The Issue Of Space Debris

The United States of America relies heavily on its ability to operate in the most contested and most undetermined domain, space. The space domain is one of the newest domains that the United States finds itself contending in, desperate to combat the unknown or unforeseen. The battle ground is the contentious and hugely unknown areas that float above the heavens. The soldiers the best and brightest engineers and physicists that the world has ever known. The front lines are the exponentially long math equations that produce precise launch equations that place objects in orbit around our Earth. Those objects are satellites and their functions are as numerous as the varieties of their uses multiplied by the nations that own them. They control everything from the precise time that is printed on your Starbucks receipt to the exact location that a Tomahawk cruise missile destroys its target. Space based technology is interwoven throughout our government, the military, the U.S. economy, but it’s also provides a level of peace and security to the American people. Even though the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 strictly prohibits the militarization of space, the U.S. Department of Defense has a strategic obligation to protect the U.S. Space Program from its near peer adversaries because of the impacts on the global economy and to the security of United States citizens.

Jim Sciutto conducted a 1-hr documentary on the inevitable war in space. Sciutto interviewed more than ten national security, defense and high-ranking military personnel to include the entire chain of command for space warfare. Sciutto explains that American (citizens, military, and government) depends on our satellites every day. However, our adversaries are targeting America's satellites and are preparing to disarm America from her satellites usage with weapon systems such as lasers, kamikaze satellites, and even kidnapper satellites.

Today, speeding past our Earth ten times faster than a bullet (tweentribune), are millions of pieces of space junk ranging in size from flecks of paint to entire Satellites (NASA). To most people this does not sound like much of a problem, but even a fleck of paint moving 17,500 miles per hour or more can cause significant damage to spacecraft and space walkers alike. As more collisions take place and as new items enter the atmosphere the statistical probability of a collision will increase. Eventually, the probability of a collision will become so high that it will be unsafe to enter space from Earth (NASA). Now, as discussion of colonizing Mars intensifies, space junk has a new way of spreading and clogging up more of the universe. When humans colonize Mars they will

Space Trash is a problem in the universe, Because if you drop something that you can't get back for awhile. Space trash is most common for tiny rocks floating, astronauts tools and also they're gloves and stuff to clean off the ship.

To begin with, some people believe that something needs to be done about the debris in space. This trash is space is dangerous to Earth and has already been a threat. According to DOGOnews, “The biggest threat came in July 2011 when scientists noticed American satellite UARS hurtling down. Fortunately, the minivan-sized debris landed in a remote region and caused no harm.” If the debris would’ve landed in a different area, it could’ve caused a lot of damage and harm to people, as well as homes, buildings, cars, etc. People think that something needs to be done about this problem. There has been many ideas and attempts to design a

Orbital debris, which are different than space debri, pose a threat to space missions and astronauts. Manny previous missions have left orbital debris in their wake. Most of the debris are left up there until they are pulled toward earth by gravity and then destroyed by earth 's atmosphere. Until then the space junk is left to orbit around the earth. The amount of debri continues to grow quicker than the earth can destroy it. Leaving the debri to sit up there unchecked poses dangers for astronauts and space missions both current and future. There are several solutions that scientists have come up with that could help reduce the danger of space debris.

Space debris includes both natural and artificial particles [2]. Nature particles such as meteoroids are orbiting the Sun while artificial particles are orbiting the Earth. Therefore, Man-made space debris is more commonly referred as orbital debris, space junk and space waste. Orbital debris is the product of space race. In October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik 1 was launched into space [1]. Orbital debris started at that point. They are the “garbage” that people left in the space. Some of them are left in space intentionally, such as abandoned rocket stages and the debris intentionally released during missions; others are left in space accidentally, such as nonfunctional spacecraft,

Thus, what we commonly refer to as orbital debris is the man-made debris. Technically, it is defined as any space object made by human beings, which previously orbits around the Earth and is currently out of function. The sizes of space debris can also vary from the size of a marble to a much greater size. Thus, besides the currently observed space debris, there are actually also another millions of space debris which are so tiny that we cannot keep track of them. However, even though some space debris is extremely small, their potential power can never be underestimated. Travelling at such a high speed, they can cause serious damages to any spacecraft. According to the past journals of various space shuttles, their windows have been continuously damaged and forced to be replaced simply due to the collision from unknown space debris. Just as what Nicholas Johnson, a NASA chief scientist for orbital debris, once suggests, the space debris which cannot be tracked creates the largest risk to space missions.

