What is space debris and why is it dangerous? Garbage belt
According to data provided by scientists from the United States, right now there are more than 23 thousand artificial objects in the orbit of our planet that can be classified as space debris. This includes “dead satellites”, parts left over from exploded rockets, etc.
We are talking mainly about objects larger than 10 centimeters. All of them are listed in special catalogs and have their own identification numbers. By the way, in 2013, the number of such fragments in Earth’s orbit, according to the American catalog, was only 16,600.
Space debris problem
Today, scientists are increasingly beginning to talk about clogging Earth orbit space debris. In mid-April, the European Space Agency reported that there are already so many artificial fragments in orbit that it is becoming very difficult to monitor them, and this can lead to various accidents. The trash accumulated over decades has no scientific value, but poses a threat to the ISS, working satellites and space flights. The report presented by ESA contains the following figures:
“Using powerful ground-based radars and other optical instruments We have determined that there are approximately more than 700,000 objects in orbit larger than 1 centimeter and about 170 million fragments larger than 1 millimeter. These numbers are growing every year.”
The problem of space debris is becoming a pressing issue, and if it is not solved, we risk finding ourselves in a situation where humanity will no longer be able to go into space; it will simply be closed to us. However, there are many projects, the implementation of which would help solve this problem. For example, Dr. Siegfried Jason wants to create a device weighing about 100 grams that would capture debris and send it into the planet's atmosphere, where it would burn up. Others propose sending space junk to Mars altogether. Unfortunately, due to the financial component, any proposals exist, as they say, so far only on paper.
And it is still unknown how scientists want to destroy radioactive elements. In the 60s-80s of the last century, the USSR launched a large number of US-A maritime reconnaissance satellites into space. On board each device there is nuclear reactor with 30 kilograms of enriched uranium-235. A series of 30 devices was launched, several of which have already “returned” to Earth. One of them, Cosmos 954, fell into Canada in 1978. The satellite debris caused radioactive contamination of the area (fortunately, sparsely populated), which led to a major international scandal. The rest of the inoperative satellites were “buried” in an orbit at an altitude of about 1000 kilometers, where experts think the satellites will be able to remain for another 2000 years.
ISS and space debris
Last May, British astronaut Timothy Peake, who was working aboard the ISS at the time, sent this image back to earth.
The photo clearly shows a small crack, that is, damage to the porthole. Experts from the European Space Agency explained that this damage was caused by a metal fragment from outside. "no more than a few thousandths of a millimeter". In fact, objects of this size cannot cause any serious damage to the station, but a fragment with a diameter of more than 1 centimeter flying through space at the speed of a bullet can cause a critical situation. It’s scary to imagine what will happen to the station if a piece of iron larger than 10 centimeters crashes into it.
The ISS is in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 400 kilometers above sea level (LEO has an altitude of 160 to 2000 km). It is worth saying that all space flights took place and take place in the LEO region, and most of the artificial satellites of the Earth are launched here, so a large amount of rubbish is concentrated here.
The possibility of a collision between the ISS and these objects constantly exists, fortunately we live in the 21st century, and technology allows us to track the movement of space debris. Around the station there is a so-called “protective perimeter” in the shape of a pizza box. Its dimensions are 4 kilometers in height (2 km down and up from the station) and 25 kilometers in width and length. If one of the debris falls into this protective zone, an alarm appears on the monitors of the USSTRATCOM ground service responsible for tracking debris.
Operators warn NASA about the impending danger and begin to adjust the altitude of the ISS: raising or lowering the station to avoid a collision. It is clear that very small pieces of iron with eye of a needle it is very difficult to track, and, as we wrote above, they do not pose a danger to the ISS.
For its size, the International Space Station is very mobile (weighs just over 400 tons). It is equipped with four gyrodynes - inertial devices that allow the station to change direction in space. In addition to this, the ISS has several sets of thrusters that allow it to turn. Management occurs from the ground by special services.
The ISS is held in low Earth orbit by the force of Earth's gravity. Without this attraction, the station would fly into deep space. Based on the law universal gravity, it turns out that the ISS seems to be falling to Earth, but “misses”, in addition, it is still moving “sideways” (don’t forget, the planet is round). To prevent this movement from stopping, it is necessary to correctly select this “sideways speed”. For the ISS it is 8 km/s.
