A small step for Israel brings to light a huge pile of space waste for mankind

When 6-year-old Libby heard about the Beresheet spacecraft project, Israel's private offer to send an unmanned landing gear to the moon was worried.

"He's going to die on the moon, mom?" She asked. "Alone?"

In fact, if everything goes as planned, Libby, Beresheet will never really die. And that can be a problem.

If successful, the craft launched Feb. 22 is expected to land in the sea of ​​the moon, April 11, between the huge remains of Apollo 12 and 15 landing modules.

After a few days of experimentation, the $ 100 million boat will become about as useful as a box of empty tuna, joining some 400,000 pounds (by weight of the Earth) of other debris. space scattered on the surface of the moon and thousands of floating bric-a-brac. above the earth.

Space experts around the world are increasingly concerned about the issue of "space debris", which includes the debris left by space missions, and, most worryingly, thousands of dead satellites in orbit around the world. the Earth and creating a huge traffic jam.

The Beresheet satellite, worth 370 million NIS ($ 100 million), is a joint venture between the private companies SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, funded almost entirely by private donations from well-known Jewish philanthropists and launched at the entrance of Israel in the Google LunarX challenge aimed at non-governmental groups. a spaceship on the moon. Google ended the contest in 2018 without a winner. With Beresheet, whose name means "Genesis" in Hebrew, Israel hopes to become the fourth country in the world to place a spacecraft on the moon, after the United States, Russia and China.

If Beresheet successfully lands on April 11th, the spacecraft should do two or three days of experiments to collect data on the magnetic fields of the moon before extinguishing. There, every 160 kilograms (350 pounds) of the refrigerator-sized boat will remain, probably for an eternity, on the surface of the moon.

He is not planning to bring him back to earth.

"It's up to our kids to figure out how to get it back," said Dr. Ofer Doron, General Manager, Space Division, Israel Aerospace Industries, at a press conference before the launch in February.

But many believe that leaving a mess on the moon to Libby and his friends to clean up is not a solution.

"If you envision the environment not only as the Earth, but as the solar system as a whole, we need to worry about it," said Professor Pini Gurfil, professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Asher Space Research Institute at Haifa Technion. "You never know what a piece of junk lying on the moon will have an impact on future science."

Dumpster diving on the moon

NASA has a 22-page list [PDF] of all the debris documented on the surface of the moon until 2012, including expected materials such as batteries, drills, fuel caps, generators and photographic equipment, as well as more surprising objects like golf balls, a javelin, wet wipes, multiple urine and stool collection bags, packaging for food assembly, towels, helmets, hammock assembly system, rake, 100 tickets $ 2, nail clippers and soap. It is the trash left by the Americans, mainly between 1969 and 1972.

India, Japan, China and the European Space Agency all have lunar orbits that have crashed into the moon, and the Russians are responsible for the debris of 22 lunar missions. An unmanned Chinese spacecraft landed on the other side of the moon in 2013 and stayed.

Among the most surprising objects left on the moon are golf balls, a javelin, wet wipes, multiple bags of urine collection and defecation, food wrappings, towels, helmets, a system assembly for hammocks, a rake, $ 100 2 bills, nail clippers and soap.

NASA considers that these rubbish is not waste, but rather archeology, said a NASA chief scientist at the LiveScience website. In addition, some of the experiments left on the surface of the moon, including a laser reflector, are still used. Scientists can use a reflector laser to measure the exact distance of the moon, which allowed them to understand that the moon is moving away from the Earth at a distance of 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) year.

All that remains on the moon should remain there very very long, said Gerhard Kminek, head of global protection at the European Space Agency.

Things do not really break down on the moon because "there is no real atmosphere on the moon (just a very, very tenuous [one] called exosphere), "Kminek wrote in an e-mail. Thus, the radiation could lead to a partial decomposition of plastics and micrometeorites could mark the spacecraft, but Beresheet should remain more or less intact, perhaps forever.

Kminek said that there is currently no space law regarding the pollution of the moon. Since the debris remains intact, the question of "contamination" must be interpreted.

