The colfision of two communications-satellites on 10 February has significantly increased the risk to Europe's Earth-observing programme. The European Space Agency's ERS-2 and Envisat missions are 30% more likely to face a catastrophic impact from space debris in the wake of the collision, according to Heiner Klinkrad, head of ESA's Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany. The absolute risk remains small, but there were seven 'near misses' last year in which objects passed within 200 metres of the satellites. The satellites provide a range of environmental data, including in the case of Envisat some measurements of carbon-dioxide levels similar to, although less precise than, those that were expected from NASA's lost Orbiting Carbon Observatory (see "NASA ponders 'carbon copy' of crashed mission", above).
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