One more nuance. At the altitude at which the ISS is located, an atmosphere can be traced - a gaseous shell that rotates along with our planet. The station, as it were, “rubs” against it and slows down, getting closer and closer to the Earth. To prevent the cosmic house from collapsing completely, it is necessary to regularly raise its height.
In the same way, space debris “works” and rotates around the Earth in LEO. With two differences - it has a higher speed than the ISS, and it is not controlled from the command post. Debris from various devices is constantly falling. Every year, about 150 tons of debris enter the Earth's atmosphere. Smaller fragments burn up in the atmosphere, larger ones drown in the ocean, but sometimes they can collapse on a solid surface. The most notable incident in the last few decades was the fall in 1997 of the fuel tank of the second stage of the Delta 2 launch vehicle. A piece of metal fell in Texas. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
There is also debris in geostationary orbit, which starts at an altitude of more than 30,000 km. It is well known that the higher the orbit, the lower the gravitational force, and the less the atmosphere interferes, which means that debris can stay on it longer - for centuries!
Leader in the amount of debris left behind in space
Most space debris consists of fragments that were formed during the intentional or spontaneous explosion of rockets or satellites. Most of these explosions were “planned.” During Cold War The USSR and the USA carried out a lot of space flights under military programs, and some ships that failed to complete the task were simply destroyed in space.
But there were also emergency situations when devices exploded unintentionally, due to some problems with the system. For example, in the 1960s, the main cause of space disasters was vapor from rocket fuel, which did not have time to burn out during operation of the propulsion systems. In 1965, due to residual fuel in the tanks, a stage of the American Transstage rocket exploded, resulting in the rocket breaking into 500 pieces. All these fragments remained in space.
The first place in explosions in orbit belongs to... Russia. Since 1991, there have been at least 35 accidents involving Russian missiles. One can only guess what this is connected with. One of the reasons is the decline in the quality of the produced space technology. This problem began after the collapse of the USSR. Much to our chagrin, this decline in the rocket and space industry still cannot be overcome.
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The Falcon 9 launch vehicle a few days ago carried the Dragon space truck, carrying an experimental space debris collector, the RemoveDebris vehicle. It will allow testing in practice the technology for cleaning up spent spacecraft and their fragments using a harpoon and a net. How littered is the near-Earth space? Will there be enough space for new satellites? We decided to look into this issue with the help of a researcher at the Institute of Applied Mathematics named after M.V. Keldysh Mikhail Zakhvatkin.
Machines like RemoveDebris will have their work cut out for them. According to NASA's space debris study program, the number of debris objects larger than 10 centimeters in size is approaching 20 thousand, and their total mass is approaching 8 thousand tons, with most of them being spacecraft debris.
According to calculations by the European Space Agency, the number of objects larger than one centimeter reaches 750 thousand, and smaller fragments can be thousands of times more. A huge number of small micron-sized fragments are generated by the operation of engines, among them there are a lot of small particles of paint, and this man-made dust is already causing real damage today, leaving holes and microcraters in the housings and on solar powered spacecraft.
Where does garbage come from?
Microcrater from the impact of a piece of space debris on the window glass of the shuttle Endeavor (mission STS-126)
At the same time, the reserves of debris in orbit are constantly replenished - every year about a hundred new spacecraft appear in near-Earth space, and these are not only satellites, but also third stages of rockets and upper stages.
An increase in the number of space debris objects larger than 10 centimeters in size. The lines represent (from top to bottom): 1. The total number of objects in orbit; 2. Small debris resulting from the destruction of satellites; 3. Spacecraft; 4. Fragments separated from spacecraft as a result of normal operation; 5. Upper stages of rockets.
Sooner or later, the intensive population of the orbit was bound to lead to “utility problems,” and in 1978, NASA employees Donald Kessler and Burton Cours-Palais came to the conclusion that in the near future, collisions between failed satellites would begin to occur so frequently that the amount of debris will grow exponentially (even if at this point space launches stop altogether) and eventually a ring of spacecraft debris will form around the Earth, similar to the ring of Saturn. They predicted that the first spacecraft collision would occur before the year 2000. In reality, the collision of the Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 satellites occurred on February 19, 2009, and their “meeting” immediately generated 1,150 pieces of debris so large that they could be noticed by the radars of the space control system.