Gurfil considers that any artificial debris on the moon is disturbing. "[Beresheet] tries to measure the moon's magnetic field, but if you have a piece of metal sitting there, it can change the measurements or composition of the moon's floor or even bacteria [from earth] could affect, you never know, "he said. The Asher Institute, of which Gurfil is the director, provided advice to the Beresheet project but was not directly involved.

But NASA scientists argue that the remains of Apollo left on the moon have allowed them to measure how materials withstand the test of time in space and, in some cases, as the laser reflector, continue to provide valuable data. It's hard to know how 50-year-old astronaut dung bags will be useful to future scientists.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (yes, there is a UNOOSA) ratified in 1967 an international treaty governing "the activities of States in the exploration and use of outer space". atmospheric". The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework for international space law and the final clause is that "States must avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies".

Israel ratified the Treaty on Outer Space and Other Subsequent Space Treaties, but has not ratified the 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and other celestial bodies, which specifically concerns any activity related to the Moon.

Traffic jam of the space

Space experts, including Gurfil, are actually less worried about the debris of the moon and much more worried about the thousands of missing satellites still orbiting the Earth.

The European Space Agency is organizing an international convention this week to explore the issue of space debris in Germany, in the hope of exploring non-legally binding regulations governing how countries dispose of satellites launched into orbit, said Kminek.

According to the European Space Association, there are at least 5,000 satellites in orbit around the Earth, but only 1,950 still operate. The space surveillance network tracks approximately 22,300 objects orbiting the Earth, but an estimated 34,000 objects are 10 centimeters or more, including parts of satellites that have become detached over time .

A collision between a functioning satellite and objects more than 10 centimeters (4 inches) would completely disable the satellite, but a collision with objects as small as 1 millimeter could still destroy some satellite subsystems, according to the Bureau. space debris from ESA. An estimated 128 million space debris, ranging in size from 1 millimeter to 1 centimeter, and nearly 1 million space debris from 1 to 10 centimeters.

And the amount of space debris increases. On February 11, 2009, a communication satellite belonging to the American company Iridium collided with a broken Russian satellite. The two satellites separated, creating a debris field of at least 2,500 pieces. This type of collision should only increase.

"The relative speed between satellites is 14 kilometers per second, so any collision will be catastrophic for both satellites," Gurfil said.

It may seem that there is an unlimited space in space, but there is actually a pretty narrow window for satellites that have to rotate at the same frequency as the Earth, called geostationary altitude.

The ideal position is quite specific: 35,786 kilometers above the surface of the Earth are exactly the altitude necessary for a satellite to move at the same speed as the surface of our planet. This is called "high earth orbit".

High Earth orbit is needed for things like communication satellites or weather monitoring. At lower altitude, the satellites gravitate too fast; at high altitude, too slowly. When a satellite is in the ideal geostationary location, if you stay in one place and look in the sky, you will not be able to see it moving because it is moving at exactly the same speed as you.

All satellites do not need a geostationary altitude. Some, like GPS, can operate in a semi-synchronous orbit, which takes exactly 12 hours, at an altitude of about 20,200 kilometers, also called "medium Earth orbit."

Thousands of satellites are in "low earth orbit", including satellites monitoring certain areas or weather systems.

"Too much debris could make some altitudes dysfunctional," said Gurfil. For example, the altitude of 800 kilometers above the surface of the Earth is now considered so cluttered with satellites and debris that new satellites should not orbit at this level. Even at altitudes that have not reached their maximum capacity, there are significant risks.

"In a higher orbit, in the event of a collision, the chain effect may destroy all other communication satellites," Gurfil explained. "This is called the Kessler effect, and it could be catastrophic for humanity." If a satellite strikes another satellite and crashes, it can create a chain reaction, small parts supporting multiple satellites providing communication, radio, television, and so on. Internet and GPS. "Anything could fall," said Gurfil. "It's extremely dangerous. Manned spacecraft that could collide with a satellite or satellite parts are also dangerous. "

The International Space Station has shields against space debris around all the modules where the crew lives. The shields consist of two sheets of metal, separated by about 10 centimeters by a material similar to the bullet proof material. This allows the International Space Station to deflect debris up to 1 cm in size. If there is a risk of collision with an object of more than one centimeter, the space station will move away to avoid the collision.

