The Truth About Space Junk

 

space junk is one of the most  troublesome issues in space exploration  and  astronomy and worst of all that it's  caused by mankind and almost impossible  to solve we have a somewhat  risky environment almost all  professional sources have mentioned that  space debris is one of the most  terrifying sources of danger when  exploring space  in fact being hit by a sugar cube of  space debris is the equivalent of  standing next to an exploding hand  grenade  and the problem is only getting worse  with every passing year  the international space station has made  frequent moves to stop the space debris  problem  yet it's still turning out to be quite  difficult even with all their resources  at hand  space junk was on a collision course  with the international space station  spotted so late there was no time to  move out of the way  the probabilities are still in the red  threshold  and we are planning to have you shelter  in place for years now the iss has been  dodging collisions  some of the latest maneuvers took place  in april 2011 and january 2012  what may not be so obvious is that many  of these near misses are due to  fragments from a single event in 2009  that shocked the aerospace community for  example  on february 10th that same year the  defunct russian military communications  satellite cosmos 2251  struck the solar panel of a commercial  american communications satellite known  as iridium 33.  the panel shattered and iridium 33  tumbled out of control  cosmos 2251 disintegrated and this  caused a huge spatial catastrophe  sending out more than 2 000 pieces of  space debris with sizes larger than 10  centimeters  hurling out hundreds of thousands of  smaller fragments that cannot be tracked  from earth due to their small  size and that represents the main  problem with space debris  a single centimeter of fragment is  enough to heavily lacerate whole  satellites because of their laser fast  traveling speed  the energy of a collision is  overwhelmingly determined by the speed  at which things strike each other  and since these things are traveling so  fast they gain an incredible amount of  momentum due to the lack of friction in  space  and keep themselves in the same tidally  locked cycle of roaming around the earth  another problem with space debris is  also the wide variety of things that  you'll find up there in space  that includes obsolete spacecraft chunks  of satellites and rockets  momentum flywheels nuclear reactor cores  and fragments of rockets that have  broken up  or collided with other objects basically  space debris is anything that's been  created by man and that isn't  in active use and given the fact that  precisely pulling things out of space is  so difficult  it's almost impossible to attempt to  take out space debris without risking  being assaulted by it  and thus risking lives and creating even  more space debris in the process  sizes of space debris range from  microscopic particles to obsolete  spacecraft and rocket bodies that stand  several stories tall considering that a  tiny paint fleck in space  can crack a space shuttle window you can  imagine the damage caused by a giant  rocket fragment crashing into the u.s  national security satellite at 21 000  miles per hour  what makes space debris even more  dangerous is how most of the time  you won't be able to see it coming at  you space debris moves about 10 times  faster than a bullet  and no one can see a bullet coming  although debris smaller than one  millimeter in size  does not generally pose a hazard of  spacecraft it can still damage  optics and solar arrays so while a  spacecraft may survive  being hit by tiny debris such hits can  result in catastrophe  and mission failure so what are the  causes of space debris  why is there so much space debris up  there that makes things so complicated  for astronauts and space missions  object breakup as we mentioned in the  beginning is one of the major reasons of  space junk  as of august 2007 there have been 194  breakups and 51 events in which debris  was shed from an object  since that data compilation many more  are believed to have occurred  breakups can be caused by explosions and  collisions  explosions can result from residual  propellant overheated batteries  collisions  or in some cases deliberate destruction  of the satellite  the cause of approximately 22 percent of  observed breakups  is unknown approximately 70 000  objects of two centimeters in size have  been observed in the 850 to 1000  kilometer altitude band above earth  nasa has hypothesized that these objects  are frozen bits of nuclear reactor  coolant leaking from several russian  roarsats  also known as radar ocean reconnaissance  satellites  now what dangers could this pose to  future space missions and exploration  it should go without saying that  possible damage is massive  and all international space  organizations should work and strive to  work around them  the space shuttle endeavor is scheduled  to ferry the first u.s built component  to the international space station  in orbit several months from now a  steady stream of modules and structural  elements will follow over the next five  years  if the station remains in space it will  eventually collide with a piece of  debris  maybe by then this station will be empty  its human occupants moved on to other  pursuits  but maybe not some of the most  troublesome pieces up there are those  rockets and satellites that for whatever  reason have exploded in orbit  at the end of its life a spacecraft  contains a little bit of leftover  fuel from its launch or orbital  maneuvers the fuel tanks deteriorate  over time or  are punctured by debris the leftover  fuels mix together and  explode in the worst case on record the  explosion of a european ariane rocket  produced more  than 500 pieces of debris big enough to  disable a spacecraft  this is what originally caused the nasa  to pay attention to debris  a five-inch hole in the wall of a space  shuttle is enough to turn a mission into  a failure  and that's what a very small piece of  space junk can cause  imagine a bigger one today the risk of  such a disaster for a satellite or small  craft like a shuttle is relatively low  though mir the russian space station  launched in 1986 has been hit by objects  large enough to dent the inner wall of  the crew compartment  but the international space station much  larger than mirror will be a plump  target for debris  each decade that it's in orbit according  to a recent study the station will have  about a 20 percent chance of undergoing  a  critical penetration that could kill a  crew member or destroy the station  and the chances will increase as more  objects are launched into space  in contrast the chances of a commercial  airliner accident in the united states  are about one in 3 million  this eventually leads to a problem known  as a collisional cascade  a sort of domino effect with collisions  where one collision causes debris to fly  around and crash into another object  causing yet another collision explosion  more debris  and so on technically a cascade begins  only when a piece of debris formed in  one collision  causes a subsequent fragmentation as a  yet undocumented occurrence  but no one disputes that space is  becoming a more dangerous place  two years ago an old piece of an  unexploded rocket hit the boom of a  french communications satellite  sending the satellite tumbling though it  was eventually controlled the  possibility remains up in the air and  worrying  everybody many of the objects released  into space in the lowest orbits like  collins camera have fallen back to earth  the upper atmosphere where the space  shuttle flies gradually slows objects  down  they re-enter the atmosphere and burn up  within a few months or years  but a few hundred miles higher the  atmosphere is so thin that it isn't  effective for cleanup  spacecraft that are launched into orbits  at this height may stay there forever  space is after all not the friendliest  environment for earthlings and shuttles  so what are the solutions to the problem  we know it's a difficult situation given  all the tangents and variables and ways  that it could possibly go wrong  however this is an old problem and  humans have been pondering what they  should do to solve it for quite a while  one of the few solutions to this problem  will be launching special satellites to  clean up space  however this is not a one-size-fits-all  solution given that it can generate a  lot of controversy due to political  sensitivity  for example a satellite even a defunct  one remains the property of the people  who launched it  so you just can't start pulling objects  out of the sky even if they pose a  danger to your spacecraft  secondly there's an obviously military  side to all this  and that's not taking into account the  military aspect of it  we humans enjoy militarizing almost  anything that comes in contact with our  hands  that's why if someone had enough power  to pull out dead satellites from orbit  that method could also be used to take  down live ones as well  we know that space junk is a silent  catastrophe that might prove to be space  travel's undoing  if you enjoyed this article don't forget  to subscribe to our channel and to turn  on notifications for more great space  articles like this one  you