Although Kessler syndrome is uncontrollable chain reaction the destruction of vehicles in orbit and the transformation of near-Earth space into a forbidden zone - we can only observe in films such as “Gravity” or “Wally-E”; space debris is already becoming a noticeable nuisance. Suffice it to remember that the International space station(ISS) regularly has to adjust its orbit to avoid collisions, and even more often, cosmonauts have to drop everything and climb into the Soyuz spacecraft to wait out the moment of the station’s dangerous approach to a piece of space debris. Parts delivered to Earth from the ISS often suffer microdamage - traces of impacts from small debris.
Impact trace of a microscopic fragment of space debris
Some self-cleaning of the near-Earth space still occurs, explains N+1 Researcher at the Institute of Applied Mathematics named after M.V. Keldysh Mikhail Zakhvatkin. According to him, within an 11-year cycle solar activity About 250–300 waste objects per year have to be excluded from catalogs - they simply enter the atmosphere and burn up. But the speed of this cleansing varies greatly depending on the phase of the solar activity cycle (during periods of the active Sun, the Earth’s atmosphere “swells” and begins to slow down objects more strongly) and on the altitude of the orbit.
“Although the influence of the atmosphere is felt at altitudes of up to 1,500 kilometers, the atmospheric brake is truly effective only in low Earth orbit, that is, in orbits up to 500–600 kilometers high. In this zone, satellites without constant raising of the orbit with the help of engines can survive for a maximum of a couple of decades, then they will enter the atmosphere and burn up. But already at altitudes of 700-1000 kilometers, spacecraft can remain for 50-100 years, that is, on a scale human life- almost forever. Moreover, these orbits are the most popular; there are a lot of sun-synchronous satellites there, because they do not need to spend a lot of fuel to maintain this orbit. Many devices are launched to these heights because they can survive there for a long time,” says the scientist.
Distribution of the number of satellites depending on the orbital altitude
The level from 700 to 1000 kilometers is the most popular and is populated the fastest, but even at these altitudes, the implementation of the catastrophic scenario described by Kessler is a matter of the distant future.
“There are 13 thousand satellites in low orbits; in 200 years, under the most negative scenario, their number will increase to 100 thousand, which means that the probability of collisions will increase by about 100 times. Today, the probability of a catastrophic collision is approximately once every five years; as the probability of collisions increases, we get a value of approximately 20 incidents per year per population of 100 thousand vehicles. It's not that much high risk, to make launching satellites into this zone commercially meaningless,” explains Zakhvatkin.
However, the scientist believes, the problem should not be aggravated by leaving its solution to future generations, so measures to combat pollution of near-Earth space need to be worked out now.
Clean where there is no litter
To begin with, it would be nice to make sure that there is no more space debris, and for this it is necessary that spacecraft do not explode. The main source of small fragments in orbit today is not collisions of satellites with each other (so far we know only one such event - the collision of Iridium with Cosmos, which was discussed above), but the so-called “fragmentation events”, the destruction of vehicles by various internal reasons.
According to NASA estimates, as of August 2007, there were 194 cases of explosive destruction of satellites, upper stages of rockets and upper stages, and another 51 anomalous events - the separation of any fragments ( solar panels, pieces of thermal insulation, structural parts) from the remaining intact apparatus. At the same time, explosions of vehicles in orbit are the source of about 47 percent total number space debris objects.
Spacecraft explode mainly due to overheating of residual fuel in the tanks - for this reason, explosive destruction occurs in more than 45 percent of cases. One such incident, widely reported in the press, occurred on October 19, 2012, when the Briz-M upper stage exploded in orbit, creating a cloud of more than 100 pieces of debris. Just recently, a month and a half ago, the additional fuel tank of the Fregat upper stage, which was used to launch the Angosat-1 satellite, after which another 25 fragments appeared in the catalog of space objects.
“This problem is quite simple to solve - you need to ensure the passivation of spent vehicles, that is, build valves into the tanks that would release fuel vapors, or keep the engines running until it is completely exhausted, preferably while lowering the orbit of the vehicles,” says Mikhail Zakhvatkin.
