Space Junks : Bigger threat to future space missions!

As we celebrate the successful landing of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, TechStrip looks into the danger in-waiting for the future missions due to the millions of space junk revolving around our planet Earth.

“Space Junks” or “Space Waste” or more technically “Space Debris”, are the million of objects floating  orbit around our Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects are everything from released rocket stages and deactivated satellites.

The majority of the estimated tens of millions of pieces of space debris/space junk are small particles, less than 1 centimetre (0.39 in). These include dust from solid rocket motors, surface degradation products such as paint flakes, and coolant released by nuclear powered satellites.

Remember, there are other numerous active satellite and other rockets revolving around the orbit too. Hence there surely is a bigger risk involved in the existence of these junks as the orbits of these objects often overlap the trajectories of active objects, resulting in potential collision risk to operational spacecraft.

Let’s see some facts about these floating junks:

There are about 500,000 pieces of space junk, down to items about 0.5 inches (1.27 centimetres) wide in orbit. About 21,000 objects are larger than 4 inches (10.1 cm) in diameter, the number of particles smaller than 1 cm exceeds 100 million, and are being constantly tracked by the Department of Defence’s U.S. Space Surveillance Network.

These debris circle around the Earth at speeds of 7 to 8 km/s .The average impact speed of orbital debris after a collision with another space object will be approximately 10 km/s.

Vanguard 1, launched by the USA back in 1958, is the oldest piece of space junk. It stopped operating in 1964, but will continue orbiting Earth for 240 years.

There are more than 902 operational satellites that are orbiting Earth currently which are too small compared to the vast amount of junk debris and dead spacecraft that surrounds them.

Oh! So, are scientists aware of all these risks? Yes!

Back in 2011, U.S. National Research Council (NRC ) warned about the critical peak space research has reached due to these debris. The NRC report said, “The future space missions may become too dangerous to fly for a risk of colliding with space junks”

The report warned that, the debris are travelling in orbit at 17,500mph, at such a speed even a tiny clash can destroy a spacecraft.

The NRC strongly recommended that NASA should launch a plan to clean up all the floating debris and call on other major space nations' cooperation.

"The current space environment is growing increasingly hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts," said Kessler, an ex-NASA researcher, "NASA needs to determine the best path forward for tackling the multifaceted problems caused by these orbital debris that put human and robotic space operations at risk”, concluded the report.

Is Janitor Satellites a solution?

As a result of reports like these,  NASA reacted by actively exploring ways to clean up the outer space. Two current possible ideas for cleaning up space debris are the use of powerful lasers, whose projected laser beams would push the space junk into lower orbits to be burnt up, and the creation of a matrix of nets to catch some of the space junk.

Not just NASA but numerous other companies are also working on various space junks clean-up projects.

Star Technology and Research (STAR)  is  once such company recieving nearly $2 million from NASA to create a spacecraft called ElctroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE).

If successfully made and operated, EDDE would target non-functioning orbiting satellites that weigh one ton apiece.

The video explains the working of EDDE.

Scientists at the Swiss space centre want to send a cleaning satellite into orbit, to sweep up debris and permanently remove it from orbit.The £7 million worth  satellite, called CleanSpace One , could launch within five years.

 For its first mission, this will aim to bring down one of two abandoned Swiss satellites, the Swisscube picosatellite, which was launched into orbit in 2009, and  the TIsat, launched in July 2010.

Slowly, all the major space agencies have taken into consideration about the seriousness of the issue and preparing for the elimination of the stuff they're sending into space.

Spare a thought for the machines that got Curiosity to Mars, all that  are  space junk now.

Just getting a fell that by the time we get a manned mission to Mars, we will turn this into a junk yard planet.

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