 10 seconds of the change in orbit made the Feng Yun 1C debris the likely culprit, Kelso wrote in a blog post.

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It was February 4 when two scientists with the Institute for Precision Instrument Engineering in Moscow noticed a change in the orbit of the satellite, known as BLITS, Kelso said.

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The intervening weeks will be spent in a manoeuvre called aerobraking, which involves using the air-resistance of the thin Martian atmosphere to change the elliptical initial orbit into a circular one from which the planet's surface can be examined in detail.

ECONOMIST: Mars Odyssey

For the second time in only two years, a strategically-significant NASA satellite designed to fill critical gaps in our understanding of climate-change crashed and burned before reaching orbit.

FORBES: The Failure of Climate Science, One Satellite At A Time

The fact that different bodies in the solar system change their relative positions as they orbit the sun will, Dr Hooke concedes, complicate routing a bit: when the earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun, for example, it might be best to send e-mail via Venus.

ECONOMIST: An interplanetary Internet: The wire of the worlds | The

"When somebody makes a cheap, reusable launch vehicle that can get up to orbit, all sorts of things will change, " Carmack says.

FORBES: Rocket Man

The other satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, failed to reach orbit in February 2009, dealing a dramatic blow to climate-change researchers around the world.

FORBES: The Failure of Climate Science, One Satellite At A Time