However, he notes, if the current frequency of launches of new spacecraft into low orbits is maintained and significant measures are taken to remove spent satellites and passivate, the total number of objects larger than 10 centimeters in size will still increase by 30 percent over the next 200 years. “At the same time, the main role in the growth of this number will be played by collisions of satellites in that very overpopulated region of altitudes of 700-1000 kilometers, the largest of which will occur once every 5-9 years,” explains the scientist.
How to clean up after yourself
Rules to prevent an increase in the debris load in orbit have long been developed - there are UN recommendations, and the corresponding standard has been approved by ISO. However, so far there is no legally binding international treaty in this area, and each country is guided by its own rules, sometimes acting to the detriment of common interests. Thus, China in 2007 shot down its own weather satellite with a rocket, as a result of which more than 2 thousand new fragments of space debris appeared in orbit.
The general recommendations are generally quite simple - move the spent vehicle to a place where it will not interfere with new satellites, and, if possible, send it into low orbits so that it burns up in the atmosphere. So far, this rule generally applies only to devices located in geostationary orbit at an altitude of 36 thousand kilometers. Space on a geostationary station is a scarce resource, so geostationary satellites that have served their purpose are placed in a “disposal orbit” 100-200 kilometers higher, explains Zakhvatkin. However, in other orbits this rule is not always followed.
Various options devices for removing satellites from orbit by braking (from top to bottom from left to right): 1. Using an inflatable gas cylinder - due to air resistance; 2. Using a film stretched on telescopic rods - due to air resistance; 3. Belt with counterweight - due to gravity gradient; 4. Conducting cable - due to magnetic fields.
GLOBAL AEROSPACE CORPORATION
On the one hand, it is not commercially viable to carry on board a satellite a supply of fuel intended only to deorbit the device at the end of its life. On the other hand, many satellites, especially micro-devices of the CubeSat standard, do not have their own engines at all. Engineers offer many options for additional devices that can speed up the vehicle's deorbit. These are, for example, inflatable cylinders, which increase the area of the device and, accordingly, the air resistance, which slow down the device due to the influence of electromagnetic fields. But so far none of these devices have become standard.
Specialized devices for cleaning up space debris, despite high cost such projects can be useful to prevent fragmentation of large devices. “A large satellite means potentially thousands of small fragments that can arise from a collision with another satellite or spontaneous destruction. A specialized "cleaner" can remove these large objects, which have the potential to fragment, so that they do not remain in these orbits indefinitely. If we remove about 4-5 objects from high orbits per year, this may offset the potential increase in the number of small fragments in the long term,” says Zakhvatkin.
There are many concerns about Elon Musk's plans for about 12 thousand satellites of the Starlink system, which should provide global access to the Internet. However, Mikhail Zakhvatkin believes that this project will not seriously worsen the situation with space debris.
“For the Starlink and Oneweb system constellations, it is planned to use orbits with an altitude of more than 1.1 thousand kilometers. Now the concentration of potentially dangerous fragments in this area is an order of magnitude lower than the values at altitudes of 800-900 kilometers. So adding something like this large number devices will not make the situation in these orbits critical,” says the scientist.
Sergey Kuznetsov
Where did the garbage in space come from, what is it, why is it dangerous for humanity, and how do they propose to deal with it - in the material of "Futurist".
Since the exploration of the Moon, people have left more than 180 tons of garbage on its surface. According to last year, there are about 18 thousand objects in near-Earth orbit larger than 10 centimeters in size, including 1200 satellites, 750 thousand “flying bullets” (the size of each “bullet” is about a centimeter) and about 150 million very small fragments, the size of which is less than millimeter. American scientists sounded the alarm several years ago and warned NASA that the volume of space debris had reached a critical point and that all this could pose a serious danger.
Space debris: what is it anyway?
Firstly, space debris is entire parts or fragments of already spent satellites that were once launched into space since its exploration, that is, over the past 60 years. Secondly, these are debris that resulted from the collision of other large debris and satellites. For example, in 2009, somewhere over Siberia, a collision occurred between the American communications satellite Iridium 33 and the Russian non-functioning satellite Kosmos-2251, which stopped working in 1995. Then more than 2000 fragments from this collision remained in Earth's orbit. And in 2013, the Blitz satellite collided with debris from the destroyed Chinese Fengyun 1C satellite.
Thirdly, space debris is also for some reason not burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, abandoned and lost objects, including bags of astronaut waste, several American flags, golf balls, a bar of soap or, for example, plugs for ears and other little things. All this can rotate in orbit at enormous speeds for hundreds of years.