The space debris is a serious problem that needs all the countries and organizations that launched or planning to launch to space to get attention with. If people are still despite the serious consequences caused by the space debris and no countermeasure are taken, the exponential growth of debris creates by the collision “would become too hazardous to continue space operation in low Earth orbit” (Whitehouse). In order to decrease the impacts of space debris, national space agencies and organizations need to devising plans or following some guidelines to cleanup the space debris or at least limiting the future space debris. The following paragraphs will explain what is space debris? Where they come from? Why they caused so many problems? Where they cause problems? Also the potential solutions for cleaning the debris.

Every time humans put a new satellite or orbital body into low earth orbit, space gets just a bit messier. Ejected rockets and broken pieces of debris litter the geosynchronous orbit of our planet, and each and every shard of metal that orbits earth proves a hazard to our satellites and astronauts currently in space. This problem has been growing for decades, and even scientists in the 1970s cared about the rapidly growing space debris problem. Even though the problem has been known for about 45 years, only minimal steps have been taken to reduce the ever-growing blanket of metal that surrounds our planet.

An over statement of the importance of the use of the Earth’s orbital space is not possible. It is very apparent that we as the human race, while broken up into many different countries, have grown accustom to the comforts, knowledge, and safety provided by the technology we launch into space. Examples of the benefits are cellphones, GPS for direction, environmental studies, weather forecasting, defense, and much more. However, with every placement of advanced technology into orbit the continuation of the ability to launch additional assets are at risk. The thousands of articles left behind following the launch of spacecraft or vehicles generate that risk. Over the past fifty plus years, the risk has increased exponentially. Donald Kessler, a NASA astrophysicist, shared his perception of such risk in 1978 (LaVone, 2014). Mr. Kessler theorized a self-sufficient event capable of eradicating viable assets within the condensed orbital space encompassing Earth. Mr. Kessler noted that the collision of defunct satellites or other objects left behind in space are capable of ensuing a chain reaction of epic magnitude. The focus of Kessler’s theory projected beyond the larger size debris but “emphasized the imminent danger of small debris in orbit” (LaVone, 2014). At the time only theory, but now more than likely possible. The preservation and continuation of space exploration have compelled other agencies,

Space debris can be categorized into two different groups which consist of both natural and artificial particles. Natural particles- meteoroids can be found only in orbit about the sun [1]. It is the opposite for artificial particles where these particles are only tracked within the orbits of earth. Hence, in this article, space debris will be referred to the artificial debris orbiting earth. Currently, there’re more than 500,000 pieces of debris found orbiting the earth and the number is increasing. Space debris’ size can ranged from sizes of marble till softball or even larger than this.

Space debris is collection of waste objects in space and encompasses both natural (meteoroids) and artificial particles. The artificial objects and particles in orbit around Earth are referred as orbital debris. They are objects which no longer serve a useful function and include non-functional spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicle stages, mission-related debris, fragmentation debris, old satellites etc. These objects travel at speeds over 22,000 miles an hour (35,000 kilometres an hour). At such high velocity, even small junk can rip holes in a spacecraft or disable a satellite by causing electrical shorts that result from clouds of superheated gas. For most size regimes, the flux of orbital debris within 2000 km of the Earth’s surface already exceeds the flux of meteoroids.

Since the early years of the space age in 1957, scientists have immensely contributed to our understanding of the Solar System and beyond by conducting numerous space missions. However, with Earth’s atmosphere encircled by debris from defunct space crafts, the future of the space exploration may be at great risk. Space debris, or “space junk” is the waste byproduct of non-functioning spacecraft and spacecraft fragments in Earth’s orbit (NASA 2017). This paper examines the origin of space debris, how debris threatens the future of spaceflight, and possible measures to mitigate the effects of space debris.

Large debris is defined as any junk larger than 10 centimeters. Encounters with large space debris are not rare events to astronauts working in space. On several notable occasions, large debris has hit or has nearly hit space crafts. The first collision to be clearly identified was in 1996, when the operational Cerise, a French military satellite, collided with a large piece of junk from a disintegrated Ariane rocket (Reichhardt 2009). The impact cut into a 20-foot portion of Cerise’s gravity gradient stabilization boom. The Cerise satellite luckily survived, despite the sustained damage. Moreover, several space crafts have had to perform collision-avoidance maneuvers to escape collision with large space debris. For example, in 2014, debris from the defunct Russian satellite, Cosmos-2251, nearly collided with the International Space Station (Pardini et al. 2017). The International Space Station, however, was able to fire all of its thrusters quickly enough to avoid the collision.