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As a specialist in international relations studying space law and policy, I realized what most people do not really appreciate: the treatment of space debris is as much a national security issue as Technical problem.
To regard the debris surrounding the Earth as a mere obstacle on the way to human missions is naive.
As space activities are deeply rooted in earthly geopolitics, the hidden challenge posed by debris is the militarization of space technologies to clean it up.
To be clear, space debris poses considerable risks; However, to understand these risks, I should explain what it is and how it is formed.
The term "space debris" refers to objects of human fabrication that have disappeared, relics left behind by activities dating back to the beginning of the space age.
Over time, this definition has expanded to include large and small items such as discarded boosters, retired satellites, spaceship debris, screwdrivers, tools, nuts and bolts. , sherds, lost gloves and even paint stains.
Of the 23,000 terrestrial debris of more than 5 to 10 centimeters that we can track and catalog, and hundreds of millions more than we can not, there is no doubt that small and large objects whirling at lethal speeds danger the prospects of civilian, commercial and military missions in space.
You can understand what the film "Gravity" did wrong, but what was inevitably right was the feeling of devastation caused by a cloud of orbital debris that had destroyed equipment and killed three astronauts in a shock.
Regardless of size, space debris can be deadly to humans and machines.
In early 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that there were about 500 ruptures, collisions, explosions or other fragmentation events that produced space debris.
Some of these events are caused by accidents. NASA reported the first known collision between two objects in space in July 1996, when a European force amplifier collided with a French spacecraft.
This incident created a new debris, which was itself quickly cataloged. However, accidents can also have a significant impact on the increase of debris cloud.
In 2009, for the first time in its history, an American communications satellite in operation, Iridium-33, collided with a failed Russian satellite, the Cosmos-2251, while they both went to above the far north of Siberia.
This single accident generated more than 2,300 fragments of debris.
Space debris can also be affected by the dismantling of older spacecraft. In February 2015, a satellite of the Meteorological Defense Satellite Program (DMSP-F13), called USA 109, which had increased 20 years earlier, exploded due to a malfunction of the battery.
He may have provided 100 debris that were spotted by military radars on Earth, and perhaps as many as 50,000 more than one millimeter bursts that have challenged the tracking because they are too small.
Due to the high altitude of the satellite, all these fragments will remain in orbit for decades, which will pose risks for other spacecraft.
In November 2015, again due to a possible battery failure, NOAA-16, another decommissioned US weather satellite, collapsed, adding 136 new objects to the debris cloud.
The debris themselves can also fragment. In February 2018, an abandoned tank from the upper floors of a Russian-Russian Zenit-3F rocket is fragmented.
Debris can also fall back on Earth, whether it is a natural degradation of the orbit or a controlled re-entry. Fortunately, most of this debris falls into the Earth's oceans.
But sometimes, this is not the case, and these rare events can become a bigger risk in the coming years, as the size of the debris cloud grows and the projected fleet of small commercial satellites becomes a reality.
Zenit rocket debris has reportedly recently landed in Peru. One of the most recent events just takes place in October 2018.
The US military has identified a fuel tank from a ten-year-old Iridium satellite that crashed into a walnut orchard in Hanford, California.
Then come the highly publicized deliberate events that add to the debris cloud. In 2007, China used a ground-based direct-rise missile to fire its own aging weather satellite, Fengyun-1C.
This event created approximately 3,400 pieces of debris that will last several decades before breaking down.
China's actions have been widely seen as an anti-satellite test (ASAT), a sign of the country's increased military space capabilities.
Having the ability to shoot down a satellite to get a military advantage on Earth exposes the fundamental nature of the threat: those who depend the most on space resources – namely the United States, with about 46% of the 1,886 currently operational satellites – are also the most vulnerable to deliberately created space debris.
There is no doubt that the aggressor will also lose in such a scenario – but collateral damage may be worth it if your rival more heavily dependent on space gets a more devastating blow.
The set of government or commercial solutions to combat orbital debris – lasers, nets, magnets, fasteners, robotic arms or co-orbital service satellites – has only fueled the prospects of the future. 39, a furtive race to the domination of outer space.
The same technology that captures, zaps, or traps debris can do the same thing for a functioning spaceship.
Since no one can be certain of the intent behind commercially available space debris remediation technologies, governments will strive to outpace their competitors.
It is important to know how and with what intent to combat space debris with dual-use technologies, and even more so at a time of upheaval in the world order.
The old and the new space powers can easily hide their military intentions in legitimate concerns about the risks of debris or even commercial solutions.
And there are now a number of open assessments on space-based waste removal technologies that can also become military programs, such as lasers or hunters.
This fusion of the market and the army is not a conspiracy, but a reality. If you are a major power, such as the United States, highly dependent on space resources, both economically and militarily, you are vulnerable to orbital debris and the technologies proposed to clean it.
And your allies and rivals know it.
This is how we found ourselves in a counter-space race, which looks nothing like running in your grandfather's space.
Fundamentally, this new breed reflects the unstable geopolitics of today's peers or near competitors and can not be escaped in any area.
As on Earth, in the cosmos, the world's largest space powers – the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and India – have moved from the simple awareness of the spatial situation to the total consciousness of the battle space.
If things do not change, accidental or deliberate events involving orbital debris may destroy peaceful perspectives in space.
How can we move forward so that outer space remains safe, durable and secure for all powers, big or small?
This is not a task that a nation, regardless of its size, can carry out alone. Solutions must not only be technological or military.
For peaceful solutions to be sustainable, deterrence and diplomacy, as well as public awareness, will have to be forged proactively by the space powers, leaders and thinkers of the world.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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