According to 2017 data, the leader in the amount of space debris is the United States, Russia is in second place, and China is in third place.
The problem of the threat of space debris was recognized in 1993, when UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali made a report “The Impact of Space Activities on environment" In particular, he stated that the problem of space debris has reached an international global level. In 1999, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space released guidelines for space debris mitigation. But it was only in 2007 that these principles were accepted and approved at the international level.
What is the danger of space debris
Recently, scientists have been alarmed by the so-called Kessler syndrome. This is when satellites in orbit will collide and start a chain reaction of secondary collisions. All this can lead to the destruction of any launched vehicle and to the fact that humanity will be denied access to space altogether. Kessler syndrome, according to scientists, can be provoked by the launch into orbit of new satellite systems - “megaconstellations” - which can halve the risk of collisions with other spacecraft.
“The ballistics of fragments flying around the Earth is very complex: they collide, fragment, turn into swarms, change trajectories, can exist for a very long time, multiply like an avalanche and block orbits, and threaten the destruction of manned spacecraft and satellites. Their behavior is increasingly unpredictable and dangerous. There are monitoring systems, but they don’t save,” explains the monologue, test cosmonaut Sergey Krichevsky .
At the same time, one must understand that in a collision with space debris, the satellites on which the mobile communications or the Internet on Earth. But this is not the only reason why space debris is dangerous for earthlings. Its uncontrolled deorbits and unexpected falls also pose a threat. In 2011 in Pacific Ocean The American scientific satellite UARS fell; in 2015, a fragment of a spent rocket stage fell near the island of Sri Lanka. In the spring of 2018, presumably in March, the fall of the Chinese orbital station Tiangong-1 is predicted.
There is a possibility that along with individual parts of the station that will not burn up in the atmosphere and reach the Earth’s surface, hydrazine, a highly toxic rocket fuel, will also fly. How dangerous such falls are for a particular person can be judged by statistics. In the entire history of space exploration, only one person has been injured by falling space debris. This happened in 1997, when a piece of a Delta II rocket fell on Oklahoma resident Lottie Williams while she was walking in a park. More precisely, this fragment, the approximate size of which was 10 by 13 cm, did not quite fall on her, it just hit Williams on the shoulder.
What to do with space debris?
The problem of littering outer space with debris is intensifying, and each of the countries, at least the leading ones, is trying to find its own solutions. More recently, a group of Chinese scientists proposed shooting down space debris with lasers. According to their research, it would be possible to deploy a laser station in orbit that could operate efficiently, provided that the right ascension of the ascending node coincides with the debris, that is, debris. With the help of lasers, scientists want to speed up the descent of space debris from orbit, or divert its course. By the way, the Chinese are not pioneers in this matter. Back in the 90s, NASA was puzzled by the issue of using lasers in the fight against space debris.
In Japan, the aerospace agency JAXA is creating a sensitive radar to detect small space debris. They want to put this radar into operation in 2023. It is expected that it will help prevent collisions of space debris with satellites. Previously, the same agency was developing a 700-meter “lace” - a device that creates an electromagnetic field capable of slowing down various debris in space and releasing them into the Earth’s atmosphere. True, the first attempt to get rid of garbage using this device was unsuccessful - the cargo ship simply could not release the “lace”. Prior to this, JAXA proposed clearing space of debris using metal nets, which were to be launched into orbit on board a special satellite, collect debris there, detach and rush to the layers of the atmosphere.
The American company Aerospace Corporation is developing Brane Craft - spacecraft, or “blankets”, as they are already called, for collecting space debris. The task of such “blankets” is to catch small pieces of debris in space, envelop them, direct them towards the Earth, descend into the atmosphere and burn there.
However, no matter how many proposals are made, it has not yet been possible to create effective way garbage control, in view various reasons, including due to the high cost of methods for cleaning near-Earth space. At the same time, various, sometimes not very comforting, warnings and options for the development of the problem are heard from the scientific and pseudo-scientific communities. that if we do not solve the problem, space activity will cease in 100-200 years.
Others talk about the special political danger of space debris, which lies in the fact that it will soon be difficult to determine the cause of the accident or destruction of a satellite: whether it will be due to debris, or another state will have a hand in it.
