Leonid Conference Participants Ask:
"Were We Lucky Last Year?"

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (5/16/99) -- "Were we lucky last year?"

That is a question asked at the second Leonid Meteoroid and Satellite Threat Conference held May 11-13 in Manhattan Beach, California.

The answer--"maybe"--was about as clear cut as possible given the unpredictability of meteor showers.

About 100 satellite owners and operators from the international space community attended the event, sponsored by The Aerospace Corporation and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. These included civil, commercial and military participants.

None reported damage to their satellites from the Nov. 1998 Leonids shower, though there were reports of impacts from the tiny but zippy particles that make their presence known every 33 years or so.

Because the Leonids, the fastest meteoroids that visit Earth, normally occur with strength in pairs of years, preparations are being made for the 1999 event.

And some scientists at the conference predicted a more intense bombardment on Nov. 17/18 than was experienced last year at the same time.

This Year?

At least two conference presenters predicted a storm-level concentration of meteoroids for Nov. 1999. But even at storm-level, the consensus was that the 650 operational satellites on orbit will not be significantly threatened, though the uncertainty factor leaves open the possibility.

Satellite controllers said they will be making plans for this year's event based on their experience in 1998 and on what they learned at the conference where a great deal of information was shared. Most operators said they will make adjustments and improvements to their plans.

The 1998 Leonid shower galvanized those in the satellite community to action and a new awareness about threats from the space environment has emerged. One scientist at the conference said the 1998 event was "a wakeup call" for satellite operators. This wakeup call and the response by the satellite community represented "the real success" achieved, another participant said.

Space Weather

Included in this year's conference was a session on solar activities and the significant threat posed by the solar maximum due in the spring-to-summer period in 2000.

David K. Lynch, Ph.D., technical chair of the conference, announced that another Leonids conference will be held in 2000 with increased emphasis on the areas of space weather, space debris and satellite operations.

Meanwhile, scientists who monitored the Leonids in 1998 from Mongolia, Australia, the air and other locations said they plan to repeat their exercises this year, once again employing sophisticated sensors and cameras.

Called For

Among actions called for at the conference were:

• establishment of an independent "clearinghouse" for collection and distribution of information on meteoroids and other threats from the space environment
• creation of better meteoroid prediction models
• more focus on the role of sporadic meteoroids
• a satellite-based meteor-watch capability
• new techniques to track meteoroids