We humans have a bad habit of leaving a trail of junk in our wake, and with human activity in space at an all-time high, this problem extends to outer space.
Since 1957, potential waste has been traced to every satellite launched into space. A dead satellite has nowhere to go and continues its orbit, with small pieces scraped off its body.
As of January 2022, more than 9,000 tons of space junk are orbiting Earth. This includes non-functioning spacecraft, abandoned rocket stages, mission-related debris, and fragmented debris.
Additionally, China’s 2007 anti-satellite test, which used missiles to destroy an old weather satellite, added more than 3,500 pieces to space alone.
The odds of an accidental collision between two large objects in space are extremely low, but in 2009 the working American satellite Iridium 33 and the defunct Russian military satellite Cosmos 2251 accidentally collided.
Large debris from both these events still accounts for one-third of all known space debris. There are now known to be over 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm in space, of which over 100 million particles are larger than 1 mm.
Most orbital debris resides within 2,000 km of the Earth’s surface, with maximum concentrations of debris around 750-1,000 km. Above 1,000 km altitude, orbital debris typically continues to orbit the Earth for more than 1,000 years.
So the Earth is surrounded by a shell of debris, orbiting at a speed of about 7-8 km/s.
Threat of space debris
The biggest risk posed by space debris is the potential damage to valuable space equipment. The average speed at which orbital debris collides with another space object is about 10-15 km / s, which is more than 10 times faster than her for a bullet.
Also, debris left in orbit below 600 km typically falls back to Earth within a few years, posing a danger to people on Earth.
Most of the falling debris will not survive re-entry into Earth, but due to severe heating, those that do can fall into the ocean or sparsely populated areas such as the Canadian tundra, the Australian Outback, and Siberia. Most sexual.
Over the last 50 years, an average of 1 piece of debris has returned to Earth every day. None of these have yet caused serious injury or property damage, but they are still possible.
When it comes to space debris, it’s the millimeter-sized ones that pose the greatest risk to human spaceflight and robotic missions.
what is being done about it?
Over 27,000 space junks are tracked by the US Department of Defense’s Global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors.
An increase in space debris increases the potential danger to all spacecraft, including the International Space Station (ISS) and other human-occupied spacecraft such as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
If an object is expected to approach within a few kilometers of the ISS, the station will typically move away from it if the chance of collision is greater than 1 in 10,000.
The ISS is the most heavily shielded spacecraft ever flown, with critical components such as habitable compartments and high-pressure tanks capable of withstanding debris impacts as large as 1 cm in diameter.
NASA assesses the threat of space debris by drawing a fictitious “pizza box” around the ISS. Mission Control Centers in Houston and Moscow work together to develop a prudent course of action when a tracked object is predicted to pass in close enough proximity.
Just last month, a planned spacewalk was postponed, and the ISS decided to conduct a pre-determined debris avoidance maneuver (PDAM) to create extra distance between the station and debris. .
A Preemptive Solution to Space Debris
Operations to avoid debris are possible, but a better way to tackle the problem is to prevent the unnecessary creation of orbital debris in the first place. This can be achieved through careful vehicle design and operation.
“We need to find the right mechanism to clean up the object so that it leaves less debris when it’s launched into space. And if possible, build a better spacecraft that cleans itself up.” How can we do that?” Sarah Al-Amiri, United Arab Emirates Space Commission Chair Agency, told Metro.co.uk.
But asking manufacturers to add new technology to spacecraft will add cost and feature limitations, limiting people’s access to space, she adds.
“But I believe that with true innovation, we can find new technologies that we don’t think exist today.
NASA has issued requirements governing spacecraft design and operations to curb the growth of orbital debris.
Russia, China, Japan, France, and the European Space Agency all publish orbital debris mitigation guidelines.
“I think we need to make sure the universe is clean, so we can achieve the ecosystem we want in the universe,” said Erika Wagner of Blue Origin.
“So we need a regulatory framework to support it, a technology to enable it, and an economic driver to really tie them together,” she said, noting that Blue Origin looks forward to launching these technologies into space. I added that I am.
With space travel likely to become more mainstream in the next decade, solving the space debris problem will become more pressing than ever.
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