Today we have to not only solve problems related to water, soil and air pollution on our planet, but also raise the question of a huge number debris in Earth's orbit. Accumulation of debris in the near-Earth outer space, formed there over the past fifty years, is side effect space exploration and represents failed or spent space devices, their fragments and other objects of various sizes and origins. According to rough estimates of scientists, today there are more than 11 thousand objects in Earth’s orbit larger than 10 cm, tens of thousands of objects ranging from 1 to 10 cm in length, and hundreds of thousands of very small waste. At the same time greatest number debris collected over the “space powers” - Russia and the USA. Currently, the situation continues to worsen. Basically, waste accumulates at an altitude of 850-1500 km from the Earth, as well as at flight altitude spaceships(250-350 km), but since they, like other bodies, obey the laws of gravity, space debris is gradually approaching the Earth.
The moment when space debris located below 600 km above the Earth enters the planet’s atmosphere occurs within a few years; for more distant waste, this takes decades or even centuries. However, once in the upper layers of the atmosphere, small space debris burns up without reaching several tens of kilometers to the surface of the planet, which means it does not threaten the lives of people and other inhabitants of the Earth. The situation is different with larger debris; some scientists claim that it is able to pass through all layers of the atmosphere and reach earth's surface. For example, in 1978, the Soviet satellite Cosmos 594 fell into Canada, and a year later, debris from the American space station scattered over Australia.
Debris is much more dangerous for spacecraft. Today, some scientists are expressing concern that its further accumulation could lead to the cessation of satellite launches and space flights. The fact is that the debris has a fairly high free flight speed, and in the event of an accidental collision with spacecraft can cause significant harm to him. Only for last decades There are several known cases of damage to satellites, passenger spacecraft and orbital stations with debris located in near-Earth space, and today the situation is even worse.
At present, methods have not yet been developed to prevent debris from entering low-Earth orbit or to destroy it; only the movement and location of space waste is being monitored. However, scientists different countries offer various methods solutions to this problem, starting with the collection of space waste with giant metal nets and ending with the invention of a space tug capable of removing debris in space. Recently, US scientists proposed getting rid of debris using tungsten dust scattered around the Earth in the form of a shell up to 30 km thick. In this case, a cloud of tungsten dust will have to slow down small debris, clearing the near-Earth space of them.
At the same time, new rules for the use of space are being developed. For example, on board each artificial satellite there must be reserve reserves of fuel, allowing, after its expiration date, to direct the satellite towards the Earth or transfer it to specially designated areas of near-Earth orbits. In addition, rocket boosters must be equipped with fuel drain systems to avoid their subsequent explosion. However, these measures are insufficient, and the problem of space debris today still remains open.
The problem of garbage on Earth has long gone beyond regulation and is considered a scourge modern civilization. For the last 50 years, we have been scattering garbage not only on Earth, but also around it - in outer space.
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Space debris problem
It would seem, where are we, and where is space? Can we pollute the near-Earth space? Unfortunately, yes. Space pollution began long before Yuri Gagarin made his first flight. The cluttering of near-Earth orbit dates back to the launch of flagship satellites. 60 years have passed since the global event, when the USSR sent Sputnik 1 beyond our atmosphere, but that very date, October 4, 1958, is considered to be a turning point in the spread of debris. What is the connection between these events? Yes, the most direct one. The thing is that the artificial satellite was delivered into orbit by a rocket, which, having completed the mission, remained forever circling in space along an elliptical trajectory (that is, around the Earth). Following the USSR, all the most developed countries in the world sought to send similar objects into space.
The next (although it would be more correct to say the previous) stage in space exploration is manned flights. The first of them took place back in 1861 and even then aggravated the environmental situation in low-Earth orbit. By this time, tons of debris were already revolving around the Earth, which was the result of unsuccessful attempts to launch both unmanned and manned aircraft. Along with the space race of the two superpowers, no one needed objects that moved along a given trajectory. They are still flying in pitch darkness. From time to time, half a century of garbage is joined by a new one - its quantity has increased significantly when commercial objects began to be launched into space (in our time, every half-decent corporation necessarily has its own satellite).
