There are more than 35 thousand satellites and space debris in space, all of them fly at great speed, so they can
More than 60 years have passed since the launch of the first satellite.About 40 countries sent more than 10,000 satellites into orbit. And together with rocket debris and other large debris, the number of objects in orbit grows to 29 thousand. The number of smaller pieces can reach millions. SpaceX alone has launched about 1,700 satellites over the past 2 years to create the Starlink network. Other companies are also planning to launch satellites.
Why is it important to track satellites and space debris?
According to the latest estimates, about 5 thousand of the nearly 9 thousand satellites with expired service life remain in orbit. Inoperative devices turn into space debris.
The congestion of the orbit is growing, this increasescollision chances. The center of the European Space Agency (ESA) receives hundreds of messages daily from satellite operators with warnings of possible space catastrophes. And in May 2021, a piece of space debris punched a tiny hole in the ISS and damaged the manipulator.
In the coming years, many flights are planned forlow Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond, so there is concern that the space debris problem will only get worse and become a serious threat to any space mission.
How often do collisions occur?
Over the past sixty years, more than 500 accidents, explosions and collisions have occurred in space. This has led to the current situation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO): it is filled with space debris.
It threatens working satellites, spacecraftdevices and stations. Currently, approximately 22,300 of these objects are regularly tracked and cataloged by the Defense Space Surveillance Network (SSN). True, we are only talking about those objects that are large enough to be tracked using ground-based radar.
Scientists estimate that there are 34,000 satellites in orbit.objects with a diameter of about 10 cm, another 900 thousand objects ranging in size from 1 cm to 10 cm, as well as 128 million objects ranging in size from 1 mm to 1 cm. But even the smallest particles can pose a serious threat, as their speed reaches 7 or 8 km / s, about 12,875 km / h.
What can this lead to?
But the biggest danger is that Kessler syndrome can occur.
The term was proposed in 1978 by NASA scientist DonaldKessler. When the density of objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) becomes high enough, collisions could cause a cascade effect, he said. When objects collide, they create other objects, even smaller ones, and these in turn collide with others, and so on.
With each collision, more and more space debris is created, and the likelihood of further collisions increases at an exponential rate. You can read more about the Kessler effect here.
What to do about this problem?
There has already been such a situation in human history: at the beginning of the 20th century, there was a heyday of aviation, so pilots had to fly carefully so as not to collide with other aircraft.
So air traffic controllers created a way to coordinate flights that tracked flights between cities and countries. The system is based on the exchange of aircraft location data.
In space it is proposed to use a similarscenario. Every satellite operator must be aware of all the objects that are in space. Now the most current data can be obtained on the website Space-Track.org - it was created by the US Space Command. But it does not contain some of the satellites that the United States, China and Russia have not recognized. Therefore, so far the data varies and there is no single catalog to navigate through.
Modern technologies will also help organize such a system, for example, systems for searching and tracking the location of objects online, and AI automates the process of avoiding garbage and other objects.
We need to create such a system as soon as possible.basis of agreements between all countries that explore space. Because the volume of devices and debris in orbit can lead to massive devastating disasters, due to which many important satellites will suffer at once.
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