An Overview
Over the last 60 years, more than 5,000 rocket launches have placed satellites in orbit since the start of the space age in 1957. Thousands of spacecrafts have been launched into orbit for scientific, commercial, environmental, and national security purposes. One consequence of this activity has been the creation of a large population of debris—artificial space objects that serve no useful function—in orbit around the Earth. Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by man that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust and slag from solid rocket motors, and other small particles, along with mass of debris from satellites and space missions is orbiting our planet—and it may be growing all the time. After decades of space exploration, there are now more than more than 500,000 pieces of artificial debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. NASA estimates that more than a half-million fragments pieces greater than half an inch in size are out there, occasionally posing threats to the International Space Station (ISS) or satellites. Much of this debris will remain in orbit for hundreds of years or more, posing a long-term hazard to future space activities.
In this space article we concentrated of the following questions related on space debris such as the cause of space debris. How much space debris is there? How long does space debris stay in orbit? How is space debris created? The biggest and the danger problem which we invisible to our naked eyes. The Fig. (1) Shows those debris and each.
Figure (1) represents the main derbies.
dot in the Fig. (1) represents a bit of known space junk that’s at least 10 cm in low-Earth orbit, where the space station and shuttles roam. In total, some 19,000 manufactured objects this size or bigger orbit Earth as of July 2009; most are in low-Earth orbit. Countless of smaller objects are also circling the planet.
The low earth orbit (LEO) is the region of space within 2,000 Km of the Earth’s surface, is the most concentrated area for debris on. The U.S. government tracks about 23,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. Here are half a million pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter and one hundred million pieces of debris about one millimeter or larger. Debris, particularly near the International Space Station, orbits the Earth 15 to 16 times a day, increasing the risk of collision. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates the total mass of all space objects in Earth orbit weigh more than 9,600 tones. In a few decades, if the build-up of space debris continues, some regions of space might become unusable. Roughly speaking may be there are more than 2,000 active satellites orbiting Earth now, there are also 3,000 dead ones littering space. What is more, there are around 34,000 pieces of space junk bigger than ten centimeters in size and millions of smaller pieces that could nonetheless prove disastrous if they hit something else (NASA) . The images in the Figures (2, and 3) the also represent space debris allow scientists to see the huge of space collisions.
Figure (2): Most space junk comes from orbiting satellites and the rockets that shot them into place.
Figure (3): Small pieces of debris which can be very damaging in a collision.
Origin and Types of Space Debris
Space debris refers to manufactured material in orbit that no longer serves a useful purpose. Because of the high speeds of objects in orbit (7.5km/s is typical in low earth orbit), even small pieces of debris can be very damaging in a collision. Space waste is the collection of objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose, an increasing number of abandoned machines are emerging, meanwhile, some collision happened in the space cause by accidental ambiguous object. Lots of satellites debris are floating the orbits which threaten the regular one’s work. There are several types of debris:
1- Defunct spacecraft, such as satellites that have ended their useful life age. Commercial satellites have an average lifespan of only around 15 years.
2- Objects released during the mission’s rocket, such as waste vented from the Space Shuttle.
3- Spent rocket bodies used to launch satellites into orbit.
4- Small fragments caused by collisions of active satellites or larger pieces of debris.
Effect of E-Waste on Human Body.
Ever since the launch of Sputnik, humankind has been propelling objects into Earth’s orbit and it is starting to add up. We are not only talking about rocket ships, but hundreds – even thousands – of satellites. And, as we all know, what goes up must come down. What is falling and how big is it?
There are over more than 22,000 spent rocket stages, dead satellites, garbage, bolts, and other man-made remnants hovering just outside of the atmosphere as you sit here reading this article. These relics of earthling ingenuity are now nothing more than space debris. On average, one of these objects will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere every single day it all has to come back eventually! About anything we send into space can be considered debris once it has outlived its usefulness, but the stuff falling back into the atmosphere.
So far, there have not been any human casualties. But as lower Earth orbit (LEO) gets increasingly crowded, the risk of a collision increases, making tracking the locations of this space junk vitally important for space exploration. The activities of mankind on the planet have a far more negative effect on the ozone and climate change than a few thousand small impacts of small pieces of space junk.
Effects of E-Waste on Earth’s Environment
The potential effects of space debris on Earth’s environment are about releasing compositional chemicals during re-entry into the atmosphere. These chemicals weaken ozone and threaten space exploration and future generations. So, space debris impacts Earth’s environment and atmosphere when they burn up upon re-entry. These chemicals can deplete ozone, and the debris also poses a threat to future launches and space exploration. Researchers have estimated that about eighty tons of space debris re-enters Earth’s atmosphere each year, but again, most of that debris will burn up in the atmosphere or fall to Earth without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, just because something burns up does not mean that it disappears.