So what is space debris? These are, in fact, those objects that have broken down over time or become completely unnecessary. As you may have guessed, the first category includes satellites and their fragments, stages and aircraft debris. That is, everything that for some reason has ceased to fulfill the duties assigned to it. In fact, on Earth the same things are also called garbage. The only difference is that here we can get rid of it quite easily (which is much more difficult to do in space).
The second category includes the same satellites, but in working condition. For some reason, they simply became unnecessary or outdated. Such artificial objects continue to work properly and give the necessary signal to Earth, but the information from them is no longer needed.
Why is space debris dangerous?
It would seem that space debris is located at a distance of thousands of kilometers from the surface of our planet and therefore does not pose a particular threat. And, it would seem, who cares that he exists - he doesn’t bother anyone. But this statement is just wrong. Because of large quantity space debris, frequent breakdowns of the same satellites occur, and large “garbage fragments” can change the flight trajectory of unmanned aerial vehicles or even destroy them. And the point here is not even the size, but the colossal speed at which space debris moves. According to various estimates, it is at least 10 kilometers per second. This is what makes an object with a diameter of 1-2 mm more dangerous than a bullet fired from a machine gun. To understand the seriousness of the situation, it’s worth remembering that a microscopic breakdown of a satellite will cost a tidy sum. The destruction of the object will entail even more significant financial losses.
In our time, there have been cases when space debris completely destroyed a working device and brought enormous losses not only to its owners, but also to the state that was “lucky” to collect a bunch of debris on its territory.
It is also worth remembering that space debris poses a threat to manned aircraft and even the ISS. Of course, they are equipped with protection systems against such situations, but the threat they pose big bodies, is still quite significant. And this is very sad, because what is at stake is not just a soulless machine, but much more - a human life.
No less problematic is caused by debris moving off its trajectory and falling onto the surface of our planet. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small, in any case it threatens serious trouble. Many will argue with this and say that the fragments artificial bodies small size will not be able to achieve earth's crust and burn up in the atmosphere. Of course, this is true, but even more may come from them. serious danger, which will have much more negative impact on humanity than a large diameter object. The fact is that in Earth’s orbit there are a lot of satellites that contain very high concentrations harmful substances. Passing through the atmosphere, such an object burns up, and poisons in gaseous or powder form simply disperse over vast territories. Don’t forget about the virus with which these objects are infected. The saddest thing is the exact number, how many of these satellites in low-Earth orbit cannot be accurately determined by any monitoring.
Another threat associated with disruption of space ecology is constant growth amount of garbage. Even with the recycling and natural destruction of fairly large volumes of space debris, it only grows more every year. It is very easy to model what such trends entail. The more litter, the more likely his clashes with others aircraft. Thus, based on the rate at which debris is spreading, we conclude that in the near future, space exploration will become not just risky, but impossible.
Methods and means of combating space debris
It is quite natural that soon after the discovery of problems with the ecology of space, the leading states of the planet wondered how to get rid of garbage. There are easy and clear ways of how to remove all this only in the game Space Engineers - in life everything is much more complicated and multifaceted.
The only available cleaning of the near-Earth orbit is the direction of small space objects to Earth, so that they burn up safely in the atmosphere. The disposal method, of course, is so-so, due to the risks it carries (we mentioned them earlier). But now we are at a stage where we don't have much choice. Ultra-modern devices do not know how and cannot act differently, and the creation of new cleaning technologies requires too much time, which, unfortunately, we do not have.
IN lately V scientific world There is quite a heated debate about the possibility of sending our orbital debris to other planets or even to the Sun. From this point of view, the most suitable object solar system there will be Jupiter, which absorbs space debris thanks to its colossal gravitational field. Of course, this method of eliminating space environmental problems is the safest for earthlings, but it still cannot be called ideal. To implement this cleaning method, huge financial resources will be required, and the guarantee of project success is 10%.
From 2018, cleaning from geostationary orbit will be carried out using the latest device for waste disposal. This cleaner is launched into the upper layers of the atmosphere and, using ion beams, gives the selected object the desired trajectory. Where does the space debris go? There are two options - smaller specks are destroyed in the atmosphere, and larger fragments move into deep space. This all sounds rational and promising, but time will tell how effective this method of dealing with litter in orbit will be.
Today, one thing is clear: the collection and disposal of space debris are paramount tasks for the entire scientific community.
Space debris is global problem, on the solution of which not only the study of the vastness of the Universe, but also the future of all humanity depends.
