As people around the world continue to enjoy access to new technologies, such as smartphones and other smart devices, one result has been an increase in satellites entering orbit around our planet. There are more than 8261 active satellites in Earth’s orbit today. Today, Earth’s orbit has reached a saturation point with the potential for space debris to be a hazard to numerous spacecraft.
What is space junk?
Space junk consists of all objects that have been abandoned in space by spaceports and other orbiting manufacturing facilities. It can range from the smallest flecks of paint that outweigh litter on the ground to large pieces of rocket or satellite debris as large as an airplane. The debris can be oriented vertically or horizontally, depending on its type and orientation at launch. The problem grows quickly due to the ever-increasing number of space-bound devices being deployed by governments and private industry.
This article is about the environmental impact of space junk, increasing day by day. This article aims to discuss possible solutions for cleaning up space junk and the benefits of making spacecraft less destructive toward Earth.
What are the risks of space junk?
The growing problem of space junk poses serious risks to all space regions. For example, satellites are used for weather monitoring and military reconnaissance, but they can also be harmful when they act as space junk. When a satellite creates a collision in orbit, the resulting debris is much harder to clean up and remove from orbit than if it were on the ground. In fact, NASA estimates that there are enough pieces of space junk already orbiting Earth to fill five Empire State buildings, each more than 1 million cubic feet, more than the total volume of office buildings built in the United States since 1990.
Who is responsible for cleaning up space junk?
Space debris is a global problem affecting any spacecraft operating in Earth orbit or beyond. In order to develop a global solution, the world needs to work together. NASA is developing procedures such as guidelines and best practices that could help reduce the risks of space debris and could be used by satellite operators around the world.
How does space junk affect our daily lives?
The use of satellites in modern society has changed dramatically in recent years. With more satellites come more opportunities to improve communications and access to new information around the world. However, the increased use of space technology has also caused more potential space junk to be launched into orbit around Earth.
One example of space junk is the “Skylab” Projector Lens that was launched in 1973 and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in 1979. Because of this lens, many people around the world grew up with Moon pictures from the Skylab experiments that were visible from some viewpoints on Earth.
Imagine a building or your home that has windows on the outer walls. When you look out those windows, it’s not hard to see the scenery and clouds outside. Now imagine that all of a sudden, four pieces of space junk (about the size of trailers) collide with your roof and fall through four different windows into your living room. The space junk, much like the four trailers, will damage anything in its path as it falls to Earth.
These collisions only increase, as more devices are launched into space each year. This would cause more people to lose a life by getting hit by a piece of falling debris because their neighbor satellite collided with their satellite in orbit above their own heads.
What is the solution?
A solution to this growing problem requires a global effort to prevent debris from entering Earth’s orbit. Without a global solution, many orbiting devices will continue to collide with each other and risk our safety, the safety of future satellites, and even the environment as we know it.
Space junk can pose a threat to all spacecraft operating in Earth orbit; to stop this increasing threat countries must work together toward slowing the growth of space junk. This includes putting more objects into space and allowing satellite operators to follow guidelines that will help reduce the chances of collisions between satellites. This isn’t just about how we launch satellites into space anymore. It’s about how we manage and are safe for satellites that are in orbit currently.
How can we solve the problem of “space junk”?
NASA and other international organizations have been making great strides toward trying to solve the problem of space junk pollution. It’s important that we support these efforts by joining together to make a push toward creating a solution to the issue of space junk. If you would like to help fight against space junk, you can join one of several organizations working towards this cause.
The first step in the prevention of space junk is to dispose of things properly. A single piece of trash or an errant satellite can clutter up space and pose a threat to satellites in orbit. Once the first piece has been released into space, there is no way to make it disappear. The only option is to prevent future pieces from being released into space.
A satellite can be considered a “living” object. It’s not just a passive device anymore, but an active part of our everyday life. If something goes wrong with the rocket that carries it into space, it will continue to send data and help us for years to come. The next step of the solution is to ensure that these devices are reliable in the first place before they reach orbit. This could include further engineering and testing before launch or verifying that all components were designed safely before launch.
Once in orbit, satellites need regular maintenance and checks to ensure they are functioning properly and safe to use. This can include modified or new satellite designs or modifications to ensure that the device is safe, such as making sure that moving parts of the devices will not cause any harm. With a lot of testing and engineering, things might still go wrong. Things might break or move unexpectedly. There must be a way to dispose of satellites and other space junk when they are no longer useful to prevent these unpredictable circumstances. This could include ramming them into an asteroid field, so they burn up before they even reach Earth’s atmosphere.
If we’ve failed at all three of these points and a piece of debris is still in orbit, we need to search for it and track it so that we can avoid it when possible. It’s important that we keep up with space junk’s “live” status. This can be accomplished by tracking satellites as they work and by making sure that all satellites are logged into a database of their own location at any given time.
This type of preventative maintenance could help us avoid another Kessler syndrome or a point where the number of pieces in space is so large that we have to stop adding new objects to orbit. We prevent an imbalance in Earth’s orbit by preventing these collisions before they happen.
Tethers Unlimited Inc is a space technology company involved in several programs aimed at addressing some of the issues surrounding space junk. Tethers Unlimited Inc is working on potential solutions to the problem of space debris. The company has several projects aimed at addressing the risks posed by space debris. Space may need some help soon. Scientists have calculated that there are over ten million pieces of trash in slow and fast orbits around Earth.