Hazardous Space Debris and Risks
In the present time, the hazard is low; there are no confirmed instances of orbital debris seriously damaging or destroying a spacecraft. However, continuing space operations and collisions between objects already in orbit are likely to generate additional debris faster than natural forces remove it, potentially increasing the debris hazard in some orbital regions to levels that could seriously jeopardize operations in those regions.
Space Debris and the Low Earth Orbit
Even though the presence of space debris does not pose an immediate threat to our terrestrial environment, we cannot ignore the impact it is having on the astral environment. In some circles, it is believed that humanity’s fate lies among the stars, but one of the basic prerequisites for that is leaving the following:
1-As increased space debris accumulate and swirls around the planet, Earth it will become more difficult to safely launch rockets into space.
2-Charting appropriate trajectories is already a critical part of mission safety, but the problem may become exponentially more difficult in the coming years.
3-The more we launch up there, the more difficult space travel becomes.
4-This debris poses a massive risk to working satellites, spacecraft, and even astronauts. Coming in contact with a single rogue piece can cause immense damage.
5- As space debris orbits around the earth at tremendous speeds – about 15,700 miles per hour in low Earth orbit – it could cause severe damage to a satellite or a spacecraft in case of a collision.
5-Fortunately, now, space junk does not pose a huge risk to our exploration efforts. The biggest danger it poses to other satellites in orbit. These satellites must move out of the way of all this incoming space junk to make sure they do not get hit and potentially damaged or destroyed. See Fig. (4)
Figure (9): Potential damaged of other satellites.
Space debris affect space travel.
While space debris is unlikely to affect space travel, it will lead to significant problems for spaceflight around Earth. The risk would be highest for objects orbiting at an altitude of around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), which is used for communications and Earth observation.
1-Since the dawn of the space age in the 1950s, we have launched thousands of rockets and sent even more satellites into orbit. Many are still there, and we face an ever-increasing risk of collision as we launch more.
2-As long as humans have been exploring space, we have also been creating a bit of a mess. Orbiting our planet are thousands of dead satellites, along with bits of debris from all the rockets we have launched over the years. This could pose an issue one day as a debris in space and an astronaut.
3-Space debris is also responsible of pollution of the atmosphere.
Captions are provided by our contributors and destroys the solar panel of a satellite energy see Fig. (5)
Fig (5) Space debris destroys the solar panel of a satellite as part of the collision encounter.
Things left on the Moon.
Not only have we left a lot of space junk in Earth’s orbit, but there are also objects elsewhere too, such as on the lunar surface. Some things were abandoned on the Moon, the first spacecraft and probes left on the Moon by different countries and some human-made junk has been left on the Moon and can be summarized as below, too:
1959: Luna 2 (USSR), 1969: Ranger 4 (USA), 1993: Hiten (Japan)
2006: SMART-1 (Europe), 2008: Chandrayaan-1 (India), 2009: Chang’e-1 (China)
2019: Beresheet (Israel)
Conclusion
In conclusion we can say that due to the changing nature of the use of outer space and potential risks that mega-constellations pose to the safety and security of outer space, it is important to set out the rules of the road. There are several large telecommunication companies who are seeking to deploy mega-constellations of communications satellites into space in the coming decades, to increase and improve coverage and provide internet and digital service to remote areas of the world. While this is a noble goal, in some ways, adding thousands more small satellites into (LEO) will significantly increase the risk of collisions, following are part of the concluded remarks on the previous articles, and can be summarized as follow:
1- For many of humanity’s current problems, space debris presently feels like an annoyance, something that scientists seem concerned about, but it is not a crisis. Even so, as we extrapolate forward in time, and imagine how many more countries will want to join the space-going community, think of how many more satellites, exploratory missions, refueling rockets and future spaceships will need to be launched. If we do not find a way to clean up that space junk—although we do have ideas, which you can read about in this article—this problem will only be more serious in the decades and generations to come.
2-Space debris are major threat to the active satellites and spacecraft’s, they cause damages to the spacecrafts by collision.
3-Space debris often re-enter the atmosphere naturally due to their orbital decay rate. It would take decades or centuries for them to eventually reenter the atmosphere. But there are several proposed theories which would help to increase their orbital decay rate.
4- Debris can also be caused by an explosion in space or when countries conduct missile tests to destroy their own satellites by missiles. Apart from Russia, China, the United States and India have shot down satellites, creating space debris.
5-We expect a dramatic increase in the number of satellites that has the potential to create a lot of challenges for optical astronomy and for other users of the night sky as well.
6-Around half of all the debris in space today comes from just two events: a 2007 anti-satellite test by the Chinese government, and an accidental 2009 collision between two satellites.
References
1-Courtesy of NASA Orbital Debris Program Office.
2-Orbital Debris: A Technical Assessment Committee on Space Debris, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems
3-National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 1995. Orbital Debris: A Technical Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
4– Chobotov, V.A. 1991. The Space Debris Problem and Preliminary LDEF Results. M&D Sig NASA.