re: #56 Bubblehead II

Looks like the Fermi Gamma-Ray space telescope had a close call last year.

NASA has released rare details of a near miss between a delicate space telescope and a disused Cold War spy satellite.

Julie McEnery, project scientist for NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, was alerted to the threat when she received an automatic warning generated by the space agency’s Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) on 29 March, 2012.

It predicted that Fermi was just a week away from a perilously close encounter with Cosmos 1805, a one-and-a-half tonne Russian spy satellite launched in 1986 which was whizzing around the world at 15,000 mph (24,140km/h). A direct hit would have resulted in an explosion with the force of almost three tonnes of explosive, more than enough to obliterate both spacecraft.

NASA boffins?