Clutter the common areas? Next launch of SpaceX: Irks Orbital Debris Experts

Space junk food experts are raising a red flag about the upcoming launch of more than 60 small satellites on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission, named SSO-A: SmallSat Express, was to be launched Monday, Nov. 19 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but SpaceX pushed it back to carry out additional rocket inspections. No new launch date has been set.

SSO-A: SmallSat Express will be the largest transportation mission out of a US-based launch vehicle. 25% of customers will do it for the first time. [See the Evolution of SpaceX’s Rockets in Pictures]

The mission management provider Spaceflight has signed a contract with more than 60 spacecraft belonging to about 35 different organizations. Spaceflight is a service offering from Spaceflight Industries, based in Seattle.

Satellites must be dispersed by SHERPA platforms, secondary payload distributors in free flight.

Space debris at liberation

"What they [Spaceflight] TS Kelso of CelesTrak, an analysis group that closely monitors objects in orbit around the Earth, said the 70 satellites used will not be shared. to be on the launch, but the company's website currently says that the number is "64+.")

"I've checked with one of the operators – trying to take a step ahead of how we're going to identify all these things – and learned that both SHERPA platforms are going to be released from the Falcon 9 without attitude control or attitude determination. "

Kelso said, "I think this is not only irresponsible from the point of view of flight safety, but it also puts the time and resources of many small operators who may never even hear their satellites at risk." he told Inside Outer Space.

Kelso assumes that about a third of the satellites to be deployed will be essentially space debris at the time of their release and that it will be difficult to solve this type of problem.

Prepare for chaos

Kelso spoke at length with the 18th Space Control Squadron of the US Air Force during the workshop on Space Situational Awareness Operators in Denver. The 18th Space Control Squadron, based in Vandenberg, detects, tracks and identifies all artifacts in Earth orbit.

"They have practically nothing useful from Spaceflight for launching SSO-A on Monday – it's totally irresponsible – get ready for chaos," tweeted Kelso on Friday, November 16th.

I contacted Spaceflight to comment on my previous article on this launch, "Space Clutter: Upcoming Launch, Red Flag". In response to this question, Spaceflight spokeswoman Christine Melby said by e-mail, "Thank you for contacting us – at the moment we have no comments on this article."

Squadron of space

At the same time, Vandenberg's 18th Space Control Squadron recently tweeted: "Discover the launch of SSO-A on Monday at #Vandenberg AFB with more than 64 spacecraft! We work closely with all the leaders [owner/operators] track and catalog the items as soon as possible. Thank you to all O / Os for their cooperation, transparency and support of #spaceflightsafety. "

But some other experts remained concerned.

"CSPOC [the Combined Space Operations Center] Jer-Chyi Liou, NASA chief scientist for orbital debris at the Houston Space Center's orbital debris program office in Houston, Houston.

"It seems the SSO-A developers have not taken the recommendations seriously," Liou told Inside Outer Space.

These recommendations were based on the proliferation of cubesats and associated technology that pose unique tracking and identification problems. You can read the recommendations here.

Leonard David is the author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet", published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the "Mars" series of National Geographic. A long-time writer for Space.com, David has covered the space industry for more than five decades. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.