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Humanity started exploring the solar system only 60 years ago and has already made a very expensive mess. More than 500,000 pieces of debris larger than a marble litter the bands of space where geosynchronous and low-Earth orbiting satellites cluster around the planet. Earth's front porch needs a cleanup.
You may not be able to tell by, but quite a few products of human design are cluttering up the night sky. Not just active satellites – which total 4,857 according to the United Nations Office of the Outer Space Affairs – but also a massive number of dead or smashed satellites, fragments of rocket stages, and other pieces of debris orbit the planet at speeds of thousands of miles hour. There's also a Tesla Roadster out there.
There's plenty of incentive to clear the space junk: It's valuable. We're surrounded by $ 300 billion worth of abandoned satellites. Also, debris can pose seriousness to future missions into space – whether we are sending new satellites or launching ships with payloads of people or materials off-world in the future. The presence of debris is a pressing problem that many scientists are working to solve.
Blowing Up Our Space Trash?
Some ideas about cleaning up space debris have been more destructive than constructive. One of the earliest ideas for the debris disposal was, "Let's blow it up." Both the United States and Russia tested this method. Both countries abandoned this solution, since it just created more space debris. China, unfortunately, misses this memo and still takes the blow-stuff-up approach to space junk.
In 2007, China launched a missile at one of their own broken satellites. The satellite was destroyed, which made the Chinese military very happy about their program's success. Debris and countless small-scale fragments of the resulting shrapnel are now hurtling around the planet, putting spaceships and other satellites at risk of collision. No one was happy about this. Particularly the Russians, when a satellite satellite of their own exploded weather, of their own, five years later.
The destructive tests have been conducted, however. In 1996, a test was conducted on the Mir space station where panels of gel were set up on the outside of the ship to see what space junk was caught on them. While microscopic debris was captured – small fragments of paint, electronics, fluid droplets, and the like – it was nowhere near an efficient method of cleaning up the massive amount of microscopic debris that orbits the planet. So, alternative methods have been proposed for both large and small debris.
Harvesting Space Junk
The RemoveDebris experiment, a program launched by the University of Surrey in the U.K., is making steady progress towards a simple design that can work. By using both nets and harpoons to capture space debris, Remove Debris, or a simple, yet effective approach to reducing large chunks of debris.
The project is also experimenting with Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) that will be used by "chaser ships" to mark debris for removal. After tagging, a space junk harvester will be deployed to debris to Earth.
The Remove Debris team has been working on their system on Earth, and the last month, the first test was carried out in space. Space.com hosted the following video of the project, which took a piece of space debris.
The United States decided to place its own way, focusing on geosynchronous orbiting.
Cataloging Orbiting Debris
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) introduced its space cleanup plan in 2011. The agency will improve the way we place geosynchronous Earth orbit to support the end of the satellite's life. The DARPA Phoenix program seeks to create new, less bulky designs for satellites, increase the versatility of their use and their longevity, and find safe ways to deliver more effectively. Other methods of extraction and recycling of non-functioning or remote satellites in geosynchronous orbit. In short, the U.S. intends to pioneer space recycling and reuse.
The value of space debris is a significant economic issue. Cleaning up large chunks of satellite, or even intact satellites, debris in place creates new satellites.
Sure, we could have done most of the space debris back down to the planet. But most satellites in orbit around Earth are privately owned and considered proprietary or vital to national security – one can not just grab anything in space. While this question is important to ponder, we are in the process of achieving cleanup initiatives.
And there is a smaller, more dangerous issue that should be dealt with as quickly as possible: shrapnel.
The Smallest Carry Debris Huge Risks
In August 2018, the International Space Station sprung a leak. A tiny hole punctured the capsule Soyuz docked to the station, apparently due to passing debris space.
The challenge with small fragments of debris in orbit around the planet is not size but speed. A small, fast-moving object can do tremendous damage to a satellite or space station. An astronaut hit by one of these shards could be killed. As popularly depicted in the movie Gravity – or in reality, by the damage done to the space shuttle by the Chinese satellite from a few years ago – a chunk of material the size of a bolt faster than a bullet in order to stay in orbit around the planet.
There is no current practical solution to cleaning up micro-debris space. It's a problem similar to finding and capturing microplastics in the sea. The particles are too small and the area to patrol too vast and changing. Both China and Russia are pushing the development of Earth-based laser systems to remove small debris from orbit. Such systems would be reduced by the momentum of these objects, causing them to spiral into Earth's atmosphere and burn away
A good way to think about the need to clean up the world. If we want to come and go from the planet, we have to clean the porch. The last thing we need to get out of the way with chunks of sharp metal. It is in the best interest of our future to make sure we have a clear path to the stars.
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