Because we can't see the smaller stuff, NASA predicts where it is but avoiding it is nearly impossible right now. If we know where it is, we can move to avoid running into it, Percy says.
In the U.S., the Department of Defense tracks it. The big stuff we have a pretty good handle on, as far as where it is, Percy says. Yet small debris has the greatest potential to damage working satellites, rockets in flight or even the ISS. "We can't see that stuff from the ground, we can't see it with radar and we can't see it with satellites," Percy says. Think Skylab, big parts of which were strewn across Australia, if it had landed in New York.īut the biggest worry for satellites operating in orbit comes from the smaller debris, the stuff that's 1 centimeter to 10 cm in size - from marble to softball sized. Larger objects are more likely to have parts survive re-entry, posing a potential risk to people on the ground. "What we're really concerned about is the big stuff that comes in uncontrolled and breaks up in the atmosphere into big chunks," Percy says. Cosmos was Russian space junk and no longer actively controlled.įrom the perspective of populated areas on Earth, big space junk is a worry. Iridium was an operational communications satellite. In 2009, the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites hit in the first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact artificial satellites in Earth orbit. That's one way Percy says we get large space debris from dead satellites, along with spent rocket stages and panels and other big parts that come off in flight, or when space junk collides with other space junk or orbiting working satellites.
Satellites now in orbit have been designed to carry a bit more fuel in their tanks for use when they get old, to propel them into an orbit where they will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up within 25 years or so.īut because the current standards for being a good space neighbor by taking out your garbage are guidelines rather than mandates, there's nothing in place now to prevent the owner of a communications satellite from using that last bit of fuel to reboost its orbit and add more years to its longevity. Time is also a factor that can work against proper disposal of satellites nearing the end of their lives. It was the second time in three weeks ISS had to sidestep space junk.Įverything that gets shot into low Earth orbits eventually becomes junk - even, one day, ISS itself. In early April, according to news reports, the International Space Station (ISS) had to change position to avoid a space debris field of parts from an old Ariane 5 rocket launched by the European Space Agency that came within 1,000 feet of the station. "How do we bring the discussion to a subset of solutions we can ultimately implement?" "I saw a need in the space community, with my systems engineering background, to walk people through the thought processes of how you apply a systems engineering approach to policy questions," Percy says. "Investigation of National Policy Shifts to Impact Orbital Debris Environments" is published in Space Policy. Brian Landrum, of a paper that outlines methods and policies that could be employed to mitigate space debris. Percy is the primary author with his advisor, UAH Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering professor D. "Debris is the hot topic that nobody wants to touch," says Tom Percy. The biggest-sized junkyard in the world orbits it, and a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) aerospace systems engineering graduate student says it's time to get active about reducing the debris field before we reach a tipping point beyond which we may not be able to do much.
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