What goes up is a lot of money to go down

The major problem is that companies and governments want to send their satellites into space – or their spaceship into the moon – at the lowest possible cost. According to Gurfil, they do not plan to get rid of them after their disappearance, after 20 to 25 years, and it is because the deorbitation of a satellite is very expensive.

Satellites can reduce their altitude to about 400 or 500 km above the Earth, at which point they will be consumed as they enter the atmosphere. But for this, satellites must carry large amounts of excess fuel in order to change the orbit at the end of life.

"Every kilo of satellite costs about $ 60,000 to launch," said Gurfil. "A few dozen kilograms of fuel make launching the satellite impractical and economical."

Beresheet, for example, weighs 160 kilograms without fuel, but weighs 600 kilograms with fuel. This fuel is only enough to help the spacecraft land on the moon, but not close enough to help it return to Earth. Similarly, it is extremely expensive to reduce the orbit of a satellite of nearly 36,000 kilometers above the Earth to 400 kilometers, Gurfil said.

How do you pick up garbage in the space?

Scientists and space engineers are now exploring other ways to help clean overcrowded air around Earth's orbit. One is to send satellites even further into a "cemetery orbit" at a height that will not affect new satellites launched on the geostationary orbit. "There is also an Israeli start-up called Effective Space that is proposing to build a small satellite that will be moored to the satellites and will perform the deorbitation maneuver for them," Gurfil said. "This would save fuel mass and be more economical."

Nowadays, satellite launch companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, which launched the Beresheet satellite and an Indonesian communications satellite on Feb. 22, are ensuring that customers who launch a satellite also have 39, a plan for de-orbiting the satellite at the end of the month. its lifespan, which is typically about 20 to 25 years, said Gurfil. The mechanism of deorbitation can either be broken down, so that the satellite is consumed in the atmosphere of the Earth, or to a cemetery orbit. But there are still thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, some dating back decades, that have no plan for deorbitation.

The trash of an astronaut in the treasure of another astronaut

As for Beresheet, Israeli engineers have attempted to give a new twist to the spacecraft's resting place on the moon by inserting a time capsule with Israel's Declaration of Independence, the Bible, memories of a Holocaust survivor, children's drawings of space and the moon. , The Traveler's Prayer and a note from former President Shimon Peres containing a verse from the Book of Genesis. "Today, we are putting all these dreams into the spaceship, as if you were taking note and placing it in the Western Wall, wishing for a bright future," said Yonatan Winetraub, one of the three engineers who founded SpaceIL on December 17, 2018. Engineers inserted the test capsule into Beresheet at a ceremony before the launch of the spaceship in Florida.

"It's a shame, but the trash will stay [on the moon]no one will clean it up, "said Gurfil. "Unless you have a lot of fuel that will bring the LG back to Earth, any LG will stay there."

Aviv Priel, a control engineer at SpaceIL, in charge of the Maneuvering of the Beresheet probe, bristles at this interpretation. "I would not call that at all," said Prier. "The problem is more than just pieces of metal made up together and positioned on the moon."

"For us, it's so much more," Priel said. "It's not a material. It's not just a spaceship. It is something much more spiritual. We did something impossible. We brought the whole country together to believe in an idea, which is very difficult to do. It's really much more than a spaceship. It will not die, because there is always the idea that you can get up and do the impossible, whatever your size or resources. You can be bigger and defeat and reach the stars. "

But six-year-old Libby was not convinced enough by the poetic description of the spaceship that he has been trying to build for most of his life.

"Why do we have to leave the rocket alone?" Asked Libby. "I want it to come back, so that it can start again."

Libby, along with her younger siblings, have developed plans for Beresheet including a recycling proposal. "The spacecraft has two lasers that are going to pick up the garbage, and inside the spaceship there's a garbage can that will take away all the trash," Libby explains on the phone. "Once the lasers pick up the trash they will bring them back to Earth, and they will take them and turn them into robots and other spaceships."

"If they do not leave it, they could come back so we can send it somewhere else, like maybe England, because I love England," Libby said.

"I think they should have had a plan for the spaceship," she added. "He should take a selfie on the moon, then he should come back."